Is this all starting to sound a bit selfish, inconsiderate, self-absorbed? Maybe, but consider this, fellow gearheads. We, too, make our own sacrifices for the great unwired. Don't we deserve a little consideration? After all, how many times have you spent the holiday buying season shopping for that special someone, wandering aimlessly through Victoria's Secret along with all the other poor goons, holding a silk thingie in your paw like it's nuclear sludge and looking to all the world like a retarded floorsweeper? The 19-ish salesgirls approach. "Do you know what you're looking for?" they query, as if they don't know the answer to that one. "Is she about my size?" Yeah, right! If she were about your size, lady, then what would she be doing with a pot-bellied, balding geek like me?

Microsoft, common pricing, $60-$70

Bill Gates is the only one left on earth who thinks Microsoft is a great innovator. The amoral rugrats of Redmond really just follow the same grand American tradition of thousands of corporations that preceded them. That is, we've heard they find someone else's good idea, then they steal it (or just buy the company if they're feeling honest) and rebrand it for themselves. Logitech has been making better mice than MS for years, adding wheels and extra buttons, but finally, Bill's merry band of "innovators" has come up with something genuinely new.

The Intellimouse uses an electric eye to track your hand movements optically 1500 times per second. As a result, aiming in games is flawless. Only the most Ritalin-addled Quake freaks will experience the unit's one flaw: it freaks out when you really jerk it about in FPS games. Better still, the Intellimouse's ass glows, and you can't say that about many desktop peripherals. Also, the mouse itself is enormous. Small-handed men and most women may feel as if they are trying to straddle an elephant to get at the fourth button. It's worth the trip, however. I assign mine to the Win98 and browser "Back" button, which gets me out of that adult Web page quickly, before the wife gets an eyeful and asks those trick questions. "Do you really think she's attractive?" "Do you like them that big?" By the way, these are like that final simulator test Captain Kirk had to take at the Starfleet Academy. There are no acceptable ways out of the conundrum. It's a test of character. You could try answering "Not nearly as attractive as you, my dear." But it only brings a roll of the eyes. Better to put this mouse on the Christmas list. You may get around the whole damned conversation.