Operation: Chicken Scratch

While uncommon, this staple-less stapler is actually quite old. It was first patented in America in 1910 and remains largely unpopular. We’d like to change that!

Here’s a look at this device:

Here’s the result of it’s use: after inserting the sheets and pressing down, a section of paper is punched and woven back through itself.

The Pros :

• No more buying staples
• No more staples removers
• Seeing strange looks on peoples faces when you use it
• Sending documents straight to the shredder - this type of staple doesn’t jam the shredder

The Cons :

• The manufacturer says it can only handle five pages at a time. (Note: In typical OCS fashion, we pushed it to the limits and got it to “staple” seven !)

If you’ve ever had a light bulb shatter, you know that removing the remains form your lamp can be a daunting task.

However, the housing can be quickly removed using NO tools at all. When a light bulb shatters the remaining portion is likely to be the glass mount (small glass rod containing filament) and the housing (screwed in to the lamp). Using pliers can crush the glass mount, so a potato is our tool of choice!

Take a potato and carve it in to a rectangle roughly the width of the base of the light bulb. Next, push this potato on to the Glass Mount. Then twist to the left. The potato is just strong enough to form a tight grip over the Glass Mount with out crushing it and the remaining portion of the light bulb can be unscrewed.

Ever find yourself standing in front of a Pepsi machine, thirsty as hell, but don’t have any change? Well, we have a solution that just may quench your thirst!

1. Find a Pepsi machine with an LED screen.
2. Enter the engineer’s access code 1,3,2,4 by using the keypad or drink selection buttons. Depending on how the machine is configured, button 1 is the top, button 2 is the next one down; or if the buttons are side by side, 1 is the far left, 2 is the next one to the right, and so on. This is the menu access sequence, which is rarely modified from the factory defaults.
3. Navigate through the machine’s menu, until you find the “free drink” option.

*Although we don’t necessarily condone ’stealing’, this little trick comes in handy in the event the machine malfunctions and doesn’t give you a soda when you’ve actually paid for it.

We are going to let you in on a little technique called “bid withdrawal” . . . a loophole those in-the-know have been exploiting since eBay’s beginning. Here’s how it works:

1. Choose an item to bid on that has no bids and no reserve price. Make your first bid $1000 (it will only show at whatever the opening bid is, which could be as little as $0.01)
2. Use a friend’s account (or a fodder account) to make a second bid for $990. You will automatically become the highest bidder at $995
3. Seconds before the end of the auction, withdraw your friend’s bid, and the final selling price will revert to the opening bid. When the auction ends, as long as nobody has sniped you, the seller will be obligated to sell to you at this lower price . . . Sucker!

Obviously you’ll want to adjust these figures to just slightly above fair-market-value for the item you are bidding on, or just high enough to keep others from bidding. If you drive an item’s price up to $995 that is only worth $50, the seller is likely to cancel your bid or the auction entirely.