A new college semester means new classes, new roommates, and new gear. You only get to make one first impression, so you better come correct. We’re not saying there is only one right shoe to get or backpack to wear – the opposite in fact. College is about learning about yourself and defining who you are going to be. Show up to your first day of classes proudly being yourself and showcasing your personality. Don’t think you can find the waffle iron that really speaks to your Doctor Who love at the mall. Nah, the best place to find unique back to college gear is on eBay.

eBay is great because 81% of everything for sale on the site is new, and it is so easy to sell on. To you, this means thousands of items from thousands of people, many of which make or have found totally unique and personal products. A backpack decorated with comic book panels? Look no further. How about an instant camera to capture all your roommate’s quirky moments? And if you don’t need a fruit-themed USB stick to keep your class files, then I don’t know who you are anymore man…

You can’t neglect your room either – whether you are in the dorms, have an apartment, or are still crashing for free (save that chedda!) with roommates Mom and Dad. Your room has to grow up from High School and move on to college too. Get an adult chair, a real desk, and a panda stapler. What – we’re talking personality here, aren’t we?

Finally, you gotta look good. I mean, of course, better than you already do – which is going to be hard to do but I think we’ll manage. If you’re a T-shirt and jeans kinda guy, class it up a bit with a Henley. A collared shirt guy? Relax a little with a bright polo. And if you’re a tank top guy – just stop. Stop now. Jeans are an every day classic and dead easy to do. No rhinestones, any holes or cuts should come with a good story, and no cargo pockets. For these reasons and more, it’s hard to go wrong with Levi’s.

The right room, right fashion, and right stapler (I’m not moving past this!) will certainly create the right first impression as you head back to college. But if for some reason you want more, or possibly even a non-panda stapler you can get all the college swag here.

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Remember Oregon Trail? Of course you do (unless you’re just now in high school, and I say to you “Get back to studying!”), I for one played it on an old green-screened Mac in elementary school. I always got dysentery (in the game), and have never heard of anyone beating the game and reach Oregon, but holy hell were those good times!

I always figured (in my 11yr old brain) that this was just another computer game from one of the first game studios to pop up. Apparently I was stupid, as this new video that’s currently making the rounds explains. Oregon Trail was a passion project for 3 friends and was shared with the world just for the lulz.  Check it out:

And now I bet your world feels just a little less dark and gloomy. So go forth, create your passion project, and distribute it to the world and brighten all sorts of childrens’ days. I’m sure they would rather be playing your game than actually learning in class.

The post The World is Ending, So Relax and Remember Playing Oregon Trail appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

#2 Pencils – like bad metaphors they are everywhere. Odds are they are all you’ve ever used. But why? Why this writing instrument hegemony? How did the #2 pencil establish its monarchy, and what the hell happened to the #1 pencil? I set out to find the answers, and it almost drove me to madness.

In the 1846, Johann Burm  was an aspiring woodsmith struggling to mark his work before making his cuts. So on a slow day between making nightstands and battleships, Johann and his assistant Peter Longfellow started to experiment with ways of impregnating alder wood with soft graphite. Before long, they had a rough concept of what we would know today as a pencil. But there was turmoil in woodshop. Peter believed the graphite should be soft enough to easily mark paper and sharpened with a small razor. Johann, being of proud Germanic stock, knew that this new implement would be used by real men doing real work. Thus, the material should be hard like their lives, require strength to make a decent mark, and should only be sharpened by a good stabbing knife. This is what he had come to America for, and he’d be damned if his writing instrument was going to be as weak as a lily-white Prussian.

Betrayal is never a kind business, but Peter’s split with Johann was an especially sordid affair. With the rift over graphite hardness growing every day, Johann expelled his apprentice from the shop while cursing his family to darkness and dispair. Not content to simply un-employ his former student, Mr Burm went to extraordinary lengths to ruin Peter. There are rumors of dead dogs hurled through windows, of slandered wives and unreturned Christmas cards. Longfellow was hardly guiltless in this escapade either. He is said to have covered Johann’s horse in blue paint – a slur which at the time cast doubt on Johann’s sexuality and ability to sire children. There is also the curious matter of fire brigades being sent to the workshop every week for the next 2 months on some pretense or another.

Despite all the backbiting, or perhaps because of it, the two estranged partners each founded rival pencil companies during this time. Johann’s Majestic Implements Concern produced his extremely masculine #1 pencil – the number being a reference to it’s unrivaled excellence. Not without his wicked British sense of humor, Peter Longfellow’s Ace Pencil Company happily named their pencil the #2, but insinuated that it’s higher number was a sign that it was a further development and refinement of the barbaric #1. For years, the two men battled it out in the courts, in the shops, and occasionally physically with each other. In the end, Peter would loose an ear during a knife fight with Johann, but Mr Burm would loose a finger, his business, and even his daughter to Peter’s wandering pencil. They never reconciled.

Today, all we know is the #2 pencil. Let it stand as a very portable and convenient monument to shafting your teachers, stealing their ideas (and daughters) and eventually leading them to die penniless in a gutter. This is truly the dream of every student and apprentice, and indeed the duty of every teacher. Happy writing.

…

This has been, in it’s entirety, a work of fiction. Pencils are graded on their hardness, and #2 is simply the best pencil for school/office use. Turns out pencil grading is utterly boring and the only way to make it interesting is to make stuff up. Go figure.

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