Did I read about that Amazon electronics bag here? I bought one on offer a couple of years ago, and love it.
Where did that battlemech laptop skin come from?
Here’s how a REAL pro packs!
Community College course catalog
Portable Umbrella, in case.
Two empty ziploc bags.
Ziplock bag with disposable razor, lip balm, pain killers and allergy meds, wet-naps, breath mints.
Black nylon . . . I’m not sure. I’ts like a little wallet, with a belt clip. Maybe it is for business cards. I don’t have business cards. I’m getting rid of it.
Not shown above: Aiptek camera and case.
Postcard from my mother, postmarked 2003.
Disposable wrist strap for working on electronics.
Sample of Colgate toothpaste, opened.
Eyeglass repair kit from an insurance company.
Foil packet with Glide dental floss sample.
Aquafresh toothpaste sample.
Reciept from Stark Vacuums from two years ago.
Portfolio with looseleaf pads with random doodles and notes, dried up label stock, rental car map of Colorado.
Scientific calculator.
Dental floss sample.
Scrap of note paper with notes on a automated haunted house I was going to build.
Luggage tag.
Post-It with new work phone number.
Year-old coupon from Micheal’s hobby and craft shop.
Multi-head screwdriver.
Handle from broken photo tripod.
“Declaration for Dangerous Goods” for model rocket order, dated 12-08-2008
Safeway grocery receipt, too faded to read date
Notice of change in blackout period for retirement plan for my last employer.
Cable tie.
Yellow note pad. It has the titles of a dozen graphic novels written on it, including Reload by Warren Ellis.
Empty “Memo Book” that looks positively antique. Cover price fifteen cents.
Note paper with the address of my widowed uncle; I never sent the card. He’s since moved and remarried.
Another expired Micheal’s craft coupon.
Ziploc bag with screws and “mollies.”
Plastic dispenser for Post-It bookmark stickers.
Coffee stirrer, wooden. Two of them.
Loose wet-nap.
Ethernet loopback plug.
Adaptor to use stereo mini-plug earphones with two-plug airplane seat jacks.
Pens, pencils of no distinction.
Pocket dictionary.
Two packets of tissues
Small stapler
Two notepads from charities.
A piece of what appears to be jerky. Very, very old jerky.
Rubber bands.
Aluminum fork and spoon.
Eyeglass cleaning cloth.
Small tape measure.
Adaptor to allow two-prong airplane headsets with stereo mini-plug equipment. Really.
Plastic business card holder from the 1989 American Itnernational Toy Fair.
Old drinking straw.
Bits of a plastic knife.
Yellow plastic ruler.
Tiny spiral-bound book, “Mini-Manual for WordStar,” copyright 1985.
Scrap of coarse sand paper.
Loose screw with “star” head.
Several twist-ties.
Loose zipper closure ring for bag.
You carry a calculator AND a phone?
My phone is a dead-simple not-smart-phone I bought at Walgreen’s for $15.00.
It might have a calculator function, but I’ve never bothered looking for it.
In any case, much of the crap in my bag dates from the Before Times. Like the business card case, which I recall taking on business trips in the early, early 90s. One of the compartments has, or had, a selection of SubGenius adverts that I used to leave in airplane magazines. The calculator? I don’t recall using it in the last fifteen years.
Oh…I thought you needed a calculator. That’s a lot of weight and bulk to carry around for no good reason!
My advice (not that you asked for it): Keep the phone, find a desk drawer for the calculator and other related items, throw everything else in a bag and put it someplace out of the way for three to six months. Anything you didn’t need to pull out of that bag after that? Garbage bin.
Full disclosure: That photo was taken a few years ago, when Warren Ellis asked people on his Whitechapel blog to show what they carried around.
Shortly afterward I thoroughly cleaned up that bag.
Earlier in the year it started to get a bit frayed and tired. I moved what I think are the essentials to a messenger bag. Not a “fly bag,” but a collection of things I might need at work.
I still do have the calculator.
Was there any cause/effect between Ellis’ request and your realization that the bag REALLY needed to be cleaned out? 
I hadn’t given the bag a really hard look before folks on the forum started doing inventories and taking pictures. I had a camera (in the bag), so I emptied the satchel out in my cubicle floor and got to work. Finding stuff like ancient postcards and receipts convinced me to tidy up.
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