What type of mouse do you use?

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Well?

I use a Logitech Trackman, which is a trackball with the ball positioned under your right thumb, it works great for me, though many people have trouble using trackballs.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Really cheap Logitech (w00t!) two button optical. 2 buttons, 1 scroll wheel, 1 laser. A man's mouse.

[Ice]

I use a dell, made by logitech, wireless optical

[Crazed Rabbit]

Cheap Microsoft Optical. I miss my old ball mouse, which was much more accurate for fps's. Unfortunately, it started tripping out and registering movement only when it felt like it.

Crazed Rabbit

[Phatose]

A nice logitech MX-500. Gaming mouse, I suppose, the extra buttons do come in handy in FPSes, but it's nice for just browsing too. Wasn't all that expensive, like 20 some bucks.

[Sjakihata]

Logitech MX-500

[Adrian II]

Gah! Mouses are boring and discussion of them is about the most inane activity I can think of. It should be added to the following lists of major middle-age irritants courteousy provided by The Telegraph's Mr Utley and one of his readers.


Middle age? It's a state of constant irritation
By Tom Utley
(Filed: 09/09/2005)

The average Briton, according to a survey published this week, believes that middle age begins at 49 and lasts until 65. God knows why anybody should find that interesting, but the University of Kent, which conducted the survey for Age Concern, seems to believe that we should. A little more interesting, in my view, is what exactly we mean by middle age - but that is a matter upon which the survey throws very little light.

When people speak of middle age, they are clearly not thinking of the onset of physical decay. For most of us, that begins much earlier than 49 (you don't come across many professional athletes in their forties, after all - or even in their thirties). It may be true that it is not until we nudge 50 that we start to become fully aware of the damage done by the years to our waists and hairlines, our eyesight, hearing and joints. But middle age, surely, is much more a state of mind than a physical condition.

I date the beginning of my dear elder brother's middle age to round about his 18th birthday, when he gave up a career in the theatre to become first a political agent for the Conservative Party and then a barrister. I like to think that I clung on to my youth rather longer, by which I mean that I was still behaving like an irresponsible student until I was well into my forties, staying up for most of the night and sleeping long into the day.

Even today, at 51, I much prefer sprawling on the floor like a teenager to sitting in an armchair - although getting up again afterwards is becoming more of an effort as the years roll by.

But I can no longer deny that I am middle-aged. Just lately, I have found myself in a state of more or less constant irritation with the world and its inhabitants, which is surely the defining mark of middle age. The smallest things set me off. For example, why has somebody in the pronunciation unit of the BBC decided that New Orleans should be pronounced "New Orleens", without so much as a hint of that antepenultimate "a"?

As a general principle, I am all in favour of anglicising foreign names - Reams for Rheims, Florence for Firenze etc. I well remember my late father rebuking me when I pronounced Marseilles the French way: "Marsay, boy? The word is Marsails. You don't say 'Paree', do you?" But, for reasons that I don't understand, New Orleens annoys me like mad, and I deliver a pompous speech to the television whenever I hear it. I snarl, too, every time Huw Edwards utters that patronising, folksy little "bye for now" after he has said that it is time to join our "news teams nationwide".

Come to think of it, almost everything on the television these days irritates me. I sit through hours of gameshows and makeover programmes for the sheer pleasure of being enraged by their banality. On the Tube platform in the morning, I curse when a voice comes over the public address system to announce, as it does every day: "Ladies and gentlemen, a good service is operating on the Jubilee line this morning." Every time I hear it, I think: "I'll be the judge of that." The other day, I heard myself saying it aloud, and got some very funny looks from my fellow commuters.

More annoying even than London Underground's boasts of running a good service was a message that a disembodied female voice kept repeating earlier in the summer: "Ladies and gentlemen, during the current spell of hot weather passengers are advised to carry a bottle of water at all times." Oh shut up, I kept thinking (although I hope I didn't say it aloud). I don't need a nanny any more.

Over the past few weeks, I have been fizzing with fury over those perfectly disgusting advertisements for Andrex Moistened, which have defaced even the hallowed pages of The Daily Telegraph. You know the ones I mean. They show photographs of young models' bums, with, superimposed on their underwear, the repulsive slogan "Could you be cleaner?" A couple of years ago, I wouldn't have thought twice about them. But now I find myself speechless with rage at the monstrous impertinence of that filthy-minded advertising copywriter, inviting me to muse at the breakfast table about how thoroughly I have wiped my bottom.

With every week that passes, my list of pet hates grows longer. "Your call is important to us"; silicone implants; "thank you for not smoking"; Charles Clarke; cold callers; Ann Widdecombe; "celebrity" anything; health and safety; Yasmin Alibhai-Brown; "am I alone in thinking?"; work; the Australian interrogative inflection at the end of a statement; human rights; "for my sins"; James Blunt; "web page not found"; the Arts Council; "you're welcome"; David Blunkett; "perfectly good old-fashioned English word"; the Commission for Racial Equality; Dale Winton; media studies; "prestigious"; Patricia Hewitt; peanut butter; "so I was, like, 'whaddayamean?' "; oversized jeans that expose their wearers' underpants; the Animal Liberation Front; "in a very real sense"; teenagers who never hang up their towels after a bath; Hillary Clinton; very fat people who walk, very slowly, three abreast, along the narrowest pavements; happy-clappies; opening credits that keep flashing up on the screen, 20 minutes after the start of the film; silly surveys, claiming that the average Briton believes that middle age begins at 49 and ends at 65…

I have a friend who announced on his 40th birthday that, from then on, he would allow himself one Right-wing thought every day. That is another aspect of middle age: the older we get, on the whole, the less faith we put in the power of the state to right the nation's wrongs, and the more annoyed we become by the state's demands on us. By the year 2041, we were told this week, 37 per cent of the population will be over 60 - most of us, no doubt, ranting at our television sets and cursing the nanny state. There, perhaps, lies the Conservative Party's best hope of re-election.
Sir - To Tom Utley's admirable list of things that excite rage in the middle-aged (Opinion, September 9) I add: people who cannot use the apostrophe properly; people who wear a tie with their top button undone; people who leave floral tributes at the site of a murder/road accident; the Prime Minister smiling; the signature tune of Neighbours; the concept that it is desirable, even permissible, for single women in general and lesbians in particular to acquire sperm to enable them to have children; people cycling on pavements; cars with open windows from which emanates loud noise masquerading as music; and television advertisements for injury lawyers.

Anthony C. Payne, St Bees, Cumbria

[Marcellus]

Just a standard logitech optical (wireless) mouse. I think that it's perfectly good at its job, I don't see any need to get a 'better' mouse.

[bmolsson]

I got the little "stick" on my IBM notebook. Don't what it is called....

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Adrian it's not that boring, there is a huge difference between using a ball/optical mouse and a trackball. Blame Beirut he got a new mouse and made me wonder how many people have trackballs!

[Beirut]

My dearest AdrianII,

Though I agree the discussion of mice is less than enthralling, the importance of the little creatures does become apparent once they cease to function and your $3000 super-computer becomes a paperweight until you find another one.

Banality often equals indispensability.

[Adrian II]

Adrian it's not that boring, there is a huge difference between using a ball/optical mouse and a trackball. :sleeping:





:grin2:

[Mikeus Caesar]

I use a Logitech MX-150. It's blue, and therefore better than yours! And also, it's optical, but uses a wire which means that it doesn't fall asleep like other optical mice. The superiority just keeps on coming!

[Adrian II]

My dearest AdrianII,

Though I agree the discussion of mice is less than enthralling, the importance of the little creatures does become apparent once they cease to function and your $3000 super-computer becomes a paperweight until you find another one.My dear indispensable Beirut, there is always another.
:hat:

[Beirut]

My dear indispensable Beirut, there is always another.
:hat:

My dearest AdrianII,

Indeed, that there is always another is the very essence of banality. But that there is not another right then at the moment and the ensuing paperweightedness of the computer until one is acquired is the very essence of indispensability.

When at o' dark thirty, in the midst of great computational activities your mouse fails to squeak, t'is a mighty piece of cheese you would offer to have another at hand.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Cheap Dell mouse, 2 buttons, a mouse wheel, optical. Not a bad mouse for being so cheap, it's not bad for FPS games either.

[Adrian II]

My dearest AdrianII,

Indeed, that there is always another is the very essence of banality. But that there is not another right then at the moment and the ensuing paperweightedness of the computer until one is acquired is the very essence of indispensability.My dear essential Beirut,

right beside my computer sits a box containing several mouses of varying technical composition and outer appearance, one of which I daresay will do the job should the need arise to replace one's current mouse for reasons of aesthetics or malfunction. Allow me to elaborate. Besides several mouses of the pedestrian variety, said box contains such gems of modern computational design as an M&M mouse in the shape of a smiling piece of candy with tiny hands and feet; a mouse in the shape of a wave, named after a sports facility called The Wave which one frequented in a previous life; a mouse in the shape of a Smurf; as well as, inevitably, the ultimate 'fun' mouse in the shape of a fully erect male organ plus testes which has been donated by one of the good merchantmen of Amsterdam. It is amazing how many mouses gather on one's desk without the incentive of a single chunk of cheese lying about.
:toff:

[Kanamori]

Now, you are contributing to the discussion!

[Adrian II]

Now, you are contributing to the discussion!I am not. :snobby:

[JAG]

Microsoft optical mouse - great for gaming and such like.

[Beirut]

I am not. :snobby:

Yes you are. And a blisteringly interesting contribution to the conversation at that. ~;p

I hereby declare Lord AdrianII as the board's Mouse Guru. All future mouse questions should be directed directly at him.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

For those who voted trackball, what type do you use?

What's even worse than having your mouse die is having the batteries in your keyboard die, when there are no batteries to be found! That's why I'm ordering a new wired media keyboard to replace my old wireless one.

I agree with Beirut! All hail AdrianII lord of the Mice! ~:cheers:

[Viking]

A wireless Logitech MX 700.


PS. For the frontroom!

[Azi Tohak]

I like chocolate mousse. Lemon isn't bad either.

Azi

[Reverend Joe]

I vote Chocolate mousse as well. I agree with Adrian- this is inane.

One point, though- if your ball mouse starts having trouble moving, just clean out the rollers on the inside by scraping all the crap off of them. Makes the mouse good as new. Also, make sure your mousepad doesn't wear too thin- recently, my mousepad of six years wore too thin, and the rubber underneath began collecting on the mouse, and I had to discard both of them.

Just a little more boredom for everyone.

[Adrian II]

One point, though- if your ball mouse starts having trouble moving, just clean out the rollers on the inside by scraping all the crap off of them. Makes the mouse good as new. Also, make sure your mousepad doesn't wear too thin- recently, my mousepad of six years wore too thin, and the rubber underneath began collecting on the mouse, and I had to discard both of them.Blast - I had better play along lest this thread goes the way of my infamous Cat Litter Poll.

So ehm - Meatwad, is it? I usually step on on the darn thing, you know, slap it about a bit. Works wonders. And lots of chocolate mousse of course, the way Cookie used to make it when one was still a young AdrianII.
Tata! :toff:

[Kagemusha]

enhancement sledge-hammer is the best and final solution to all electronics related problems.If ones mouse dont co-operate just smash it with the enhancement sledge-hammer. :scastle:

[Sjakihata]

or buy a cat and put it next to the mouse (subtly hinting the threat to the mouse, should it choose not to co-operate)

[Adrian II]

ADDENDA

Middle-aged angst

Sir - Tom Utley (Opinion, September 9) failed to
mention television presenters who run sentences
together as they ignore full stops and then pause for
breath at totally inappropriate places.

lan Philpott, Hindhead, Surrey.


Sir - I can't resist adding FCUK to the list.

Jane Sullivan, Cleeve Prior, Worcs


Sir - At 51, Tom Utley lists his pet hates. At 74, I
find it easier to list the things I find tolerable.

Stanley Smith, Cam Dursley, Glos

[Mikeus Caesar]

My dearest AdrianII,

Though I agree the discussion of mice is less than enthralling, the importance of the little creatures does become apparent once they cease to function and your $3000 super-computer becomes a paperweight until you find another one.

Banality often equals indispensability.

I find it handy to keep a spare mouse around in the event that your dear $3000 super-computer is rendered useless. Surely everyone else does?

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I keep a cheap dell ball mouse around in case my $1,000 dollar computer is rendered useless by my mouse dying but I've never owned a $3,000 computer. I'll make sure to have a spare ready for Adrian's though.