Why does 2009 suck so much?

Is this some kind of sick, f*cking joke? I mean, really, what the hell? 2009 has thus far built itself up to be the year where nothing seems to go right. What now you ask?

My Xbox 360 just red ringed!!!

First we lose almost all of our money because we moved to a new state and the economy went to sh*t. Then I get a kidney stone and now have $2500 in hospital bills to pay. Then our cat gets sick and we have to pay $450 to find out he'd be better off dead. Next came the realization that Wife had accumulated far more in school loans than we had expected and it's now time to start paying them off.

AND NOW THIS!!

Here I am, building a joystick for my 360, and the damn thing breaks before I even get to use it. CRAP!! This is ridiculous! Now I'm going to be without the 360 altogether for a few weeks while I sit and wait for Microsoft to fix it. We're already hurting for funds as it is, but I know they're going to make me pay to send it in. THIS SUCKS!!

AARRRGGG!!!

UPDATE -- I tried the famous "towel trick" on my 360 and while it appeared to work, that wasn't entirely the case. The console will now turn on and get into the dashboard, but it locks after about a minute. I'm just going to send it in. Oh, and it looks like I don't have to pay for shipping, so at least that's something.

Fuuuuuuuck!!

If you're unsure of which emotion I was going for with this post's title, it's that of frustration with a touch of anger. Allow me to elaborate.

A little over a week ago I received what I thought was my total bill from my unfortunate visit to the emergency room last month. I couldn't have been more wrong. This is going to sting and sting bad.

We just received another one of those pre-bills that promptly says in bold letters, "THIS IS NOT A BILL!" but does still tell you how much money you're about to lose in the coming days when the real bill arrives. I thought the $338 bill was bad, but this one is for $1,175! SHIT!!

It gets worse...

I then signed up for an account with my health care provider and low and behold there is not one, but two more bills sitting there! One "small" bill for $175 and another much larger bill for $860! CRAP!!

So for those out there who haven't been adding this up in their head, we still owe $2,210. And if these bills are at all like the last one, they'll want it paid in full ASAP.

There's just no way. =\

Prime, paint, drill, screw.

Progress on the joystick has been slow, but anything is better than nothing. I've primed and painted all of the wood, and I recently screwed the frame together. It looks alright, but if this was a project for wood shop, I'd probably earn a C- at best. It pretty much boils down to one piece of wood that got cut at a slight angle, causing about a 1/8" gap in the final product. It's not really a big deal but it is noticeable. If I ever make another joystick I'll be sure to use a table saw.

What's next? I'm still waiting for my joystick and buttons to arrive from Lizard Lick. They are still trying to catch up on old orders, so I won't start asking questions for at least another two weeks. Once the parts arrive I'll start drilling holes in my sheet of polycarbonate. I want to make sure the buttons are spaced far enough apart before I start drilling the rest of the holes. Once everything is in place I'll move on to soldering the arcade components to the Xbox 360 controller.

There's still quite a bit to do, but I'm getting there. It may look like ass when it's finished, but I'm confident it'll play well.

Sleep well, little Libra.

Yesterday will hopefully go down as the worst Mother's Day I'll ever have to endure. Libra, our 13 month old kitty, had to be put to sleep due to kidney failure.

We estimate he first got sick last Wednesday, the 6th, when he threw-up the new food that Grandma had purchased for the cats. It seemed like a simple rejection of the food (as it was the first day), so we made sure to pickup a bag of the food he was used to. All seemed pretty okay as he had no trouble eating at the next feeding time. By Friday he appeared almost back to normal until he began to vomit again in the evening.

More vomiting ensued over the next two days. You could tell he was getting weaker as he wasn't moving very much on his own. He seemed very uncomfortable and he would cry a little whenever we picked him up. I started to think back over the past few days, and I realized that not only had he probably not eaten since Thursday morning, but I couldn't remember the last time I saw him in the litter box. We started carrying him to his water bowl, then to the litter box, then back to the bed. It seemed to be the only way to get him around the house.

The crazy thing during all of this was how much he tried to uphold or maintain his regular personality. He was still trying to cuddle with us and he really didn't want to be left alone. By Sunday evening we were very concerned, but being as poor as we are, we were hesitant to take him to an emergency hospital. Upon vomiting one last time, we decided money or no money, Libra needed help.

From the outside, it was obvious to them and everyone else that he was weak, sad, and dehydrated. Other than that, internal tests would need to be run to determine his condition. Their initial estimate for all the test they wanted to do was a minimum of $900, maximum $930. Not much of a difference if you ask me. We said no and asked them to reanalyze what they think needs to be done. We decided to just start chipping away at the list of tests, trying to analyze his symptoms closer in order to determine which test or exam to do next. They decided to start with the leukemia test, and when that came back negative, I asked that they next move on to checking his urinary tract. I had noticed that his urine was a little foamy in the litter box, as well as the stream coming out of him was almost paper thin. He was definitely struggling.

Well, his urinary tract was perfectly fine, but they did notice that his urine was "very deluded" (whatever that meant). They next decided to check his kidneys, and that's when it all fell apart. Libra's kidneys were failing, and they said it was just about the worst case they had ever seen in such a young cat. We were told that the condition of his kidneys were that of a 16+ year old cat. They asked if we had any lilies in the house as they are extremely toxic for cats. We have before, but not for a few weeks and Libra wasn't ever the one to eat flowers. The bottom-line was that something toxic got into his system within the last five to six days and there really wasn't anything that could be done to save him. Rather than let him suffer, we made the decision to put him to sleep. What we thought was going to be a good 15+ years of joy turned into a mere 13 months. Wife held him as they injected the overdose of anesthesia, and we watched him slowly drift off. We were both in tears.

This morning we could tell that Taurus, his brother from the same litter, was starting to realize something wasn't right. He was meowing slightly different as though asking where Libra was. No matter where he looked, his search always came up short. There's one more older cat in the house, but we'll definitely get another kitten for Taurus once Wife and I find a place of our own. He's never been without another cat, so we'll try to always keep it that way.

For anyone unfamiliar with animal emergency costs, I'll break down for you what it cost us. And please believe me when I say that we would have spent more if it would have made a difference.

ER Visit: $110
Leukemia Check: $75
Urinary Tract Exam: $50
Kidney Exam: $55
Euthanize: $80
Cremation: $90

Yes, you read that right. It costs more to cremate an animal than it does to put them to sleep. What's even worse is that it's just a mass cremation where they do a bunch of animals all at once. We knew we didn't want to take him home and bury him ourselves, so cremation was ideal for us. We also didn't want the ashes, so that's why we went with the "less expensive" mass cremation. We should have gotten the estimate before agreeing to it, but at that point we were feeling so distraught that we just wanted to get out of there.

Was there a lesson learned? I'd say so. Whether or not it would have made a difference this time around, I'll never hesitate to take an animal to the vet ever again.

I'm sorry, Libra. Sleep well.

Feeling better? Then pay us!

Crap! Three weeks, really? That's all I get?!

A mere 22 days ago, I suffered through some serious back pain that landed me a few hours in a hospital bed. The result? A kidney stone.

And now they expect me to pay for it!

I figured I'd have a few months at minimum before they started knocking. Or hey, how about a monthly payment plan? Nope, they want their money now! I have to pay $340 by the 25th of May. The total bill without insurance would have been around $5,300. Luckily my insurance kicked in THE SAME DAY as the kidney stone fiasco.

*sigh* I guess I know where my state tax refund is going. =\

Handsaws = Stupid

Okay, so far I've had two "if I could go back and do it differently" moments when it comes to building this joystick.

1. Cutting/snapping the sheet of polycarbonate was dumb. It's not accurate at all, which ends up leaving an edge that is crooked enough to be noticeable. And you have to score it so much before it will even think about snapping that you might as well just cut through the whole thing with a circular saw. Which brings me to the second item on my list.

2. Handsaws are stupid. I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe it'll be a good thing to own one day in the future, but right now it feels like $15 down the drain. Had I known ahead of time that I could actually get a circular saw for only $40, I probably would have just spent the money. Luckily the in-laws have one.

So half of my wood is now potentially ruined, not to mention the polycarbonate isn't sitting well with me. While I did manage to get the base of the joystick cut with the handsaw, I think I'm going to start over tomorrow and just cut everything with the circular saw. This should help it all line up better when I actually start piecing it together. And if I decide that the polycarbonate isn't good enough, I'll probably special order a piece from OnlineMetals.com and just have them cut it for me. That or maybe switch to aluminum since the cost is about the same.

Live and learn I suppose.

I can almost stop spending!

I'm starting to feel almost sick to my stomach with how much this joystick is going to set me back. I have to keep reminding myself that had I already owned all of the tools, this project would have only cost around $100. But as a result of me not owning any tools whatsoever, it's going to cost around $325. That really sucks, but I still think it's going to be worth it. I have quite a few fighting games on the Xbox 360 that I don't play very often simply because it's no fun with the default controller. I hope this helps.

Today I purchased the actual joystick components. The total came to about $80, but I also ordered a few extra buttons just in case. Had I not, it probably would have been closer to $65. Here's what I bought:

- (1) Sanwa JLF-TP-8T Ball Handle Joystick (green)
- (9) Sanwa OBSF-30 Pushbuttons (green)
- (4) Sanwa OBSF-24 Pushbuttons (white)
- (2) Sanwa OBSM Series 30mm Hole Plugs
- (40) .110 solderless quick connects

All of this came from Lizard Lick Amusements. Thankfully they reopened their store today. Even with all of my planning, I didn't noticed that they weren't taking orders while they tried to catch up on past orders. I'm tellin' ya, Street Fighter IV has literally taken every possible niche in the fighting game community by storm.

It's crazy I tell ya!

The things I miss most.

I think I've been feeling a bit homesick as of late, so I thought I'd write out a list of all the things I miss most from California. Let's begin.

- Family (that's a given)
- Friends (another given)
- Breakfast Burritos from Del Taco
- Great Khan's
- Getting away with showing up to work at 10AM.
- Lunches with Fresh at Carl's Jr.
- My 2007 Honda Civic.
- Goldenspoon

I'm sure there's more, but that's what's showing up in my mind right now. It seems like mostly food, doesn't it?

Power Tools

Today marks the dawn of a new era in my life. That's right, I now own a power tool. A Ryobi drill to be exact. This actually came as part of a long list of items I decided I needed to purchase. Home Depot provided me with just about everything I was looking for and for once I didn't hate my experience there. I guess when you're actually excited about building something that store doesn't suck quite so much.

Building something I say?

That's right! And since you asked, I am building an arcade style joystick for the Xbox 360. Ever since Street Fighter IV came out it has been next to impossible to find any type of joystick; good or bad. They're all gone! Well, almost all gone. You can always pay a little extra and buy one from a seller on eBay, but why pay a little more for something I know I'm paying too much for when I can just pay a lot more for something that may not even work in the end? Exactly!

Anyway, the standard Xbox 360 controller is just about the worst controller you can find when it comes to playing fighting games. It has horrible precision, which makes executing most moves almost impossible. So I've had enough and I want a joystick. I've been researching like crazy this past week, learning everything I can about building joysticks. And let me tell you, the community is out there and the information is not hard to find. In no way will my joystick be as amazing as some of the ones posted over at the Joystick Vault, but for now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that I can even get it to work.

Tools and materials. I'm just about ready to start building. Along with my drill, I purchased drill bits, two hole saws, screws, hinges, wood, Lexan (polycarbonate), a hand saw, sand paper, a soldering iron, solder (obviously), and a wire crimper. So far I've spent around $175 (yikes!), which is of course way more than if I had just bought an overpriced joystick on eBay. But the bulk of my purchase was tool related and those will come in handy as time goes by. Had I already owned most of the tools, this project would have been a bit more reasonable. Not to worry, I plan on making more than one joystick, so they'll only get less expensive as I go along.

What materials do I still need? Crafting-wise I still need wire, primer and spray paint. Then comes the actual joystick components. That will probably run around $100, which I'm not ecstatic about spending, but at this point there's really no turning back. I need to buy an Xbox 360 controller that I can take apart and use as the guts of the joystick. Then the most obvious components: buttons and the joystick. I'll probably also buy a bunch of "quick connects" which are extremely cheap and will minimize the amount of soldering that I'll need to do.

All in all, I'm thinking this is going to be pretty fun. I've never done such a crafty project, so I'm looking forward to it quite a bit. Stay tuned.