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ventaRecently, someone I was talking to (I forget who) made disparaging comments about someone having a "bloke drawer". I assumed that this was going to refer to, for example, a drawerful of porn. It didn't.
No, they went on, a bloke drawer contains things like spare batteries, and screwdrivers, and string.
I paused, baffled.
What? You mean there are people (of any gender) who don't have at least one drawer like that? Crazy!
The bottom drawer of my desk, which doesn't particularly have a name, contains all those things, plus various oddments of padlocks, elastic bands, scissors, paper clips, gaffer tape, electrical tape, screws... y'know. Useful stuff. It should contain a pair of "81s" (long-nosed pliers, surely the most useful thing ever invented) except my pair has gone missing somewhere. Perhaps they eloped with my Stanley knife, which is also AWOL.
At my parents' house, there is a drawer which fulfills this function which is known as The Everything Drawer. When my parents replaced their dining room furniture, the burning question of the moment was which of the newly-arrived drawers was going to take on the function of being The Everything Drawer. If you need a piece of string or a paper clip, it's that one over there, under the stereo, on the left.
Obviously it doesn't really contain everything - there are many useful things which will not conveniently fit into a drawer, for a start. Like power tools (in the shed), old newspapers (cupboard under the sink) or binbags (cupboard under the stairs). But any thing which is suitably useful, and suitably small, and doesn't seem to have an obvious other home goes into The Everything Drawer.
Do you have a designated location for such small and useful everyday items? Does the location have a name?
No, they went on, a bloke drawer contains things like spare batteries, and screwdrivers, and string.
I paused, baffled.
What? You mean there are people (of any gender) who don't have at least one drawer like that? Crazy!
The bottom drawer of my desk, which doesn't particularly have a name, contains all those things, plus various oddments of padlocks, elastic bands, scissors, paper clips, gaffer tape, electrical tape, screws... y'know. Useful stuff. It should contain a pair of "81s" (long-nosed pliers, surely the most useful thing ever invented) except my pair has gone missing somewhere. Perhaps they eloped with my Stanley knife, which is also AWOL.
At my parents' house, there is a drawer which fulfills this function which is known as The Everything Drawer. When my parents replaced their dining room furniture, the burning question of the moment was which of the newly-arrived drawers was going to take on the function of being The Everything Drawer. If you need a piece of string or a paper clip, it's that one over there, under the stereo, on the left.
Obviously it doesn't really contain everything - there are many useful things which will not conveniently fit into a drawer, for a start. Like power tools (in the shed), old newspapers (cupboard under the sink) or binbags (cupboard under the stairs). But any thing which is suitably useful, and suitably small, and doesn't seem to have an obvious other home goes into The Everything Drawer.
Do you have a designated location for such small and useful everyday items? Does the location have a name?
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no subject
Date: 2009-10-07 11:06 am (UTC)And KnowledgeTree, which is an opensource (and free) document management system. I'm not scanning my manuals (because I can't be bothered dismantling them into separate pages), but am installing the online PDFs.
Scanning menus has, in fact, turned out to be useful, as I can sit on the sofa in other people's houses and fetch my up-to-date copy of their old menus (as well as, obviously) not scattering the hardcopy around my house!
no subject
Date: 2009-10-07 11:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-07 11:16 am (UTC)Well, I suppose, obsolete menus are exactly what are supposed to be in there. So, in that sense, it was working. But if it had been working properly, you'd have have a series of obsolete menus, so you could track the prices rises. And the current menu.
Missing the last one was a bit of a failure.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-07 11:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-07 11:21 am (UTC)I'm not yet using pdftk, although a quick google links it to iText in Action, which is sitting on my desk (in hardcopy, not electronic ;) I had to write some java stuff for merging PDFs at work, so I just carried on with that. It's entirely plausible that the toolkit actually does what I really need!