Office decor

[telerib]

I've made some very small changes to my office, per my last post about that. I bought some brass upholstery tacks (about $3 worth) to use as pushpins, and they actually work well and add something. Brass paperclips ($2) have replaced the old tin ones; I don't use them that often, but now they sit in their little jar right by my monitor and give me something shiny to look at. I've covered my Government Ugly metal bookshelves (with drop-down doors) with printouts of Phil Foglio's clank sketches, done on cream-colored paper (< $1). There's a color photo of our real robot arm right in the middle of all the sketches. :)

But the biggest changes have all been free. Since I spend most of the day on my computer, I've been collecting Mac icons that fit my theme. My Xterm is now a wooden library drawer with an "X" on it (it's really "for" Mac OSX but who cares?) MS Office is three bubbling beakers in blue (Word), green (Excel), and yellow (PowerPoint). Mail is a retro radar box, Terminal is Futurama's "What If" machine, and Preview is a pinhole camera. TextEdit has a fountain pen. Firefox is a little clank, more scifi than steampunk but only if you look too closely. I have a black steamer trunk for my backup drive and the cushy red chair from the Matrix for my computer. I've changed the desktop background to a Cordovan leather red.

It ain't as cool as this stuff but it's something. :)