In the land of “What?”
My earbuds—those tiny plugs you stick in your ear to listen to an iPod—have taken as much abuse as a piece of equipment can take and endured it without complaint. Though widely derided when the first iPods came out—the technical term was “piece of crapâ€â€”the plain white earbuds have served me well. Admittedly I’m not finicky about sound quality. If I were, I wouldn’t be listening to my music library on an iPod, with the earbuds that came in the box, while walking around a mall where every store has its own music playing, volume turned up to compete with the neighbor’s music, the mall’s muzak, and the pianist pounding out show tunes in the food court. Purist audiophiles shudder at the idea of portable personal mp3 players, super-compressed music files being, to them, an abomination. The apostates who have embraced new technology say that at the very least, one must ignore the iPod earbuds and get a proper pair of noise-canceling cushioned headphones, the kind you clap on like earmuffs in the dead of winter. . .
In the land of “What?” in Emotional Weather Report – Gadgets, today in the Star.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
October 26th, 2008 at 18:46
We have come a long way with science and technology bungling up the functions of each of our body parts anyway so listening through nostrils is not way far-out. Just couldn’t imagine smelling through my ears though in an overcrowded MRT at after-office hours. Ew.
October 27th, 2008 at 19:55
I have sweat issues and it’s so bad that I often cause gadgets to malfunction because of my sweaty hands. The pearl in my blackberry is about to die. My problem with my earbuds was (was because I bought an iPod which promptly broke after a few months, now with creative zen vision w and adore it) that it kept falling out of my ears. I was told it was due to my sweaty head, but I am convinced those earbuds were made for petite women. Then I found skull candy. It is the most awesome thing ever! http://www.skullcandy.com/
October 29th, 2008 at 20:06
I usually get those clip-on ear phones — I don’t like the intrusion of ear buds. The last one I got was Phillips.
October 30th, 2008 at 14:48
Maybe it’s a Steve Jobs conspiracy why there’s so much awful muzak in this country. Nay, in the world, even!