Mesanna's Weblog

I’m still not sure if this is a wind-up or not.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Open Office mouse.

The OpenOffice Mouse

Is this open sourcery at its finest? An 18 button mouse designed for gaming and, well, OpenOffice. Apple recently launched their Magic Mouse with no visible buttons, but the Penguinistas had to go one (or in this case, 18) better. The developers’ blog is pretty hilarious. When asked “Why do you hate Apple with all the burning fury of ten thousand suns?“, their answer (in part) was “To be honest, we simply don’t care that much about Apple.  Our furiously burning hatred is already far too occupied with Microsoft“.

Another couple of sterling quotes:

Well, we were certainly surprised by the, ah, enthusiasm with which people have responded to the OOMouse.  The reaction ranged from a deep sense of sexual pleasure to discussions of whether we are insane or on drugs, which makes us wonder what would have been the reaction if we had included the two side toggle switches in the original design.  You think you can’t handle 52 simultaneous on-mouse commands… try 208!

And:

To put to rest the questions that kept popping up in the comments at the various sites: yes, the OOMouse is real.  Yes, it has an absolute boatload of buttons… and they all have assignable double-clicks! Yes, we’re probably amok with insanity.  No, we’re not on drugs, at least not of late.  Yes, we think Apple’s buttonless approach is sexy, stupid, and limiting.  Look at it this way.  If you have a Magic Mouse and I have an OOMouse and we compete in any FPS, RTS, MMO, or OpenOffice.org Calc-off, you are going to be utterly obliterated.  OBLITERATED.  It won’t even be close.  So, if you want sleek and superficial style, by all means, go ahead and buy a Magic Mouse.  We don’t mind.  But if you want raw power, flexibility, and speed, speed, speed, you will do much better with an OOMouse .

The Open Office Mouse. Out early next year. Apparently. And sign me up for the OpenOffice.org Calc-off!