Inky T O D - Are You An Office Supply Junkie?

[amberleadavis]

Did your inky obsession begin with finding the "right" color in the Crayola box? Did you graduate to more expensive items like fancy papers and watercolors before becoming an ink addict? Well, not that any of us have ink problems. However, do you find yourself wandering the aisles of the office supply store? Do the Christmas presents you give to others often come from trips to the office supply store?

 

Fess up, we'd love to hear it.

[Newjelan]

I tell people that the reason I set up my own company was so I could buy stationery with impunity. My favourite way to fill in any spare time between client appointments is to wonder the aisles of the nearest Officeworks.

 

One of my early memories was when I started at kindergarten (I was 3 or 4) and the teacher brought out a fresh, new box of pastels: oh the colours, the smell, those little sticks of perfection.

 

My fountain pen obsession started with watching my father write with his Parkers and he bought me my first fountain pen when I was 7. I was hooked, although we never used them at school.

 

When I was 12 I received a box of 72 Derwents for Christmas. A couple of years later I discovered roller balls (with purple ink), then gell pens (especially the glitter ones) and back to a fountain pen (again with purple ink).

 

A few years ago I discovered fountain pen ink came in many colours (who knew?) and the rest is history. I have over 100 inks and 80 or so pens.

 

My work means I use both permanent and whiteboard Markers (and there's always room for more colours and varieties).

 

Now I'm back into coloured pencils as well and I haven't even started on the paper!

[dcwaites]

Hello, my name is David, and I am a stationeryaholic.

 

I blame society. It's not my fault at all.

 

It all started as a child, when my mother showed me her Parker 51, and was reinforced by all those ads in National Geographic for Parker 75s in Sterling Silver. Then at Primary school we were introduced to Texta Color marking pens and Cray-Pas oil pastels. We had dip pens at Primary school, and I was the ink monitor.

 

My main dealer is the large Officeworks shop a few kms away.

 

It's not fair. I used to be happy with my Ballograf ballpoint, now I have this habit of ink and pens and papers to feed.

 

And Amber has made me an Inky Minion...

[jmccarty3]

My addiction began at a very early age as well. My dad was in the printing business, so I learned about colors and papers very quickly. There was a magnificent large office supply store near his business--these was back in the '60s before the chains came in--and everything there was of very high quality, meant to last. I would walk over there and browse for hours.

 

So much has changed, and most of it not for the better.

[Kiaxa]

I'm sort of an office supply junkie. I am still hunting for my perfect paper (FP friendly and simple to acquire) and until I find it, a junkie I will be. I am also a fan of fine calculators, I'm a proud owner of both a Ti-84 Plus and a Ti-89 Titanium and the second Texas Instruments decides to make a Ti-89C (that would be a Ti-89 with a full color TFT display) I will be one of the first in line to buy it. So not really a junkie for everything office supply but I got the basics down at least.

[amberleadavis]

I will confess, I use an RPN calculator. I cannot figure out how to use the algebraic calculators. Nevertheless, when I found the Ti-84 Plus CE at an office supply store going out of business, I bought it. I can't use it. So I had to give it to my daughter for her work, BUT, I bought it.

[ac12]

That's me.

 

I love RPN calculators. I also have trouble with algebraic calculators for + and -, I'm too used to the adding machine logic, which is similar to RPN.

I remember working at a company where the president (a former accounting controller) was "offended" when one of the accountants mentioned "Reverse Polish Notation." Sheesh where was he when HP was producing their financial calculators. He must have been a TI calculator user.

Edited October 14, 2015 by ac12

[haruka337]

I've loved office supplies since high school and thus became an office manager (I can order, in moderation, bottles of ink for work use!). Highlighters, fancy paper, folders, carrying cases, note books, lead pencils, stampers and the like--ah, my elected paradise!

 

I'm the 30-something year old lady skipping down the aisles of most office supply and stationary stores in Southern California. If you see me skippin' on by, say hello!

[amberleadavis]

That's me.

 

I love RPN calculators. I also have trouble with algebraic calculators for + and -, I'm too used to the adding machine logic, which is similar to RPN.

I remember working at a company where the president (a former accounting controller) was "offended" when one of the accountants mentioned "Reverse Polish Notation." Sheesh where was he when HP was producing their financial calculators. He must have been a TI calculator user.

 

LOL

[amberleadavis]

I've loved office supplies since high school and thus became an office manager (I can order, in moderation, bottles of ink for work use!). High lighters, fancy paper, folders, carrying cases, note books, lead pencils, stampers and the like--ah, my elected paradise!

 

I'm the 30-something year old lady skipping down the aisles of most office supply and stationary stores in Southern California. If you see me skippin' on by, say hello!

 

Oh, yes, dream job.

[dcwaites]

That's me.

 

I love RPN calculators. I also have trouble with algebraic calculators for + and -, I'm too used to the adding machine logic, which is similar to RPN.

I remember working at a company where the president (a former accounting controller) was "offended" when one of the accountants mentioned "Reverse Polish Notation." Sheesh where was he when HP was producing their financial calculators. He must have been a TI calculator user.

 

I, too, am a RPN fan (have been ever since the HP 35, and a couple of years later bought my first ever RPN calculator - a HP 25).

 

And I, too, have succumbed to buying a TI calculator that was on special at Officeworks, just to see what the fuss was about. Importantly, you can download and install a little app that will turn your programmable TI into an RPN calculator. Problem fixed.

[amberleadavis]

REALLY?????

[Kiaxa]

The main draw of the Ti-89 for me is: if you can think of it a Ti-89 can solve it. Integrals, differential equations, matrices, series, limits, it does it all. So the main draw of Ti calculators is what it's capabilities are not really its notation.

[Randal6393]

I, too, love my RPN calculators. Especially since the Kindle Fire Apps reproduced the HP-12C. Fun for working out loan terms. But, to get back to the main attraction:

 

I am a Noodler's ink addict. But I am betraying my drug of choice, now using Chesterfield and Rohrer und Klingner inks. Love my Noodler's but am learning to appreciate the smoother, sharper lines of other inks.

 

Shamefully yours,

 

PS: Love your new avatar, Amber.

[dcwaites]

REALLY?????

 

http://www.ticalc.org/pub/83plus/flash/programs/

Scroll down to RPN. Just one of a number of RPN apps for TI's.

I can't remember which one I use.

[sheeptotherescue]

OH YEAH! Mechanical pencils, paper clips ( I love collecting different shapes of paper clips), charming notebooks, origami paper, nifty little storage thingies, envelopes that are a good size for something I'm sure, stickers (if you want to count those), and of course pens of all shades, sizes, and ink types. Oh, and I have a thing for staple removers. I only have one, but I have a fascination with them. And I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that art supply stores are another addiction in terms of wallet sapping ability. As a mental health person, I'm thankful for the knowledge that addictions work because people chase that initial high, which is never quite the same.

[sheeptotherescue]

Oh, and all you calculator people might like this comic. And make sure you hover your cursor over the picture so you can read the alt text. https://xkcd.com/645/

[jmccarty3]

+10 for RPN.

 

Let me take you back to the fall of 1970. I was spending a semester doing research on murine osteosarcoma virus at the Argonne National Laboratory outside of Chicago, when I discovered that one of the other departments there had acquired a new HP electronic calculator. This beast was functionally equivalent to what later was sold as the HP12C, but it was the size of an IBM Selectric typewriter, and it was kept locked up so no one could mess with it. I can't remember how I got permission to play with it, but I did. I learned RPN, and discovered that the thing could be programmed in machine language. I wrote a simple analysis of variance program to process my research data. The device actually could print results on a paper roll similar to an adding machine.

 

When I returned to my college campus the spring semester of my senior year, I signed up for a computer programming course, which required only that I write a program in Fortran II, compile it, and run it. I translated my ANOVA program into Fortran II, turned it in, and got an A without ever showing up to class past the first day.

 

Even now, I have HP12C emulators on all my computers and devices, and wouldn't think of working with any other sort of calculator. Somewhere along the way, I lost my original HP12C, for which I paid about $75 at a department store in Houston. RIP.

[PS104]

I used to think hardware stores were my be-all and end-all stores for browsing but now I find office supply stores are really kicking the hardware's stores butt.

[Arkanabar]

Office supply AND art supply stores. And stationery and pen shops. I fell in love with 0.5mm mechanical drafting pencils before I got out of elementary school, and I've been enamored of writing instruments ever since.