On Our Desk - 12

On Our Desk – 12

It has happened again. The tide of gizmos and gadgets and thingymabobs and whatyamacallits has risen and flooded the bit-tech offices with a barrelful of assorted tics and tacks.

And what do we do when the high water mark starts to get dangerously near to head height and we come close to drowning in the ocean of bits?

We round ‘em up, that’s what. We corral them together in a pen, dump them all on my desk and then enjoy the unusual once-in-a-while turnaround where Tim’s desk isn’t the messiest thing on the face of the planet and mine is. Everything gets sifted through, nothing is left behind.

So, what do we have in the sheep pen this time? What strange stories detail how each of these technologically bastard children arrived in our arms?

Well, first up we have a selection of USB-powered flexible armed fans. The story behind these? Well, on a recent trip to Hong Kong Harry ran into a sage old lady in the market who promised him wealth, fame and thrilling night of bedroom gymnastics if he would venture on a long and arduous quest to retrieve the Black Jade Pearl from the hands of the Afro Samurai.


“Uh, no thanks love,” said Harry. “But I will take a couple of those USB fans you’re selling. The guys in the office will ROFL for weeks at the fabulous mistranslations on the box.” (Yes, he said "roffle").

Next up we have Razer mousemat that’s been lounging around the office for a fair old while, underneath my mouse mainly. The Razer destructor claims to be the best thing to put your mouse on since sliced bread was first invented, though it can’t claim to taste as good.

After that we have another gift of Harry’s – a pair of Antec LED TriCool 120mm fans. Where did Harry get these little babies? Well, when he was out at the i34 LAN event Harry got approached by a pretty young woman at the Antec booth who promised him a night of powerful USB powered fans with flexible arms.

“Uh, no thanks love,” said Harry. “But I will take a whole load of wealth, fame and a night of bedroom gymnastics.”

Unfortunately, all he got was these fans.

Lastly, but not leastly, we have a new high capacity USB memory stick – the 32GB OCZ Rally2, which has all the usual high-speed trimmings and a lifetime warranty. Sounds good, and USB memory sticks like this are the bread and butter of the On Our Desk feature and we’ve looked at all different types and capacities over the years.

So, we’re well stocked, locked and ready to mock – so let’s get down to the reviews and get into the details about what actually is on our desk…