Some of you may have noticed that it's been a while since we've dabbled with the unseen forces of the nether realms for the sake of predicting future Apple hardware. Well, to be honest, we've sort of gone off the whole idea of tapping the spirit world for insights into Apple's upcoming developments, in part because of nagging fears that consorting with mystic forces will damn our eternal souls to an eternity of fire and poking in the stygian shades below, but mostly because we got really tired of trying to clean blood and ectoplasm out of the carpet. Thank heaven for OxiClean®.

That said, we came across a new deck of Tarot cards recently, so we figured we'd try to take a peek into Apple's hardware development plans, you know, just to break them in. The only problem was that when we flipped over the pivotal "Outcome" card to divine near-term changes in Apple's product lineup, we found that we had dealt The Mouse. Now, we aren't exactly experts on the Tarot, here, but we're reasonably certain that Mickey generally isn't included as one of the Major Arcana. Serves us right for accepting a free gift from Disney's new occult paraphernalia subsidiary. (Hey, c'mon-- you knew that with Eisner at the helm, it was only a matter of time.)

At first we interpreted this to be just yet another resurrection of the age-old "Disney buys Apple" rumor, but after staring at Mickey's smiling visage for a while, Enlightenment came to us in a glow of tingling warmth. (Actually, it may have just been a mild case of acid reflux, but we're banking on the former until we need to reach for the Rolaids.) There we were, staring at Mickey's pair of goofy red shorts and its two big buttons, when suddenly it hit us-- Mouse with two buttons? Two-button mouse? Ah, so it's that other age-old rumor rearing its ugly head.

Granted, lack of experience with the product means that we can't vouch for the accuracy of the Disney Tarot, but we're getting a pretty strong vibe here that major changes are afoot. And since most of the hardcore Mac traditionalists have already perished from shock after seeing what Mac OS X did to Apple's own Human Interface Guidelines, it's not completely insane to think that Apple might finally deem the market ready to accept the first ever Mac two-button mouse. Also, Mac OS X is Apple's default-booting operating system now, and has plenty of integrated support for right-clicking. Could the Pro Mouse be on its way out, maybe within as little as a month or so? Eisner's line of kiddie divination tools certainly seems to think so.

Now, if we had drawn The Mouse crossed with the Wheel of Fortune, we'd feel pretty good about predicting a scrollwheel on that rodent (or that it would bear a striking silkscreened likeness of Vanna White), but unfortunately that's a lot less clear than we'd like. But if Disney sends over a Little Mermaid Ouija Board within the next couple of weeks, we'll let you know what we find out.