I’ve often said that the only things Microsoft does right are mice. I’ve had an Intellimouse Explorer - the old style, with the big thumb buttons - for quite a while, and I’ve liked it immensely. But, with the advent of Exposé, I’ve felt an unavoidable compulsion to upgrade to a mouse with one more button, one shiny, eminently-pressable button which I could assign to Exposé and then, you know, push. Occasionally.

So I set off to Best Buy, fully intent on purchasing something out of Logitech’s MX line of mice. They have a buttons above and below the scroll wheel, including one which seemed to be evidence of divine intent insofar as its apparent perfection for use with Exposé.

Then I played with it for a few minutes and bought a new Microsoft mouse. Why? The Logitech mice, for lack of a better term, suck. It’s completely impossible to hit any of the three buttons lined up with the scroll wheel unless you’re some sort of alien life form or an hideous mutant who lacks bones.

Microsoft, on the other hand, has refined their existing kick-ass designs by eliminating the clicking from the scroll wheel entirely (it takes some getting used to, but now that I have ordinary mice just seem ordinary) and allowing it to tilt. I kid you not. You want to scroll right, just tilt the scroll wheel to the right. Pretty sweet.

Anyway, I strongly encourage anyone to take a look at the new Wireless Intellimouse Explorer. Where in this context, ‘anyone’ of course means the three other people on Earth who care this much about their mouse and found this page by Googline around and checking all the results.

I also strongly encourage everyone to make fun of Logitech, but since I doubt anybody out there is searching for “make fun of Logitech” I don’t think that recommandation has quite the same breadth to it. But then, stranger things have happened. Like, for instance, Burning Man. And that’s annual.

Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say here is, in a nutshell, nothing.