Acupuncture, Earbuds, and the Coming Snowstorm
So, I was at work last night, listening to Jean Shepherd on my trusty iPod nano, when I made a sudden move and YANKED (capitalized to convey the intensity of said yankage) the buds from my ears.
I’d somehow brought my swinging forearm against the cords, and everything went flying. The iPod crashed to the floor, the plug came loose, and I lost complete control of my sanity drip. How would I be able to maintain if I didn’t have my medicine?!
But everything seemed to be OK, except for the left earbud. A little plastic cap had come off, exposing the inner workings of the headphone itself. It looked like a tiny speaker on the end of a wire.
Where the hell had that cap gone? I looked around my desk, behind the monitor and everything, and it wasn’t there. Then I carefully rolled my chair back, and checked the floor. Nothing. WTS? I’d hit it with pretty good force, but the thing still had to be in the general vicinity. Right?
Eventually I was on my hands and knees, crawling around underneath the desk, with my big ass pointed toward the ceiling tiles. I was hoping my jeans were doing their job, and the northern sector of the Great Divide wasn’t visible. But at that moment, I only really cared about the missing piece of my headphones.
Yeah, and I couldn’t find it. The cap was nowhere to be found, and it was driving me nuts. Since I’d been listening to a forty year old radio program, I could just use the undamaged bud; it’s not like I was playing rich, vibrant high-fidelity or anything. But still… it was driving me up the freaking wall. I hate not being able to find something.
And about a half-hour later I was talking to a woman about actual work stuff, and she looked at me confused, and said, “What’s that thing in your ear?”
The End.
Do any of you have experience with acupuncture? I know someone who is getting ready (fixin’) to start a six week treatment, to hopefully cure him of various (purposely vague) things, and he seems to believe this will be the ticket.
Needless to say, I have no exposure to such exotic procedures. I think there was a hillbilly in my hometown that practiced acupuncture, but I heard he used rusty old barbecue tools: fork, tongs, spatula, basting brush. But my information could be slightly off…
Have you ever had acupuncture, or any other alternative health procedure? If so, tell us about it. What did they do to you? And how did it work out in the long-run?
I owe some of you guys t-shirts, and will get them in the mail tomorrow. Unless, of course, the predicted hammer-of-the-gods snowstorm actually happens… In that case, I’ll mail ‘em on Friday. So, if you’d like to get lightning-fast shipping on an order, order a shirt today and you’ll have it… very soon. Here’s yer link.
Yes, and the last time I looked, we’re supposed to receive up to 18 inches of snow between now and Friday. Eighteen inches! Man, that’s Milton Berle-sized accumulation! So, that oughta be fun. I’d better make sure we have plenty of Yuengling in the basement fridge. Screw the bread and milk, I need to make sure the true essentials are covered.
I’m very excited, because my Verizon contract is almost up, and soon I’ll be able to choose another deeply-discounted phone. As usual, I’ve been doing an inordinate amount of research. And as of this writing (it’s changed several times) I’m planning to go with this one. I can’t justify paying two hundred bucks for the Motorola Droid, but do want to move up to a smartphone. What do you think? Any opinions on the HTC Droid?
And I just opened myself up to further confusion, didn’t I? Oh well. Like it’ll be any different from any other day…
I’m going to call it a day here, and go check on my beer stock. I might have to make an emergency trip to the beeratorium before work. Sweet sainted mother of the Galloping Gourmet! Hurricane Miltie is on its way!!
If you haven’t already done so, please become a “fan” of our new (and still shitty) West Virginia Surf Report! page at Facebook. I’m going to shut-down the old page, kinda sorta, and hope you guys will follow me to the new so-called fan page.
Oh yeah, and one more quick thing… Be sure to check out the WVSR Classic link in the sidebar today. It’s one of my favorite photos, taken WAY out in the boondocks near my mother’s aunt’s house, in 1965 or thereabouts. Here’s the link, in case you’re not reading this on Wednesday.
And that’s gonna do it for today, my friends.
More tomorrow.
Filed under: Daily
TWO DAYS IN A ROWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Second.
I’ve had accupuncture proceedures several times with excellent results. I had a really bad case of tennis elbow and it caused a good bit of discomfort. Meds weren’t working, stretching, an ACE armband thingy, etc all left me disappointed.
I went to the needle dick! and he hooked me up. Within two days, the pain was gone and hasn’t been back.
Several years later, I had the same problem in the other arm. Same treatment, same result.
I’m a believer. Shit’s expensive though. $90 a session and isn’t covered under the commie health plan I’m enrolled in.
No acupuncture here.
The earbud thing could happen to me. I got in the car once, after stopping at 7-11 or somewhere, put my sunglasses back on and headed down the road. The sun was killing me, but I chalked it up to an especially strong sunset and motored on. After, oh, I don’t know, ten minutes, it hadn’t gotten any better and one eye was beginning to water like I’d plucked a nose hair. I looked up in the rearview mirror and saw that one lens had popped out of the frame and I’d been driving around like some sort of Wayfarer pirate.
4
Good Afternoon Surf Reporters….
um, Jeremy? you went to the needle dick? Too much info, bro.
My daughter went to some accupuncture sessions for knee pain, and it definitely helped for certain types of pain she was having. She found the whole experience quite relaxing and looked forward to the sessions. She’s a believer!
Top Ten?!
Enjoy all the snow, Jeff. We’ve had it up to our fucking eyeballs with it down here.
Jeff, I succumbed and bought the droid, best smellin damn bit of electronics ever!
Never was much of an apple fan,so it seemed logical enough. The pricetag wad a little steep, but my job gave me a discount, and got a hunnert dollah rebate,so it was worth it(can you hear me rationalizing? )
You also HAVEto buy a fancy data plan.
I would suggest much hand wringing and scalp pulling reasearch.
top ten. My life does have meaning.
Is losing something in your ear a sign or something?
I used to go to a chiropractor and besides the normal cracking they also did ultrasound on my back (?) and put the shock pad things on me so that my muscles would twitch with electricity for ten minutes or so. Then he got into acupuncture and I wrote him off as a crackpot. He was talking about putting needles in my balls to make me more fertile and shit like thar. I have three kids for fucksake. So acupuncture may work but I refuse to try it.
I saw some show where these people would set up fake alternative healing clinics and do all kinds of weird shit to people (play a kazoo over pained areas, brush a feather duster over their backs to remove bad energy, shine different colored lights on their heads to “center” them, and all kinds of bullshit). And ever single duped person said that the “treatment” had helped them. Horse shit.
I had a bacon and blue (I think) from Wendy’s today and I highly recommend it. My wife wanted to order a fish sandwich but I wasn’t having it. “We don’t order fish sandwiches in this family. I’ve never had one and you aren’t either!” So anyway, she ordered the fish sandwich and seemed to like it.
I highly recommend beer treatment. It’s worked wonders for me.
Back to the question of acupuncture. I never have gone through it, but my wife and her sisters all have and swear by it. Their reasons for going were just for muscle relaxation and relief of stress, not to quit smoking, lose weight or cure the hiccups.
They have mentioned too that you have to go to someone “reputable” i.e. licensed. JK mentioned backwoods, hillbilly practitioners and they do exist. Go to one of them and it’s a surefire way to contract Hepatitis A, B, and C, HIV, Tetanus, Scurvy, Rickets and Shingles.
I’ve never had the need to try acupuncture, but I’d love to see some peer reviewed studies on it. It’s not that I don’t believe it can work, I’m open to the possibility (more so than most holistic approaches), but I do feel it needs to be subjected to the same rigorous testing as any main stream medical procedure.
Too often advocates for holistic medicine cite anecdotal stories like “my cousin’s boyfriend’s roommate’s sister’s friend’s mother drank hog urine and turpentine and her goiter cleared right up” trying to pass it off as evidence. Real evidence comes from testing statistically significant numbers of people, all with the same illness, with different therapies, including a controls to weed out the placebo effect.
If you think I’m being too harsh just remember that chiropractic manipulations have proven to cause strokes in some people, a fact that would not have come to light without proper studies of the procedure. Likewise St.John’s Wort causes significant adverse drug interactions with anti-retroviral drugs (the kind responsible for increasing the survival rates of AIDS patients), oral contraceptives, and many other common therapeutics.
Without proper review any therapy, holistic or otherwise, is dangerous.
I’ve lost an earbud soft rubber tip before, but not in my ear. found it in my hair.
dogberryjr – funny!
Work had a health fair and invited a acupuncturist to give demonstrations. He put one needle in my earlobe and my neck felt tons better after about 15minutes. I could hardly turn it when I walked in to see him. There’s something to it, I think. I’d love to go back after I save up the $$ – our insurance doesn’t cover it and it ain’t cheap.
I JUST got the Blackberry Curve in the smokey lavendar. I fucking hate it so far….but it’s only been less than a week. I s’pose should give it some time.
My biggest complaint is that the keyboard is almost impossible to see as the lettering/numbers are printed so lightly I look like Mr. Magoo trying to read the damn thing. It never occured to me when I was at the Verizon store that actually seeing the keyboard would be a problem. The black one is easier to read. Since my boyfriend has the same phone in black…I figured getting a different color would prevent the morning switcheroo. I can just imagine it now…. he works in the “field”, some dude will call him to calibrate a gas well and I will accidently have his phone. “Well, I can’t help you with that, but if your wife needs a Labiaplasty I’m your girl.”
My boyfriend has the Droid and he really likes it. The only problem is that you are required to get the 30 dollar data package with it. The plus side to that is that the Droid serves as a mini laptop you carry around in your pocket and talk on. I happen to love his phone and have become incredibly jealous of him, but my contract with Verizon isn’t up until November, so until then, I am stuck with my Dare. The feature I especially like is that it divides your text messages by person and saves them like IM conversations, that’s one of my favorite parts. You’ll really like this phone if you get it.
Sorry, I was talking about the original Droid, not the HTC…the Droid has a digital keyboard and regular slider keyboard…if you are not fond of simply having a digital keyboard, I wouldn’t recommend the HTC. I have the Dare now and I didn’t realize how much I was going to the hate the digital keyboard, I actually miss my old gay envy 2 with no touch screen features or digital mumbo jumbo.
>Man, that’s Milton Berle-sized accumulation! <
FTW!
>“We don’t order fish sandwiches in this family. I’ve never had one and you aren’t either!”<
Jason…FTWv2
I don’t believe in any of that “alternative medicine” stuff… like Tyrosine, I want to see some peer-reviewed studies before I’ll trust it.
Also, why do we call it “alternative medicine”? The word “medicine” shouldn’t be in the term. It would be like calling an astrologist an “alternative psychologist”.
I’ll give your Dad $150.00 for his shirt.
ditch the ipod earbuds and get a decent pair ( I recommend the ‘Klipsch custom 1′) .
You owe it to yourself, and the artists who made that great music that you love so much, to upgrade.
I’ve never had it, but I can see how acupuncture works, having studied pressure points for martial arts (and been on the recieving end during demonstrations!).
I can honestly say, ‘They really do work!’
Wow, seems like years since lakrfool has posted anything. Where you been? The slammer?
tried acupuncture several years ago and it definitely works. it allowed me to go a few more years without undergoing neurosurgery altho i finally had to (metaphorically) bite the bullet. a friend of mine had his arm torn off (yes you heard right) in a farm accident, and was tormented by phantom limb pain. his surgeon recommended acupuncture and darned if it didn’t work. he lived for many more years and never had another twinge in the missing arm. it is indeed arelaxing and absolutely painless treatment. he should be sure he goes to a practitioner who has studied for years in a reputable school. most just take a weekend seminar and hang out their shingles—beware of those guys; they don’t know what they’re doing.
ps for those who don’t believe—-my acupuncturist is on the staff of the university of pittsburgh’s pain clinic. he has to be doing something right.
With an iPhone you could ditch your nano and listen to your ‘stuff’ on your phone.
bout fell out of my chair when I read “And about a half-hour later I was talking to a woman about actual work stuff, and she looked at me confused, and said, “What’s that thing in your ear?”
The End.” too funny…
ex-gf quit smoking using acupuncture and it worked great. it was amazing, she had a bad smokers cough and while she had the needles in she never coughed once. came out of the treatment and went to sleep sitting at dinner…
only thing I know about the droid is it’s heavy…
i have the htc G1. I love that thing, hated my blackberry pearl, the number/letter thing sucked.
There is an excellent podcast about alternative medicine on itunes, it is very skeptical, but interesting.
I have known people that swear by acupuncture…no needles for me thanks.
Life has enough pins and needles in it for someone to be purposely poking me with them.
Damn lakrfool, I thought I sent your bail money months ago or did Jason finally fess up to the velvetta mutilations.
I had one of those head jerk moments while listening to my iPod and ripped the bud from my right ear. My $80 set of buds now only plays on one side. Crap! Back to those crappy iPod earbuds.
Now playing on the iPod – “Spellbound” – Robin Trower
Acupuncture. Yeah, I tried it for the birth of my son. The six weeks the doc and I “practiced” were great fun. I could make one hand get cold. He could poke needles in me and I could make it not bleed. All kinds of neat tricks. Worked pretty good too, until I was about 5 cm dilated and it was too late to do anything else. I screamed like a banshee after that for about two hours until he popped out. Fifteen minutes later I was sitting cross-legged in the bed, eating a pork chop, so, all in all I guess it went pretty fine.
Maybe it’s the flat top haircut but I swear I could dig up a picture of my Dad from the same era and they’d look damn near like twins. When the hell did white socks with black shoes go out of style anyway, I think it’s a good look, not to mention sorting colored socks or socks of color if you will, takes way to much time. I think I’ll try bringing white socks back no matter the color of your shoes or pants. Fuck em’ if they don’t like it.
SoS-I think that shirt is available at any Wal-Mart, however I’m sure the quality and country of origin is prolly different than the one Mr. Kay is sporting.
Jeff, love the photo, looks like the Kay clan discovered the source of the Nile!
Nuttin’ on the phone.
A guy from work used acupuncture to quit smoking, I think he’s going on 3-4 years. I think it cost him $175, he stubbed his last one out in the parking lot before going in.
I just spurted, out of my Milton Berle.
I would have loved to see you crawling around looking for that ear piece, but he cherry on top would have been finding it in your ear!! LAMO!! Perfect!!
bikerchick, I had blackberry pearl for 2 years and have had the cruve for a little over a year, love it!! Got the Iphone and took it back to get the curve. Give it time, it is the easiest phone I have ever tried to learn.
You obviously use your iPod alot. Get an iPhone. Best gadget I’ve ever owned.
Man, I got nothing today. Maybe next time…
I think my husband tried accupuncture and loved it. Of course, he’s the type who, when told he may need a stent and to get on Lipitor said FUCK THAT (capitalized to convey the intensity of said fuckage) and wento n the net to find out how to naturally lower cholesterol and bring his heart back in shape. 4 years later, lowest cholesterol he’s ever had and the ticker is doing just great!
Funniest video EVER!
My wife was having back spasms and decided to be a human pin cushion on the advice of a friend. Dr. Hung Lo had her remove her clothes, put on a gown and lay face down on his exam table. He prepared to work his magic and told her to relax and that she was going to feel a little prick. She said…. “I thought that was just a rumor?”
My dad cured horrible allergies via acupuncture. I started to develop the same symptoms in the late 70′s/early 80′s, and I now believe that I dodged similar sinus problems due to the destruction of certain parts of my nasal passages via the ingestion of a certain 80′s-era substance. Acupuncture would have been cheaper.
Jeff, moving from a “mobile phone” to a “Windows Mobile” (or similar) device will change your life. Getting emails, surfing the interwebs (need a traffic report? Google Maps w/ traffic is free), and doing all sorts of other “techy” things will set you free, brother.
I’m 56 but I’m with it, man.
I have the HTC Eris and pretty much like it. The battery life sucks; it only lasts about 8 hours. It occasionally slows down and takes forever to do things, but overall it’s been good. They are supposed to update the firmware soon so it will be faster and have better battery life. There are whole Internet forums devoted to discussing when this update will happen. If you get this phone, you can take part in the obsessive discussions while waiting for the firmware update.
I’m listening to your podcast on my eris right now. Well, it just finished, so that first sentence is no longer true. Sorry.
You were a little cutie, weren’t you? (Now I’m supposed to say…”What happened?”)
I laughed at the earbud story and didn’t see the ending coming – although I should have.
Yeah Jeff you were a cute lil booger hooker! What is your brother’s name? Once when I was pregnant my ob gyn who was a born again Christian prayed along with his nurse over my shoulder which was paralyzed with bursitis. I’ll be damned if it didn’t work!. The problem is….the next day my knee went bad? ha ha jokes on me. I also had ear problems during that pregnancy and the doc who worked on me said.. “come back after you have the baby and I’ll fix your face! ” what in the broiled ham hell?
I’ve once looked for my glasses for 10 minutes and then realized I was wearing them. Embarrassing.
Off topic but I’m thinkin Lindsey Vonn could crack walnuts with her thighs.
Vicki: That was very funny, and very well-written. Just wanted to give you some kudos. Thanks.
I loved my Blackberry for the first couple years. Now, I can’t stand being that accessible. Some days, I wish I could go back to just having a home phone.
Having read your stuff for a while now, I am assuming I already know the answer to this question, but here goes:
Re: the total loss of muscle control, resulting in hurling your ipod to the floor, have you ever done it while running on a treadmill?! There, not only does it hit the floor, but you have to jump over it to keep from crushing it under your feet, and then watch the belt fling it against the wall. I am telling you, you will never feel cooler or more coordinated than you do when that happens.
Although the earbud cap in the ear IS pretty dang smooth.
I work in so-called “alternative medicine”. I’m a bean-counter at a school/clinic that where lots of stuff goes on that most WVSR readers (judging from the comments above) would retch over. I do find myself thinking “if only Jeff Kay could witness this…” many times a day. Such places are magnets for the insane and the neurotic, lemme tell ya – it’s like a finishing school for Nancy/Nostrils types sometimes. No needles where I am, but like others I’ve heard & experienced good things with acupuncture.
Also, i am no stranger to the Neti pot.
D.,
Up here in the Great Pacific Northwest, we favor B.C. Bud, but I always say, to each his own. Whatever gets you through the night.
jtb
I think the problem with acupuncture is the actual word “acupuncture”. Puncture = bad if it is not acu.
Wok buddy of mine has the Eris and loves it. His previous phone was a Blackberry and he now says he’ll never go back.
I am also eagerly anticipating my “new every 2″ window (April) and have been evaluating Smartphones like crazy (I currently carry a Samsung SCH-i760 smartphone…pros and cons). I need a full keyboard…can’t handle the touchscreen (make sure you can handle one before you buy a phone without a keyboard). Motorola Droid looks like everything I want except that its pull-out keyboard is really flat…still very easy for my fat fingers to make typos. HTC TouchPro 2 seems to have the perfect hardware, but darned thing runs Windows Mobile. Shit, I hate 2-year contracts…choose wisely.
*LOL – funny typo above. I meant “WORK buddy…”.
Jeff’s Dad…
Notice the position. Every male member of my family is in one or more pictures in that position, but only in pics taken prior to 1975 or so.
Was this position outlawed after the 70s?
Dave, if you work in Asian food service then the words are interchangable.
Acupuncture is complete and utter bullshit. My wife went for two weeks of it. Cost us $5k and didn’t do shit!
Avoid at all costs.
Where’s my goddamn box scores?
Speaking of scoring and boxes, do you honestly think I believe your idiotic story that you and Inga were browsing electronics at Wal-mart until 3:00 this morning? She smelled like sex and her hair was matted down.
I dunno what in the hell you’re talkin about. Hey, I got a new RV. You guys wanna go to the lake with me this weekend? Can I borrow your jet skis and/or pontoon boat?
Fuck you. (sigh) I guess you can use the boat but not the jet skis. Is your RV a two bedroom or do you expect me and Inga to sleep in the same bed with you?
One bedroom. I thought you could sleep on the pull out couch.
Fuck that. We’ll all sleep in the bedroom….I’m sleeping in the middle.
I think my ass is starting to give milk.
Just get the iphone. If you use itunes as your primary music organizer, you will love having one thing to carry around instead of two. Also, AT&T coverage in NEPA is way better than I expected (based on my last visit to the area.)
If you must stick with Verizon, get the Droid. The initial outlay for a smartphone is negligible when you look at what you’ll pay for voice and data over 2 years, so to not pick one for the want of $100 or $200 is crazy. It works out to less than $5 a month over the life of the phone! Also – look for the Droid on the Dell Mobility Store. Cheap cheap.
I’ve got an LG EnV Touch, and I love it!!!!
I can do a TON of stuff and I can easily surf the internet without issue.
I went from the very good Curve to the Droid. It is the next generation of phone. Drag your music from Itunes for music; no need for the Tom-tom, its got that. E-mail on the go and add photos, easy. Internets fast, and more and more apps daily. The user interface is great. About the only thing it doesnt do is wipe for you. Give it time and there may be an app for that.