Thanks for all the recommendations everybody. I picked up an Intellimouse clone made by Kensington, because it doesn't feel quite as bloated, and it had the extra buttons the Logitech mouse didn't. I think functionality was a fair compromise for how ugly this thing looks. ( picture here http://kensington.com/products/pro_mic_d1463.html
the lockup was dramatically reduced, it only took me about a 1/2 second (pretty much neglible) and it didn't wait for the entire page to download before showing content. i like it. :love
cyberarmy used to have a javascript that scrambled the hell out of your html source so everything was ampersands and numbers. they may still have it up, but hell if i can find it.