At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, I like Google.
Chrome, Google Earth, Android, those funny little driverless cars. I even liked the movie “The Internship,” even though it was just a two-hour commercial for Google.
They make good stuff.
So when I read a passing mention the other day of Google pens, I got a little excited. After some searching, I tracked them down. Turns out it’s a good news/bad news type of thing. The good: Yes, Google has pens. The bad: They’re mostly just promotional ballpoints.
Still, these are some cool novelty pens. With the Google logo. If you’re into novelty pens and Google, that’s great, right?
Looking around, I saw that Google gives out pens frequently, but usually at tech conferences and occasionally to random people to celebrate Google anniversaries.
(In true geek fashion, one guy took some Google pens he got at a conference, added LED lights and a creative power system to turn them into neon-ish pens.)
And then…I stumbled onto the Google Merchandise Store. They have pens, lots and lots of pens.
At first I was a bit skeptical because of the clunky URL and the fact that I had already seen store.google.com. I thought maybe this merchandise store was one of those scam sites that sell knock-offs.
But, turns out, it’s run by GatewayCDI, which contracts with large companies to sell their logo’d merchandise. I called them in St. Louis just to confirm.
So, the pens.
There are more than a dozen different pen styles, and several Google notebook/pen combos.
The Google Maze pen has a ball and a maze inside the translucent barrel so you can try getting the ball from one end to the other.
With the Google Light Pen you can wright a note, sign a tablet or light up the dark.
The Google Tri Pen writes in black or blue ink with a built in pencil and has a handy stylus at the end.
Love You Tube then show off to your friends with these You Tube branded pens from the Google store
Obviously, getting some Google pens at a tech event would be a whole lot cooler than just buying them off the site. But, really, how many of us are A) ever going to work at Google or B) get invited to some conference hosted by them?
I mean, I’m still not sure I’ll ever understand that damn blender interview question.
In the meantime, though, I’m sure going to grab me some Google pens.
