The Mouse is Dead. Long Live the Mouse.

After years of faithful service, my trusty Logitech MX Revolution (no longer made; replaced with the Logitech Performance Mouse MX) is finally going in the Great Peripheral Storage Closet in the Sky. The scroll-wheel has begun its death throes, sometimes scrolling up when I’m trying to scroll down, sometimes not scrolling at all, and so forth. Twice now I’ve inadvertently cranked the volume all the way up when trying to crank it down; I’m very lucky not to have blown my speakers out. The battery has also become anemic and unstable, sometimes outright refusing to charge for extended periods of time. Actually, I’ve decided to avoid wireless desktop input devices from here on. I’m not using my computer from across the room, so I don’t really need wireless, and batteries and charging are entirely too much of a hassle. One less wireless radio transceiver pair pouring radiation into the air won’t be a bad thing, either.

I can’t really complain about the hardware failing, as I’ve had this mouse at least four years now and used it for 8+ hours every day, but I thought this a good opportunity to try something new. I’ve read that trackballs are supposed to be more ergonomic, so I decided to try one. I went looking for four buttons (I’m a geek; two buttons is simply not enough) and a scrolling mechanism of some kind, and settled with the Kensington Expert Mouse, which has the most positive reviews of the models I looked at. One of my uncles actually had one of these when I was much, much younger (like, 12 or something), so there’s the added cachet of knowing I’m getting a very mature product. Another plus: trackballs don’t move. No more need for mousepad that takes up right half of my desk. Space!

Should be here Saturday. I’m excited. (Yes, you’re allowed to call me a dork for being excited about getting a mouse. I should put that on the About page.)

Edit (January 28, 2010, 2126 CDT): Edited some typos and added some clarification (and some missing words … oops).

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