I Did It Because of Microsoft

___One of the cool things about moving the XBox (360) to the dorm has been the fact that instead of running the video through a bulky TV I'm now running it through an HDMI cable to my good LCD monitor and, as a result, the picture is 10 fold better than what I was previously used to.
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___The downside of this setup, however, is the fact that unlike the TV I was using my monitor does not have any speakers. Sacrificing sound for a crystal clear image may not sound like much of a price, but it really detracts from a game when the most that the game can do to you is shake in your hands (the controller) or flash a few lights your way. Somehow Doom just isn't as scary without the creepy crawly sounds and the out of breath panting of the main character.
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___To solve this problem I decided to finally get a small set of speakers for my computer. The good news, the speakers are great, the bad news the cable that sends the normal audio/video out to the TV (instead of the HDMI cable) covers the HDMI port when you plug it in. Microsoft made it literally impossible to plug in both cables at the same time.
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__In disbelief I researched Microsoft's website and sure enough, in order to get sound out of the XBox when the HDMI cable is plugged in is to purchase an adapter that is exactly the same as the one I have except that it only sends out sound, and it doesn't cover the HDMI port when you plug it in. How much do they want for this duplicate inferior cable, you might ask? $50 for almost the same thing as I already have.
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___Unsatisfied with that solution further research revealed that the reason that the two cables won't fit side by side is that Microsoft made the casing on the standard cable thicker than it needed to be. Once you take the casing off the cable fits and works fine.
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___Seriously Microsoft, WTF?