Headphones are essential to my life. Without them I'd have to kill 15 people each day on the Tube who would otherwise annoy the living hell out of me. I use them to block out sniffing, loud phone conversations and noisy chewing. They are, in short, the only thing standing between my sanity and a nice rest in a comfortably upholstered white room.
So recently, when my beloved Sennheiser CX400 earphones degraded from sterling stereo to monotonous mono, I was distraught. The 400s are excellent earphones -- they isolate you from external noise while providing some of the best music quality you can get for around the £35 mark (although some places are selling them steeply discounted at the moment). In short, I loved them. But the ravages of my pocket eventually take their toll -- the cable has broken somewhere.
I'm not the sort of person who gives up easily -- just ask any one of the numerous companies I'm currently persecuting for their shoddy service. I decided to effect my own repairs and have subsequently restored my CX400s to full stereo. How have I done this? By tying a couple of knots in the cable, that's how.
Now, this clearly isn't a long-term fix, but it does at least give me a tiny morsel of satisfaction and pride in my own, admittedly very minor, technical bodging. There's always the chance I might decide to repair them even more comprehensively with a Stanley knife and some gaffer tape. But for now, the pair of sound-restoring knots are doing the trick.
Jury-rigged anything good recently? Tell me in the comments below, I'd love to hear about how awesome you are.