h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What do you call a boomerang that won't come back, a stick. An oldie but goodie. Sorry I couldn't resist.

I object to labeling the paper-clip as the 3rd most useful Earth-object. What about rocks? VCR's? Water? GNU/Linux? Money? Paper itself? Aren't these all at least as important as a paper-clip?

Well, speaking as a Mage, and therefore from a position where my staff is actually my most useful asset, I would have to say that it is most definately more useful to me than a 'V.C.R.' or whatever.

They're those things you use to store TV shows on, right? Well why not just pop back a few days in time if you decide that you want to watch something?

Oh yes... What's a paper clip?

A device enabling you to clip paper together hence the term paper clip.

But why?

I'd call it 'Boomerang the Disobedient' and have it publicly flogged!

The stick is of great use to me (everything from a staff to a discipline device). Having paper clips being listed as high on the useful list is true.

I've used them to pick locks, hold papers together, fix things (including my vcr), and many, many times. You just need to be creative to see how useful they are.

Paper clips are also useful for removing CDs from CD ROM drives if you forget to do it before you remove the drive from your PC - there's usually a tiny hole in the front of the drive for this purpose.

It sounds like you're just useing paper-clips as tecnologicaly advanced bendable sticks, in which case you sould include them in the 'stick' catagory.
Even if you can't make a boomerang out of one.

What on Earth makes you think you cant make a boomerangout of a paper clip In the dreamtime, the very first boomerangs where actually made from paperclips that had fallen through time and, like odd socks and bic pens, materialised in the most unusual of places, invariably small dark and cramped.ie behind fridge, under sofa cushions even inside ones ear cavity.

Yes, but which came first, the paperclip or the stick? Some scholars may argue that the incredible versatility of the stick lent itself to being reincarnated in a metal, albeit smaller form. The advantages of such a form are extensively documented. The smaller sticks are, the more easily they tend to break. One would not want to be picking the wax of one's ears and have the stick break off. After a variety of such experiences, archaelogists theorize that primevil man invented the paper clip as a less-likely and more easily-shaped ear-picking device. The concept of actually using them to attach papers together came much later, when on a lazy Tuesday afternoon, an ancient Chinese scholar invented paper. Not used to dealing with many pieces of thin flat white stuff, he used what came most quickly to his hand, the little bendy stick of metal. Also, argue scholars, without the invention of sticks, or indeed trees, paper would never have been available to clip. Thus the school of stick-to-paperclip thought was born.
There is, however, another philosophy. Its supporters argue that after having created one of the universe's most useful items, the paperclip, God decided to improve upon it. Thus, they say, the stick was created. The stick has advantages over the paperclip. Besides having the capability of being burned as fuel, it can also serve as a walking stick, whereas the smaller and much more pliant paperclip fails in both these areas. Also, the high cost of paperclips during the time of creation swayed God toward the notion of disposability.

Despite the on-going argument, one thing is certain: both paperclips and sticks, used together or separately, but both pale in comparison to that most useful of objects: the towel.

This is undoubtedly true, nothing beats a towel. But let us not neglect to mention the fantsastic benefits that arise when two or more of these marvellous devices are used together. eg towel + stick = tent,
towel + stick + paperclip = tent with door
towel + stick = flag
towel + 2 sticks = banner
What a boon these items can be!!!
towel + paperclip = turban

Hmmm, good point. Though these items work very well by themselves, infinately more uses can be found when multiple objects are used together. For example:

Stick+stick= Cross for repelling vampires.
Stick+stick+stick= Limbo set.
Stick+paper clip= Crude spear/fondue stick.
Stick+towel= Torch/decoy dummy.
Stick+towel+sugar= Towel-on-a-stick: emergency food source.
Paper clip+paper clip= Temporary matter/antimatter containment coupling.
NOTE: Experts recommand that you use normal paper clips, not the ones with the little grooves in them or the ones that you could use to clip two phone books together.
Paper clip+bubble gum+tin can= Fusion reactor. Some additional assembly required.
Towel+paper clip= Emergency rope with grappling hook.

Don't forget; stick+stringy bark form stick+paper clip= fishing pole, an infintely useful device for reaching almost anything form above!

I'd rate small, old, yellow sprouts above the stick+string+paperclips combo. But then I'm just a cynic.

It's fun to be a cynic, particularly if you can combine cynicism with logic, intelligence, and a formidable grasp of colliloquisms and vocabulary; you can drive people absolutely batty.

Funnily enough, I've found this too. But people who can combine these things and remain interesting are few and far between. Still, there's always the stick...

Yeah. And as a last resort, you can hit the uninteresting ones over the head with the stick. That at least gets them out of your way.

I suppose you could also impale them on paperclips...
Ouch.

Painful, yes, but rather time-consuming.