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Agg gave me the Mouse Bungee. "Review this" he said. "What the hell is that?" I replied. "I don't know, it's meant to keep your mouse cable out of the way or something, I don't know how it works." Umm, righteo. Yeah. My immediate thought was "They'll invent any old crap to make a buck these days" as I casually tossed it into my bag. Less than an hour later, I thought to myself "Hang on, I've been *waiting* for someone to invent this!"
What is it?
Put simply, it's a lump of
metal and plastic designed to keep your mouse cable out of the
way. It has two flexible cable holding bits with a plastic clip
at the top. It also has a rather large and heavy metal ball in
the base and 3 plastic grippy pads underneath to give it stability.
How do you use
it?
Well, that takes a (small)
amount of figuring out.Here are the 3-step instructions:
I think it was designed mostly with a flat desk in mind to keep the mouse cable elevated thus reducing drag - those instructions indicate this and it's been reviewed on a few other sites being used in a similar fashion. However, I found it works just as well UNDER a normal home computer desk:
As you can see, my mouse cable runs down under my keyboard shelf and past my motorcycle boot. When I come home and throw my boots under the desk as shown, they typically hit my mouse cable and pin it back against the lower desk shelf. The mouse cable always falls down into such a vulnerable position through normal use and I end up having to yank it out of the boot's stranglehold.
This is what it looks like under my desk with the Bungee installed. Everything is now nice and neat and out of the way. This is the kind of thing I've needed since way back, even before I had my boots. Reason being it also stops the weight of the mouse cable dragging my mouse forwards. At one point I got a cordless mouse to get rid of this "cable yank", but now with the bungee I don't need such drastic measures. The best cordless mouse doesn't have the resolution of the best corded mouse and typically less buttons, so for someone experiencing problems similar to mine the Mouse Bungee is probably the best solution.
On a "normal" single
tiered desk (most office-style desks) you'd be putting the Bungee
about 30cm behind the mouse. In this position it will directly
lift the cable off the desk and keep it out of the way. On my
keyboard shelf the mouse cable is still hitting the edge of the
shelf but because the amount of cable between mouse and edge is
so small there's no noticeable drag. There's no other way to use
it on a desk like mine unless you run the mouse on the top (main)
level of your desk, in which case you'll end up with RSI from
elevated wrists.
What else
can I do with it?
Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, but at MPU I was using it as an M&M catapult.
The flexible rods aren't very powerful (being more flexible than
springy) but I did manage to get an M&M to gently arc over
roughly a 2 metre distance across the desk. This is something
to consider for LANs, where puerile distractions such as this
are typically required at some intervals. Combined with my red-eye
blinding mouse, I'm more than set up for some
serious opponent distraction at my next LAN.
Is it worth
it?
It depends on if you feel your mouse cable interfering with your
usage or not. It's a very subjective thing, people (such as my
dad) are perfectly happy with a crappy $5 mouse and a cable as
stiff as chicken wire. Personally, that slight cable drag from
its weight annoys the hell out of me and this makes the device
very worthwhile to me. The RRP is US$15 or so which puts it at
about A$30 which seems a reasonable price for a high quality and
useful item like this.
Pros:
Makes your mouse cable effectively weightless, gives "cordless
mouse" feeling.
Can be used to fire M&M's at low velocity.
Cons:
People might think you have one just for wank value even though
it's really useful.
Cannot be used for shooting M&Ms while a mouse cable is in
it.