DiscountOfficeItems.com Racing

Any racing fans here? If so, you'll have something to watch for at Sunday's Toyota/Save Mart 350. If not, you now have a reason to tune in as DiscountOfficeItems.com will be a featured sponsor on one of the cars! We haven't been this excited about auto racing since Sharpie stopped sponsoring the race in Bristol.

Remembering The Good Old Days

Thanks to 3M, DiscountOfficeItems.com will be riding with Greg Biffle in the #16 3M Ford at the Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California. True to the mascot, the logo will be near the trunk.

For anybody jumping into the sport, here's a quick primer- DiscountOfficeItems.com is particularly excited to be sponsoring Greg Biffle's car as he's one of the fastest-rising drivers in the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Biffle is currently in third place in the point standings with one win and eight top-five finishes. If you're skeptical about the prospect of watching cars drive in a circle for three hours, you're in luck: it's a road course!

Infineon Raceway Layout

Yes, this will require drivers to turn right and yes, they can handle it.

To celebrate, DiscountOfficeItems.com is offering 16% off 3M products from now through June 28. This is a great opportunity to replenish your supply of Scotch Tape, add a dry erase board to your office, or load up on Post-It Notes for communication, art or political reasons.

Head here to take advantage of the promotional offer and make sure to tune in on Sunday!

Comic Books and Furniture and Stuff

Have you seen The Avengers movie? It is so hot right now it could fry an egg on the sidewalk. Some people might think that it would be a boon to local comic book shops, but oddly enough, no. I have heard that many comic book shops are selling out of Infinity Gauntlet books though (if you don't know, don't ask). Anybody who thought that this movie might spur on the comic book frenzy of the mid 90's was sadly mistaken. All the comic geeks out there will still have to explain who The Badger and The Tick are to the non geeks. Feel free to share your jokes about the Ottoman Empress and the Ottoman Empire with me because nobody else will get them.

It's funny because an Ottoman is a piece of furniture.

If you are lucky you might be able to engage in a conversation about how the movie adaption of the Avengers isn't exactly the same as the comic book Avengers or the comic book Ultimates, but finding a middle ground that tends more towards the old Jack Kirby and Stan Lee adventures.

You could also attempt to engage those more economically minded with a conversation about the estimated $160 billion worth of damage the alien invaders would have caused to Manhattan. You could talk to people about the implications this has on the Marvel Universe and how it doesn't matter to Bruce Wayne because he lives in Gotham which is like New York but it exists in a different universe. Maybe you'll want to talk about Damage Control if you just want to prove your chops in annals of fandom.

But what about the human face on all that destruction? Those poor people will need to rebuild their homes and offices from a veritably pile of rubble. From what I remember it was mostly high rise office buildings that were getting thrashed by the Chitauri which means somebody is going to need a whole lot of new furniture for their office.

Luckily, DiscountOfficeItems.com is having a super powered sale on furniture.  You knew I couldn't keep up with all that comic book talk for too long did you?  This is an office supplies blog after all. You have probably all purchased office supplies online before but you've probably never thought about buying office furniture there as well. Let me drop some science on you my friend, it's more affordable than you think. When you can find bargains on furniture like this you'll easily be saving scads of money.

Discount Furniture Sale - No Coupon Neccesary 

Yes, when you buy something like a desk or a chair online you might end up paying a bit more for shipping than if you picked up that same item at a big box retailer, but you'll save money on those products in the long run. Plus, they will be delivered to your building and nobody has to bother with trying to figure out how to haul a desk in the trunk of a Prius or carry it on the train and/or bus.

So when you are recovering from the next super villain attack and on a budget (assuming Tony Stark isn't fronting all the cash for your operation), don't forget to price out your furniture online. You'll save time and money over looking elsewhere for the same product.

How To Not Touch Touchscreens

Since the advent of the LCD screen, one of the traditional commandments has always been never to touch the surface. Contact with the screen can distort images, ruin pixels and wear out a pristine monitor quickly. This still applies to standard desktop and laptop monitors, so if you like to take the hands-on approach in your computing affairs, stop reading and get a screen protector pronto.

As we proceed into the age of smartphones and touchpads, those of us used to the “no touching” rule find ourselves in a foreign, backwards world where touching the screen is not only acceptable, it appears to be necessary to use the device. All the new toys use capacitive screens, which require something conductive in order to work... such as a human finger. It's madness, I tell you.

Capacitive screens are protected from the aforementioned dangers, of course, but that doesn't mean it's always pleasant to use fingers to touch them. Screen smudging is an issue, fingers may not always be clean and jobs may demand a stylus for better accuracy. Most PDA styli don't work since they aren't conductive. It's a problem that had gotten so bad that folks in South Korea started using sausages once they discovered, through what had to be some fantastic trial & error experimentation, that they somehow worked. Thankfully, Targus has a conductive stylus on the market now.

Targus Conductive Stylus

Making a conductive stylus is more complex, so they aren't cheap and only recommended for those who either need the accuracy of a stylus or dislike sausage.

3M Screen Protector Film

If you're only worried about screen smudging or just can't stand the thought of making direct contact with an LCD screen, try 3M's Screen Protector Film. It can be cut to the size of your phone and reduces smudging while keeping the device fully functional. You can feel better touching this with your fingers or, if you still prefer, your favorite encased meat.

Whiteboard Tower Defense

It was recently brought to my attention that an artist/game developer was bringing his own unique brand of physical gaming into the world.  Rather that just create a project and move on he decided to start a Kickstarter campaign to try and get this project moving a little faster (if he could turn a profit, I'm sure nobody would be crying).

Doodle Defense

If you've ever played a Tower Defense game you get the general scheme of things here.  Create a path, setup towers, enemies approach your defense system and wipe you out as they exit the screen. Doodle Defense takes the tried and true formula and just changes the medium you play it in.  Rather than using your fingers or a mouse you use dry erase markers on a whiteboard. If you are interested in the tech that powers this game, good on you, it isn't very interesting.

The demonstration videos and photos aren't very clear or useful, but here's what I could glean from it. You have to use a red, blue, green, and black marker so you'll have to make sure you have a package of all four color dry erase markers.  I saw that at least two different types of markers were used, both Quartet dry erase markers and Sanford Expo dry erase markers.  I couldn't tell what kind of whiteboards were used.  I couldn't see the brand or attempt to divine the size of the boards.  I assume it'll all depend on how close you keep your projector to the board.  The source code for the game is available if you want to try to build your own rig, but that's too much effort for me.

So I just went looking to see if any other whiteboard games were available and found Whiteboard Tower Defense.

This is really just a standard Tower Defense game and the only reason that "whiteboard" is in the name is to excuse the poor art quality in my opinion.  You can see in the screenshot that somebody took a photo of the whiteboard in their office and used that as the backdrop for the game.  They even left the Quartet logo in place on this game's backdrop so you know they have a Quartet whiteboard.

I doubt that Quartet officially sanctioned this game, but whatever.  That's for the lawyers to fight about.

Who Cares About Vintage Erasers?

Apparently somebody does.

Sometime ago I bookmarked Less than 100g, a self described "blog dedicated to tiny & beautiful stuff." The idea for the blog is novel enough.  Showcase things that the author finds that are both small and cool. They ran an issue (they call every blog posting an issue) dedicated to a collection of vintage erasers that was featured on another website.  So of course I had to visit the original page.

Eraser Collection from Collection a Day

I get liking little things, and I get collecting things, but old erasers?  That's something I just can't get behind.  Some of the erasers don't even look very old.  The octagon erasers are odd and earn points for being interesting, but what's so special about a Pink Pearl?  I mean I guess the logo printed on the eraser has changed a little since it's current introduction and the eraser most readily available is a 100 instead of a 101.

Pink Pearl Eraser

Is there any monetary value to be gained by collecting old erasers? Is there a market for antique erasers?  Is anybody out there really jonesing for a chunk of disposable rubber that is the exact same as what they used as a child? Wouldn't that mean you enjoyed using the eraser?  To go further down the rabbit hole, what people usually erase are mistakes, so if you enjoyed erasing you must have enjoyed making mistakes.  If that is the case, then you are clearly a confused individual. If you are collecting erasers because you are a hoarder, then you've got other problems.  With the wide variety of erasers available today, just throw out your old ones and get something new.

Me?  I prefer a pen.  Sure I make mistakes, but as the kids are fond of saying, YOLO. Just give me a normal pen and a notebook.  If I screw up badly, I'll scratch it out and use the next page.  If it's not to bad, I'll just edit and continue on.  It is a lot easier when I don't have to worry about keeping an eraser on hand at all times.

InkJoy Pen Review

I'll admit to you from the start that I'm a gel pen aficionado and I've never really had much time for standard ballpoint pens. I recently had a collection of PaperMate's InkJoy pens fall across my desk so I proclaimed "game on" and gave them a proper run through.

I have to say that an InkJoy ballpoint pen is the best ballpoint pen I've ever been fortunate enough to use. There isn't the usual harsh dragging or slow ball rolling or gritty grind I usually experience. I dug through my desk to find a couple of other ballpoints to make sure I wasn't just confusing myself, but my findings backed me up. These InkJoy is the smoothest ballpoint pen I've ever used.

InkJoy 100

Let's start at the bottom and work our way up. The InkJoy 100 is your base model pen. It comes as a standard stick pen with a cap or in a retractable version. Either way you are going to get an extremely basic plastic tube surrounded with plastic bits. As cheap as this pen feels and as little as it costs you are still getting the full advantage of the InkJoy system so your pen will produce great lines. The InkJoy 100 is the only version of the InkJoy line available in the stick format. All other InkJoy pens are the retractable format.

InkJoy 500

The InkJoy 500 is the real workhorse of the InkJoy family. The smoked semi gloss is replaced with a matte finish and a rugged looking rubberized grip that is reminiscent of a tire tread has been added. The plastic clip from the 100 series has been replaced with an actual metal clip. These are welcome upgrades as that bit of rubber helps to keep your pen in place and the metal pen clip isn't going to break off after repeated use. I'm sure we've all had hundreds of the plastic clips break, but I've only ever broken a metal clip with some severe pen related trauma.

InkJoy 550

Visually you can immediately see that additional chrome accents have been added to the plunger and the tip of the InkJoy 550. You can't see it from the photo, but an additional thin piece of rubber runs along the back side of the pen to keep it from slipping when it is in your hand and meets with another rubberized portion at the back. The back rubber doesn't really do anything because your hand shouldn't be making contact with the back side of your pen (maybe it is aesthetics, or it helps to keep the rubber strip in place). Although the rubber appears to be thinner than the 500 in practice, it is negligible as the rubber on a pen is never designed for softness but for grip. The 550 has a glossy barrel with a slight ergonomic curve while the 500 has a matte barrel with an exaggerated bump.

InkJoy 700

When you first lift the InkJoy 700 you'll be pleasantly surprised that it has a bit of heft. Some people prefer pens to be like basketball shoes and be as light as possible, but I think a pen with a little weight helps so I don't have to apply as much downward pressure. Since I'm naturally curious (and it hasn't killed me yet) I went and took apart the pen to see just where the weight was added. I was glad to discover that the tip of the pen, previously a chrome piece of plastic, was replaced with an actual piece of metal. This means that all the extra weight is properly positioned to help you draw easier and smoother.

The InkJoy 700 is clearly positioned as the executive version of the InkJoy series. It throws out almost all ergonomics to give it a slender hourglass figure with a high gloss finish. It has a full chrome plunger instead of a chrome wrapped plunger and then even included a slightly nicer spring in the pen to make sure every click is tight and strong. As nice as the black InkJoy 700 is I recommend that you give the InkJoy 700 in white a look as well. They will look great next to your white iPhone and when you buy the complete pack it comes with 1 red, 1 blue and 2 black pens.

White InkJoy 700 Pack

Trace Element Sharpie

One of my most perverse office supply obsessions is the standard Sharpie. If I visit somebody's house or apartment and they don't have any Sharpies I make sure that they receive a gift of Sharpies within a few months. Nothing fancy, just the standard fine tip black Sharpie marker that is readily available for around a dollar.

So it will come as no surprise to you that I took note when Sanford released pens and then liquid pencils under the Sharpie brand name. The other day I noticed that Sharpie is now selling a "Trace Element Certified Marker" and I had to figure out what this new kind of sharpie was. At roughly four times the price of a standard Sharpie the description says that it is great for nuclear energy and aerospace. If anybody says a product is ideal for nukes and astronauts alike I sit up and take notice.

Trace Element Ink Sharpie

You might be asking yourself, do I need a Trace Element Ink Certified Marker? Well if you have to ask yourself the answer is probably no. The only reason you'll ever need one of these markers is if you'd want to prove without a doubt that something written with this marker was written by the person who says they wrote it.

Here's how it works. The marker's ink contains a very specific chloride signature that only a few other markers in the world contain. Each marker comes with paper work identifying which chloride signature it contains. So if you ever have a question about who wrote something using one of these markers, you can just haul your sample to a laser ablation machine and have it analyzed. If the trace elements of chloride in the sample detected by the machine match the paper work you'll have an excellent idea exactly who wrote it and when it was written.

I'm not an expert in the subject but my quick googling makes it look like Rolls Royce and General Electric both require their technicians to use ink with easily identifiable trace elements when performing work. Does your profession require you to use trace element certified ink? Leave a comment below and let us know.