Who knew that being an electronics geek was so tiring? After spending the last 24 hours working on hooking up my XM radio, I've finally reached a point where I'm happy. Not only am I happy with the satellite radio, but also with my entire entertainment arrangement. While I was tinkering with cables for the satellite radio, I also hooked up the TV to run through the stereo speakers as well as my Gamecube. The Gamecube set-up is thanks to my parents. Playing at their house over the holidays with surround sound was amazing. It was like dangling a steak in front of a ravenous lion; I had to have it set up in my apartment.

Before getting everything configured properly, I thought a visit to Radio Shack would be beneficial. There was no easy way to plug in the satellite radio to the radio tuner so I needed at least a splitter to plug everything up. I entered Radio Shack with the idea of buying one cable; I left with two cables (neither of which a splitter) and an audio/video switch (over $40 of stuff).

Once I finished hooking up everything, I found out I didn't even need the cables I bought. Isn't that always the luck? Radio Shack better take them back; the cables alone were almost $25. Anyway, after hours of contorting my arms and hands to plug and unplug cables, crawling through the bottom shelf of the entertainment center and testing each configuration, I'm able to enjoy nice robust audio as I watch TV. Thankfully I have the rest of the evening to recuperate.