Year of the Mouse

Yeah, I know.  It's not the year of the rat.

But my mouse is dying, and it may be time to replace it.  It's a Logitech M-S35 (model 1) and I've used it since 1996 or 1997.  I thought I've only been using it 12 years, as suggested by the lame title, but that makes it near 15 years old, and it's been used constantly, 8-12 hours a day, since.  It could have 40,000 hours on it, but I'd have to guess at the number of clicks.  Had I not started playing Quake in 1997, though, I can assure you it'd be a much lower number.

This mouse has a very important feature:  three buttons.  Most people don't know the value of a true three-button mouse;  most manufacturers don't as well, considering the crap they're calling a three-button mouse now - as if that bizarre wheelie device that can occasionally function as button three can actually be called a button.  It's the 50-km Spare Tire of the mouse button world.  If it can't corner at 70k/h in the 40k twisty part of the old highway, then, well, it's not a tire, and if it can't reliably, repeatedly be found and clicked quickly and easily every time, and without rolling that fucking rolly thing around, then it's not a third button.

What's good is a real third button?  It's become completely abused in software, so the loser button often is used to do idiotic things like open or close windows, stupid stuff like that; but its purpose is varied even without the sidecar of add-on crap:

• in mozilla, you use it to paste
• or to close a tab
• or open a new tab with a link,
• Sometimes in Mozilla it can be used for gestures.
• In terminal sessions, you use it to paste.
• In order term windows it's the way to use the scrollbar, normally quasi-locked.
• In WoW, it's one of the 12 ways you can walk forward;  it's also the easiest.
• and  a bajillion more routines I can't remember.

So there I was.  I was considering the HP DY651A as a replacement, but we're in a spending freeze at home right now and since I haven't checked in a week, HP probably stopped selling it like everything else more than a week old.  Luckily, I have 3 standby units waiting around for the imminent death of the original mouse.   And one for spare parts.  I'm prepared.