well i dunno if mickeys is the real technical term but thats what its called in allegro... anyway on to the question how in winapi/directx/opengl/etc/etc/etc do i get mouse mickeys (mouse mickeys are how far the mouse moved since the last time u checked even if the movement would put it off the screen)

if im understanding you correctly then all you need to do is

psuedo code:
float MouseX, MouseY, CurrentX, CurrentY;
if(CurrentX != MouseX)
{
findDistance(CurrentX, MouseX);
}
if(CurrentY != MouseY)
{
findDistance(CurrentY, MouseY);
}

and everytime they stop moving the mouse replace mouseX with currentX ect

The scary thing is that "mickey" is the correct term.

Use what Prod basically showed you, but remember to move the cursor back to the center every time.

[Resist Windows XP''s Invasive Production Activation Technology!]

ahh move it to the center every frame i get it

you are a genius

Ok, we got mickeys and we got FERNANDO-BRASIL screaming of Gimbal lock..

I''m thinking Gimbal lock is the weird thing where my rotation scheme is setup like this (incorrect newby way :-D):

//(neat mickey grabber)
GetCursorPos(&movementMousePosition);
SetCursorPos(320,200);
camera->angle.x += (float)(movementMousePosition.y-200)/5.0f;
camera->angle.y += (float)(movementMousePosition.x-320)/5.0f;

//(Gimbal lock causer? is that even the right term?)
ogl.oglRotate (camera->angle);
OpenGL::oglRotate (TEVECTOR3D rot)
{
glRotatef(-rot.y, 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f);
glRotatef(-rot.x, 1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f);
glRotatef(-rot.z, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f);
}

///////

At first, I move my mouse up and down, and the screen rotates up and down. After spinning around a whole bunch, pretty soon moving my mouse up and down makes the screen rotate left and right, not good! "Ack! I need quaternions!!!" screams the newb.

Ok, yes, I''m woggling around in 3d space not confined to a 2D plane like in a FPS, and, oh sure, I have no knowledge whatsoever of what my actual matrices are looking like. Isn''t there an easy way to just rotate myself up when I move the mouse up, even if I happen to be looking sideways and it should actually be adding to the x rotation? How do I know? Matrix multiplication? Is that where this is going? Am I doomed to manually manipulating my matrix? Post links to helpful sites if this is the case :-)