Here's the senario:
Wife at home, doing some chores on the weekend.
Me at work, pulling a double. 1500 to 0700 hours.
Wife is vacuuming a small rug by the desktop PC. (Not that our house is even remotely close to being ever that dirty!)
Wife runs ove my microphone and joystick cords with the vacuume. (now here take a little imagination. Imagine my wife, pulling the joystick cord and mic cords out from under the vacuume rotating head thingy.)
Wife puts everything back in order. Nothing appears to be wrong and the house now smells like Autumn Sunset or something like that. This was on Sunday. Now, I had no idea this had happened.
I finish a very long week of overtime, court, and regular stuff at work today. I turn on the PC. We're good. Starting to feel the stress leave my soul. I plug in the mic. Ahhhh. Getting better. I plug in the joystick to the USB port; nothing. I check the power cord. Plugged in. I re-check the USB port. Plugged in. Panic starts to set in. I start to check the cords running to the joystick. To my shock I find that the joystick cable is cut in about four different places. GOD IN HEAVEN! SOMEBODY IS GOING TO PAY!!!!!
I calm down by chugging the beer I had just opened and sit and stare at my now broken paperweight. I then get the brilliant idea that I can fix this. So down to the basement with my pride and joy cradled under my arm. (Oh a side note, this is a Microsoft Force Feedback 2 that I've owned for about 10 years and never had one issue with it.)
I break out the electrical tape, wire cutters, wire strippers, and settle in to operate. I re-splice all the wires and tape the hell out of the USB cable so that my handy work doesn't come apart. I run back up to the PC to check out the repairs.
Turned everything on and it looks like I'm back in business. I start to settle in with another beer as I go to the TA for a quick flight just to check things out. I up a Dora and help Yanksfan out with some sound recordings. The flight goes alright but I'm noticing that the force feedback now has a vibration. I turn down the force feedback with dispair. And another issue, every time I key my mic, nothing. Now since I've already experienced the splicing hell I was just in, I figured not my mic too. Yep, you guessed it. Mic is cut in four places too! WHY ME????? I chug the second beer and start eyeing the bottle of vodka on the counter.
Frustrated that my joystick is now deformed and my mic is out of commission, I resigned myself to sharing this lovely story with everyone.
Well, I now have a major dilemma. To prevent this from happening again I've decided to either get rid of my wife or the vacuume. Its a coin toss at this point.
Even more joy. The wife just got home and I asked her about the joystick. Her reply, "I didn't think it was that big of a deal. It's just a game." VODKA, RUM, TEQUILA, SOMETHING!!!! I need shots of something!!!!!
I guess that my rant is now done and I have a good buzz going on, I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to read this and let this be a warning to everyone, Make sure you have enough booze for emergencies!
Oh yeah, the reason why I started this thread is while I search Ebay for a new joystick, anyone have a suggestion for a reliable back up for the time being?
Obie:aok