Toby Keith - Plastics Enthusiast

If you have attended a social gathering where a certain portion of the clientele were of the Country or Western persuasion you probably were privileged enough to have "Red Solo Cup" played on the Jukebox or iPod stereo. Toby Keith has taken a break from his usual patriotic musical stylings to branch off into the highly lucrative market of writing catchy corporate jingles.

Red Solo Cup - I'll Fill You Up

Sure the track "Red Solo Cup" isn't actually brought to you by Solo Cup Company, but the manufacturer certainly didn't attempt to distance itself from the song. Following in their footsteps, I will make sure I don't distance myself from the marketing opportunity either.  Red Solo cups are certainly meant to be filled up, and whether or not you decide to have a party while using them is up to you.  I prefer to bring out the cups when I have a picnic but that's just me.

I didn't take the time to actually listen to the song, but I do recall that it was played once in the background while I was attempting to watch some college football at a local drinking establishment. I had to do a quick Google search of the lyrics and even though Mr. Keith goes out of his way to espouse the many finer points of the Red Solo Cup he also decides to make a wise crack about how the cups do have a tendency to split down the side if not cared for properly. Now I haven't seen his tax returns, but I'm fairly sure that if it was a problem serious enough to merit a line in a song he probably could afford to purchase some another receptacle for his friends and family to drink out of.

But what does this fairly benign tune about friendly gatherings and a country singer's preferred drinking utility have to do with office supplies? First, I would like to point out that you can purchase the Red Solo Cups at a fairly good discount from office supply stores. Second, about two thirds of the way through the song he mentions using a Sharpie to clearly label his cup. He seems to think a clearly labeled cup might lead to getting to know one of the "ladies" a little better. If a clearly written label is important you should probably supply your guests with a white permanent label they can write on and attach to their cups. I happen to believe that the primary purpose of labeling any cup would be to avoid any confusion when 4 or more identical Red Solo Cups are placed on a table.

Sharpies- Important Labeling Tool for Party Goers

Have the Dixie Chicks recorded Blue Solo Cup in response? Are the Dixie Chicks even still around?

Office supplies to unstink your kitchen.

If you like to use sponges in your regular cleaning activities, and I know a lot of people do that you know you are supposed to sanitize them regularly and get rid of them fairly often.  The biggest problem that everybody has with sponges is that they don't take long before they start to seriously stink.  Most of that stink comes from the fact that you lay your sponge down and the bottom never dries properly but instead starts to gather a wonderfully mildew and must smell.  One user on imgur found a novel way to solve the uneven drying problem by using a simple Binder Clip.

Simple Kitchen DIY

Whoever this person is they really have their stuff together.  You can tell by the bright orange color of the sponge that it is clearly an O-Cel-O Sponge by 3M.  They are known as some of the best anti-microbial, anti-bacterial sponges, but as much as you and I both trust all 3M products you'll still need to replace them just as regularly as any other sponge.

Look at that extremely fashionable binder clip.  You can't easily tell exactly what color the clip actually is because the clip it self is reflective and on a reflective sink with a radioactive orange sponge, but you can tell it is red.  Upon a closer inspection you can see that the clips have a rubberized coating on the steel wires so it was easy to track down a reasonable replica.

Rubber Coated Binder Clips

Comparing the red between the two clips looks like the match is pretty much spot on.  Of course, if this was my kitchen I wouldn't have gone for the red binder clip.  The metallic red binder clip, the toxic orange sponge, the granite counter top, the sea-foam green soap and the chrome sink are just too many colors at once for my puny brain to comprehend.  I probably would have just stuck with the green clip since it kind of matches the soap's green hue.  That's just me though.  I have been accused of being color blind on more than one occasion.

Tape Stop-Motion/Time-Lapse

Before you venture down this path, you must first watch this video...






Each of the big setups easily contains more than 100 full rolls of tape.  With that many rolls of tape in use you know that Johan Rijpma didn't splash out and spend money on the high quality Scotch brand tape, but probably went for something more generic.  Looking at the tape you can see the rolls aren't very transparent at all so he didn't even go for the fully "invisible" tape.

This video did start a bit of an inner office conversation about what is Stop Motion and what is Time Lapse.  Which we basically decided that Time Lapse and Stop Motion are almost identical with the differentiation that that Stop Motion involves an outside force moving or altering the scene that is being filmed.

One could argue that most of the video here is Time Lapse, but the portions starting around 1:30 clearly take place as the base is rotating.  You can notice at those particular times that the tape does seem to stop ascending as well, so not much actual time lapsed.

Highland Transparent Tap is Affordable 3M Tape

If you just need some inexpensive tape and don't need it to be invisible, you don't need to look any further than the Highland Brand Transparent Tape.  It is manufactured by 3M just like Scotch Brand Tapes but it is more utilitarian for offices and times when complete invisibility isn't a necessity.  Judging from the video, the tape used there isn't completely clear, and sometimes even has a yellowish tinge.  Unless you are wrapping Christmas presents or doing scrap-booking a little yellow color in your tape won't hurt anything.

If you've stuck with me this far and Time-Lapse really isn't your thing you deserve a reward.  Here's a bit of Stop Motion for you.

Post-it Watch

How many times have you ever written a note on your hand because you needed to remember something and you were sure you'd lose any other kind of note you might try to write yourself? Well, a French design firm came up with the perfect way to keep your self-applied notes in a semi-permanent status.

The Officially Licensed Post-it Watch

Yes, it's pretty self explanatory. It is a long watch-shaped Post-it note that you write on and attach to yourself by sticking the two ends of it together. For €9.80 you can get 100 of these Post-its. Google tells me that is equivalent to $13.50 using the current currency conversion. Of course, if you lived in Greece or Italy your Euros might be worth slightly less. If you live in the United States these would probably cost you a pretty penny to ship as well.

Just for the sake of comparison, a standard pack of 1,200 Post-it Notes can be had for less than $6. That is an incredible savings per piece of paper. Granted it won't be as easy to stick these to yourself to create a note to remind yourself you need to buy milk, but you can't have your cake and eat it too.

12,000 Post-it Notes

Anybody who has ever written a note on their own hand knows that you should never use any washable markers as your natural sweat and action can easily erase whatever you are trying to remember. You can always write on yourself with permanent marker, but that's no fun.

Here is what I propose: take 3 or 4 (depending on the size of your wrists) standard Post-its and connect them to each other to create a full wristband of Post-it madness. Wristbands are cooler than wristwatches right? I'm guessing so anyway. So after you make your Post-it wristband you'll have a lot more room to write important notes to yourself. They might fall apart a lot more, but not only will you have more space to write, you'll have a lot more wristbands available. If I assume your wrists are larger than mine and you need 4 Post-its, you'll have 3,000 Post-it wristbands for half the price of 100 Post-it wristwatches.

John Gruber's Favorite Pen

If you don't know John Gruber, you aren't missing a whole lot.  He's a minor Internet celebrity.  He is not on the level of Wil Wheaton or Felicia Day, but he is kind of like a less creepy Richard Stallman.  A lot of people turn to Mr. Gruber to learn why the Yankees are awesome or why WordPress sucks.  He is generally regarded as a person who does take time to make well reasoned analysis on all things Apple from time to time, but that's all boring mish-mash when you are visiting a blog about Office Supplies.

On October 11th he posted to his site, Daring Fireball, about his favorite pen.  Anybody who takes the time to write anything about a pen is okay in my book.  He claims that the Zebra Sarasa 0.4mm Push Clip is his favorite pen and anybody who is not buying pens imported from Japan is not using a very good pen. While I agree with him on many things I have to disagree on this particular issue. There is no reason to waste money buying pens imported from Japan for $2.20 when an almost identical pen, for the average user, is available for less than $1 (when bought in a box of 12).

0.5mm Zebra Sarasa Gel

I would like to first go on the record as officially stating that I have never used the particular pen that Mr. Gruber is referring to, but that I have use many pens, and many are similar in style to his favorite pen.

First, I agree that no pen, dollar for dollar, beats a Zebra Sarasa.  I accidentally took the last Zebra Sarasa that I had at the office home and gave it to my waitress that evening.  The next day I tried to just use a Pilot G2, but it didn't take long before it put a nice big blob on my paper that I stuck my hand in and smeared all over.  In a fit of rage I threw the pen (lightly) to the carpet on the other side of my office and went scavenging for a replacement Sarasa.  Luckily, I found a few sitting unused in my neighbors drawers that they'll never miss (shhhh).  Coincidentally, when I came into work the next day there was a Zebra Sarasa multi-pack waiting for me.

The extra big clip on the imported Sarasa is kind of cool, but is it really worth it?  How often do you actually clip you pen to a small book?  The standard single plastic clip piece works for me just fine.  With a 0.4mm tip is the imported pen's tip really that much different from the 0.5mm version?  Not enough to convince me to pay double.

Everybody gets to have their own favorite pen, but the important thing is to make sure that if you lose your pen you won't feel like your world will come to an end.  So when you accidentally give your pen to the tow truck driver do you want to be out $2.20 or $0.89.  I'll gladly take two of the 0.5mm standard Zebra Sarasa pens over one 0.4mm fancy Zebra Sarasa any day.

Office Makeover Giveaway

Look, I know you are busy.  We are all busy people.  But sometimes you have to take a break from all that hard farming you are doing on your farm-related Facebook games, turn off the television from your New Jersey-related Reality Show, and do something proactive for your work space.

Office Makeover Giveaway

Take a look at your hands.  Are they on a keyboard or a touchscreen?  Great!  You have an Internet device.  Does that Internet device usually stay in one room?  Awesome! You have an office.

Now look at your wallet.  Is it bulging with money because of all the cash you have?  Sweet!  Go find an envelope and mail it to me. I'll wait.  Okay, now everybody's wallet is on the same level.  Wouldn't it be great if you could spruce up your office without having to worry about the fact that your wallet is empty? Of course it would be.  So here's the deal.

DiscountOfficeItems.com is running a Giveaway for an office makeover.  The grand prize is worth over $4,000.  That means you could have an office setup on par with the Vice President of the average medium-sized company.  A desk, a chair, a bunch of organizers and a free TouchPad.  That's all the things you'd need to really give your office the professional feel that you deserve.  You could really get some farming done if you had an ergonomic chair, couldn't you?

I know what you are thinking.  That sounds great, but I never win anything. The cards are always stacked against me and so I shouldn't even waste my time entering because it'll just be a waste.  Well, today your luck is going to change.  Somebody has to win this prize and so far there have only been 24 contest entrants. If you enter right now you will be the 25th entrant so you'd have a 4% chance of winning (if the winner was picked randomly).  A 4% chance is like a million times better odds than winning the lottery.  That's better odds than finding a quarter in your jeans after they come out of the dryer.

Here's the deal.  Take a picture of your office.  If you don't have an office take a picture of the room that you keep your computer or Internet device in.  If you don't have an computer or a room you keep it in, then take a picture of the space that you'd like to setup an office.  If you don't even have that, then just take a picture of your chair.  Now upload that photo to the Office Makeover Giveaway App and tell all your farming buddies to get on the bandwagon and vote for you.  There are buttons on the page so you can spam share the link with them constantly.  Just don't tell your friends that you have a 4% chance of winning because they'll want in and decrease your chances. What have you got to lose?

Still not convinced?  Okay, fine.  You win.  I'm pulling out all the stops now.  This is total used car sales man style now.

Look at this:

Portal is free to download until September 20th.

Yes, Portal.  That game that all your non-farming game friends talk about whenever they say the cake is a lie.  Why is the cake a lie?  You need to play the game to find out.  You have to solve a lot of puzzles.  You like puzzles right?  Great.  Now head over to Steam and start downloading it.  It's not a small download so it might take some time.

So what are you going to do while you are waiting for the download to finish?  You could do more virtual farming, but that'll just decrease your download speed.  If only there was something fun you could do that was mostly uploading.  Uploading doesn't affect your download speed.  I've got it!  Upload a photo to the Office Makeover Giveaway!

Obama's Binder Clip Causes Outrage

Apparently some people are really picky.  Obama came out with his American Jobs Act this week and there are lots of people weighing the pros and cons of his proposal.  There are also people who want to talk about his usage of office supplies.  The New York Post came out with an article titled O gives jobs ‘clip’ service calling it a "chintzy fastener" and an "enormous paper clip" in the headline and opening sentence, but the rest of the article actually talks about the jobs bill.  Why would they tease me with that great introduction and then launch into boring lectures about economic theory?  Yuck!  Talk about the binder clip people; that's the news!

Luckily, the Huffington Post was up to the challenge and ran an article about the article that should have been about a binder clip, and actually did a better job of binder clip reporting.  They link to a product page from Staples with the information that they are quite affordable.  The Huffington Post is not an office supplies blog so I can excuse their lack of knowledge on the subject but a 1" capacity binder isn't going to easily hold all 155 pages of the Jobs Act when printed on standard paper.  They also wouldn't realize that even the generic Staples brand binder clips are not the most affordable.

Universal Binder Clips are Cheaper than Staples

The people who rate binder clips live in a strange world of actual capacity vs ease of use.  Everybody who has spent some time in an office knows that different weights of different papers (see previous article about paper weights as it pertains to actual binders) so nobody wants to say a specific binder clip will hold an exact number of pages.  However, I do know that a large clip can physically hold the 155 pages of the Act.  The binder people would probably advise against it as the binder clips are being forced nearly to their breaking point at 200 pages.

Of course I didn't actually see Obama with the paperwork so I can't tell you if he was performing an act of treason against office supplies.  It's possible he printed the paper double sided and it would fit easily.  It's possible he printed on a lightweight paper that would fit easily.  It's equally possible that he only had 100 pages of the 155 page document actually in the clip at the time.  Like finding out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, we may never know.

It does go without saying that once you are binding more than a 100 pages with one clip you have to know the pressure on the inner most pages is greatly decreased and may not stay put as well as you would like.  Buyer Beware!