https://www.npr.org/2025/05/30/nx-s1-5403639/valerie-mini-dachshund-australia-found
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I came across the funniest joke I’ve seen for years:
“Doctor, I have a pain in my knee”
“Hmm, you’ll have to stop masturbating”
“Really? Why?”
“Because I’m trying to examine you”.
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And you though Sharknado was just a fanciful movie, huh?
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My first thought as well! 
Looks like it got snatched by a bird, though. Much less spectatcular.
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can happily say that CIE dream to turn temple bar into a shopping mecha with an underground bus depot never went through.
But after the recession in 2000’s it got gentrified to all hell by homogenised tourist traps. All my favourite spots gone and you don’t get the gaggle of artists hanging about like ya used to. Dame Lane became that avenue for a while but it seerms even the artisans have been brushed out of there for that bright lit happy times sitcom aesthetic.
Oh and Temple Lane rehearsal studio is still there, it’s part of what was once called Temple Bar Music Centre (changed venue name to The Button Factory maybe 15 years ago? I still call it TBMC 
It’s where I went to my first Punk gig )
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I wonder if historians will find some graffiti carved in stone from the 60s with ITA hundreds of years from now and be baffled by these unusual ruins? 
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Well I had zero issues reading that but I already knew how to read before I started school so maybe I am just weird.
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The s that looks like an integral sign in math also mimics the old English “long s.”
The integral symbol mimicked the long s to mean “summa,” Latin for “sum.”
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What do you mean by identify? Remembering where you got them from?
Happy cakeday!
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Retro pens have some value. Many can be identified by maker etc ..
But there are no markings on these and Google lens AI bot thing sees them as opaque which they are not and it keeps directing me to the wrong brands
Probably not worth anything but they are very old, maybe the 1950’s.
(The cake was good. It doesn’t lie)
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Oh that was hysterical! 
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Most ballpoint pens have a clip on the cap or body to hold it in your pocket. The fact that these do not suggests to me that they were originally sold in a little stand as a “desk set”. Made by anonymous manufacturers in the far east, such sets have been imported in their millions since the 1950s.
The caps appear to be pressed and anodised aluminium (a process where the top few molecules are electrically stripped away, allowing a dye and then a sealant to penetrate the surface of the metal).
Even good quality plastic tends to become brittle and discoloured over time. The fact that these have not suggests they are not particularly old.
If I had to guess, I’d say these were probably given as a cheap gift desk set some 20 or 30 years ago. The stand was thrown away, and the pens were dropped in a “may be useful some day” drawer.
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You may be correct. The woman who owned these was 96 and she worked in an office in her years after WW2 (when she was a ‘Rosie, the riveter’) So a desk set as a gift makes sense.
My dad had one of those desk sets with a radio that sat in the middle. It was the source of my first radio.
I realized there was no pocket clip on the caps but couldn’t think of why…
The caps are very similar to caps from pens in the 50s though. But, we know how companies love to reissue commemorative stuff during their anniversaries…celebrating XX amount of years
Edit: so my son, who has dug thru all her stuff to get it ready to sell, says he believes @Polyphemus is correct and added that he believes she got the set as a gift when she returned to California for a High School reunion.
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I spent 25 years investigating fires, explosions, toxic chemical releases, deaths and amputations.
Now I investigate ball point pens.
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