OPTIMASH PRIME CABABO CABLE BOX ANIMAL CABLE CLIPS

DESK TOY
OPTIMASH PRIME
Price £9.95 inc VAT
Supplier www.firebox.co.uk
Manufacturer www.hasbro.com
Some things in life make good potato head characters. Darth Vader’s
transition, for example, was as easy as parallel parking in an AT-ST walker.
The cape, black mask and added bonus of a red lightsaber just seem to
work with the egg-shaped body. Optimash Prime, the spuddy incarnation
of the legendary Autobot leader, is less appealing, however. The problem
is that while Darth Tatter is instantly recognisable, Optimash lacks the
presence, the character and the gravitas of the spuddy Sithlord. This is
a cash-in on the recently released film, and stinks of it.
Smash > >
Mash
CABLE TIDYING
CABABO CABLE BOX
Price $5 inc VAT
Supplier http://cableorganizer.com
Manufacturer http://cableorganizer.com
Anybody who’s serious about performance computing
needs two things: tidy cables, and bizarre-looking plastic
oddities on their desk. With this proven fact of life in mind,
the Cababo Cable Box is a handy accoutrement – it’s a
plastic frog around which you can wrap cables. You wrap
the cable around the central pillar between the two rigid
hemispheres of the frog’s mouth, hiding your cable mess
within the froggy body. The mouth of the frog is too narrow
for fat cables such as PC power leads, but it’s fine for
slimmer cables, such as speaker wire or USB leads.
However, it’s strictly one frog per cable, and overusing
them might cause people to think that you’re a fan of Paul
McCartney’s froggy anthem ‘We All Stand Together’.
Cableorganizer supplies to the UK, so you can use your
mighty pound against the weaker dollar; at $5 per tidied
cable, though, you’d be better off with a £5 bucket of
standard cable ties.
Wings > > > >
Beatles
CABLE TIDYING
ANIMAL CABLE CLIPS
Price $3.99 inc VAT
Supplier http://cableorganizer.com/
Manufacturer http://cableorganizer.com/
These animal-shaped objects are a selection of cutelooking clips for keeping lengths of cable close to walls
and other flat surfaces. The clips have suction cups, so
you can stick them to a smooth wall or the interior of
your case. Sticky circles are also supplied for attaching
the cable clips to rougher surfaces. With three clips per
pack, there’s generally enough to make sense of even
www.custompc.co.uk
CUSTOM KIT 048.indd 69
the most severe nest of cables. Chunky or lengthy
leads may be a problem for the clips, as they may pull
them off the wall, so using them for lengthy LAN cables
isn’t advised. However, while the clips are more
interesting than most types of cable-tidying gear,
they’re considerably more expensive than more boring
alternatives and no more effective. Still, at least we’ve
managed to match Katie’s Big in Japan column for Far
Eastern kitsch this month.
Hairball > >
Furball
September 2007
Custom PC
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11/7/07 15:35:18