Hard Wired

My husband and I had been awaiting this day eagerly for quite some time. After weeks of joyous anticipation, the blessed event finally arrived. Our MadCatz Wii component cable was successfully delivered to our doorstep.

I've been trying to get this cable since even before I got the Wii---since 11:56 P.M. on November 18th, to be exact. As I waited patiently at the front of the EB Games line with my Wii, my Twilight Princess, and my extra Wiimote and nunchuck for the clock to tick over to the 19th so that I could finally take the long-awaited items home with me, the clerk asked me if I'd like to add anything to my purchase. In addition to a copy of Marvel Ultimate Alliance, I asked for the component cables, but I was informed they wouldn't arrive until December. No problem. I decided to pick them up at Best Buy the following day after work. Best Buy turned out to be sold out, as were the Nintendo World store and all the other online outlets for such items. For several weeks, I searched high and low for an extra Wiimote for Killa and the component cables. Eventually Killa got his controller, but the cables remained elusive. I finally got a tip that the MadCatz online store had stocked the cable, and I was finally able to order the coveted connector.

Unfortunately, the joyful event immediately unfolded into a complete reworking of our entire entertainment setup. When we purchased our television, we did so with conviction after determining that the set had not one but two HDMI inputs, in a primitive time when most televisions had only one. We were looking ahead toward that beautiful day in which we would have both an HD cable box and a PS3, each in need of, each indeed deserving, its own HDMI input.

Surely, this was the television of the future.

In fact, it is so futuristic that it has no need of primitive component inputs. Surely, one component input would be enough in this great future---in this, the best of all possible worlds. And it was, when the only component connection was from the DVD player to the television. But now the Wii, too, was demanding its turn to bask in the warm glow of the component connection.

In the end, we relegated our DVD player to composite with a whispered promise to upgrade to S-Video in the near future. Unfortunately, our surround sound is also driven through the DVD player, and the MadCatz cable doesn't have enough slack to connect the two audio connectors more than 2 to 3 inches away from the three video connectors. This was eventually circumvented by some arcane process---one involving a completely separate cable that Hubby produced from the ether of our storage closet---that I don't fully understand. All in a day's work for an engineering whiz like my husband.