I love my desk, don’t get me wrong. But it is not set up very well for computing. There’s a roll-out keyboard holder, true, but not really anywhere good to put the mouse. I had it up on the top of the desk next to the computer, but ever since I’ve started doing web design and using the mouse a lot during the day, I’ve been getting pretty bad pain in my wrist (okay, maybe the unfortunately small Nintendo DS that I’ve been crouched over for hours every day wasn’t helping, either).

In any case, after eyeballing the amount of room I had on the keyboard rollout, I realized I simply couldn’t fit a mouse there unless I wanted to be constantly tracking. I decided to look into trackballs; they’re stationary, after all.

Turns out that it’s barely worth the plural. Local stores carry, at most, two of them; both wired, both Logitech, both very red and speckly looking. Okay, whatever. I bought the one for the thumb (Logitech’s optical Trackman Wheel), because I wasn’t willing to make a gamble on an online trackball that I’d never got to try.

Wrist pain pretty much instantly went away. I’m a fan of the trackball. I’ll probably develop some horrific thumb problem, but who cares? The trackball lets me hold my hand at a more natural angle than the mouse ever did and, even better, lets me keep it entirely relaxed. It was a bit squiggly at first, but it only took me about a day of heavy use to get used to it.

Two thumbs up. Well, maybe one thumb up, and one kind of limply sprawled nearby panting at all the extra work it’s had to do.