Thursday, April 24, 2008

more (hearts)

I really DO love Amazon's customer service; I just got an "update" today from them that something I ordered - which had been out of stock, on back order - will ship SOONER than anticipated.

They didn't have to tell me but the fact that they did makes me happy.

I also have to say I (heart) Daedalus Books - it's a firm out of Maryland that sells mostly remainders and I've gotten some wonderful weird stuff really cheaply from them. Most recently? A biography of Mendelev that also includes a history of the development of the periodic table. And a biography of Turing.

Do I need to know about those folks? No, not really. But I want to.

I also love those G2 gel pens - the ones that they advertise for check-writing, because apparently crooks can't "wash" your checks and steal from you? Well, they're about the smoothest writing pens I've had (of reasonably priced pens; I'm not one to buy a $99 refillable fancy pen). Because I'm one of those death-grip writers, anything that has ink that flows well and doesn't make my hand cramp up is a good thing.

And I love digital cameras - don't like the photo? Poof, it's gone - no film wasted, no waiting to see if the picture comes out. And they're easy to send to family and friends if they have e-mail.

****

Incidentally - I didn't know they had stopped making china markers. (That's what we always called those waxy pencil things with the strings; I guess the idea was that they could mark on glazed china).

I used to love office-supply stores when I was a kid - so many neat things. There was a little family-run one in the downtown of the little town where I grew up. One thing they sold - does anyone else who was a kid in the 70s remember these - were the little rubber-eraser animals made by Diener. (Or maybe it was Deiner?). They weren't flat shapes- they were fully molded little animals, kind of cartoony. Some of them were dressed (I remember in particular an anteater wearing a bowler hat and a blazer) and others were more realistic. I had a whole collection of those. Never used them to erase with - they were too cute to use up. (If they still exist at all, they're probably a half-decomposed ball of rubber at one of the bottom of the boxes of stuff in my parents' house). They were one of my favorite things and the fact that they were only like a quarter or so meant that I was able to buy a lot of them to play with.

4 comments:

nightfly said...

No more wax pencils? Darn. I have one at work that I still occasionally use. If you still want to try to find one, maybe a lab supply company? They're excellent for marking beakers and such.

(Word verify - "autefab" - German word for anything that is awesome by default.)

Sheila O'Malley said...

I love Amazon's customer service, too ... they really have their act together.

Anonymous said...

My youngest son LOVES office supplies. In fact, he spent more than half his birthday money last year at Office Depot. He's jonesing for one of those beds they sell at Ashley's where it's a bunk bed on top and A DESK on the bottom with shelves for all his "stuff."

I don't know what triggered this love -- but it's probably genetic. I still love shopping for their school supplies -- that fresh paper and pencil smell is intoxicating.

WordGirl said...

Lisa beat me to it: the smell -- OH, THE SMELL! OF FRESHLY SHARPENED PENCILS! Oy!

And I do remember the eraser animals! Mostly because there was a macabre kid in school who erased the head off one of his.

(Incidentally, I know a chap who is otherwise incredibly well-read but dropped "macabre" in conversation once, pronouncing it "mack-uh-BRAY". Disturbing.)

And I'm totally stealing "autefab".