illionКстати, в твоем примере по идее было бы достаточно alert('You clicked item #' + this.i_value) вместо e = e||window.event и т.д.
Это workaround для какой-то версии IE, если не ошибаюсь.

illion,

The value of this within the handler
It is often desirable to reference the element from which the event handler was fired, such as when using a generic handler for a series of similar elements. When attaching a function using addEventListener() the value of this is changed—note that the value of this is passed to a function from the caller.

In the example above, the value of this within modifyText() when called from the click event is a reference to the table 't'. This is in contrast to the behavior that occurs if the handler is added in the HTML source:

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<table id="t" onclick="modifyText();">
. . .
The value of this within modifyText() when called from the onclick event will be a reference to the global (window) object.

Internet Explorer
In IE you have to use attachEvent rather than the standard addEventListener. To support IE, the example above can be modified to:

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if (el.addEventListener){
el.addEventListener('click', modifyText, false);
} else if (el.attachEvent){
el.attachEvent('onclick', modifyText);
}
There is a drawback to attachEvent, the value of this will be a reference to the window object instead of the element on which it was fired.