But can you make a margarita with it?

At the ENT's office Thursday at UCSD, I snagged the huge volume of New Yorker cartoons that lives in the waiting room. Usually someone else has it and I watch them laughing; enjoying the humor second-hand as it were. Today, I got to laugh first. You can laugh as loud as you like in that office without disturbing anyone because many of the patients are deaf or partially deaf.

When people check in the receptionists have to repeat almost everything.  It's beyond me why they don't speak LOUDER IN THE FIRST PLACE. Or have an amplification system. I was unnecessarily distracted by the snippets of fractured conversation I could hear. "You want me to do what with my hair?" No, Mr. Jones - we just want you to sit in the chair.

I checked out the BAHA (bone anchored hearing assistance). They put a simulation head piece on me and the doctor spoke softly into my deaf ear. I could hear him but he sounded like an weird alien speaking into an echo chamber. Directional sound is not usually improved with the BAHA nor are the problems associated with too much noise (hyper acuity) and tinnitus. Is it worth the surgery to get the alien speaking in the left ear? The surgery, which they say is easy (easy for who?), consists of having a hole drilled in the skull and a titanium screw piece inserted. The bone and titanium fuse, just like a tooth implant, and after three months you can wear your BAHA device or screw on various attachments like a phone assist unit or an MP3 player.

The margarita blender attachment is still in the prototype stage.