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Hacking a Wii cable.
One time, we went up to the mountains for a long weekend and to celebrate my wife's cousin's wife's 30th birthday. She was looking for a relaxing weekend, and her only real wish was to play Guitar Hero on the Wii on her special night.
So I gathered up the Wii, the Guitar Hero disk, all of the accessories, the power supply, and so forth, and brought it all to the mountain. We open a few beers, get the BBQ fired up, and after several hours we're ready to play Guitar Hero. I plug in power to the Wii, get the controllers ready ... and realize that I forgot to bring the dongle that plugs the Wii into the TV.
My wife's cousin's wife is a neat person, and I really didn't want to let her down on her her big birthday. So I go through all of my backup cables ... and there's nothing even similar to this weird one-off Wii-specific cable. I make a "hail Mary" to the closest Radio Shack (embedded in what must be the last DVD rental place in the mountains). Nothing. Grocery store. Nothing. A couple of random gas stations with dusty racks of RCA cables. Nothing.
I get back to the cabin, tail between my legs, determined to make this work. Off to the internet for schematics. Check. Grab some supplies: an old cardboard box, four twist ties from holiday presents (the kind with metal in the middle, covered in plastic), an old audio cable, and (natch) duct tape. With another beer in hand, I sit down and assemble the whole thing into a super-janky plug.
And it works!
She plays Guitar Hero for the evening, music fills the cabin, and joy is to be had all around.
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