When my last Dual Shock 2
(that's a PlayStation 2 controller for you non-gamer types) died, I took it to pieces out of curiosity. When I'd finished playing with the circuit boards and pretending to be a robot, I gutted it of heavy bits (rumble units and such), put the buttons back and glued their backings in position (so you could still press the buttons as if it was a functioning controller, but they were nicely fixed in place). I left out the L2 and R2 buttons so that I could thread a chain through their holes, and screwed the shell back together. Result: one translucent red Dual Shock necklace.

I loved it and wore it all the time. I still have it, but haven't worn it for a while. I used to wear it every day to college. It was great! Random people both in college and the street stopped me to chat about games, and everyone was impressed to learn that I'd made it into a necklace myself.

I also wore it to an audition for the PlayStation Freedom squad (a couple of years ago Sony's summer ad campaign had the theme of Freedom, and four jammy sods were picked to spend the summer go-karting etc. at Sony's expense. I made it to the first heat but didn't get further, though I was offered the chance to be filmed for a programme about female gamers, but I had to decline that because the appointment was at far too short notice). I was also wearing stripy toe socks with sandals. I still maintain that this look will one day catch on - after all, what's the fucking point of wearing toe socks if no-one can see them?

Summary for people who go 'argh teh wurds': I made a necklace out of a videogame controller. And I wore it.

EDIT: My bro made himself a similar one out of a dead Gamecube controller. Mine's prettier, though. Ha.
( Bob Todd whee, Sat 26 Aug 2006, 20:50, Reply)