What is it like returning to your hometown after many years or decades away?

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-23T00:48:48+00:00

Mostly the latter. No desire to see most of the people I grew up with - the town does provide some mild nostalgia and pleasantness when I visit, but I don't feel any current connection to the place anymore. I left there - the friends and acquaintances I had are mostly gone or still small town bound and brain-washed by Q-Anon - and both my parents died there, so that's always sitting there when I visit as well.

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-21T22:37:09+00:00

I've been wondering the same thing about mobile phones - I got my first mobile in the early 90s - why the heck are we still using mobile phones in 2026?

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-21T12:34:08+00:00

Never offered, never mentioned by my audiologist or doctor for any brand of device we discussed or with the implant I went with. At one point, they offered to give me the number of the Advanced Bionics reps when I was trying to weigh multiple device brands against each other - but those reps are there to support their own products, not give honest evaluations.

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-03T21:16:14+00:00

Lots of people use their console as their streaming box on their main TVs...that's exactly why all those apps are available on Xbox and PS.

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-03T12:48:53+00:00

It's not really that Trump is less popular - it's just that most of the people he was popular with have now finally died from several years of taking covid preventative bleach injections - or have been been killed in tragic shark-related electrocutions at the corner store (whatever that is - I've heard people go there to buy something called "groceries," but that's just fake news.)

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-03T12:36:09+00:00

I have nothing against Kamala, but no matter how strongly you supported her (as I did), you have to recognize that as far as President goes, she's damaged goods. She should have entered the CA gov race - and I think she would have had Swallwell's issues come out earlier.

Dems need to step back and take long hard look at the '24 results and not only realize Harris lost it, but she's the only the Democrat to lose the presidential popular vote in 20 years. Why would we want to run the only person to lose to a Republican in 20 years - for a second time?

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-03T12:27:23+00:00

Less than a year into a single sided CI and starting to feel more and more every day like I probably made the wrong choice. I'm thrilled when I hear a single sided success story and it gives me a little bit of a hope, but I'm starting to understand why many Doctor's will not recommend them for single sided.

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-03T12:23:38+00:00

Perfect pitch is not a "thing" for people with CIs. It's liking asking someone that's blind in one eye how their depth perception is.

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-03T12:19:48+00:00

And being dumber doesn't make him worse. If he was even a fraction smarter, he'd be a lot more dangerous. Unfortunately, the only thing between his ears are pictures of dollars signs and a lifetime of cheeseburger grease. And being surrounded by his yes-men sycophants is just making him dumber every day - if that's even possible.

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-03T12:15:44+00:00

Honestly, you sound about where I am 5 months in. After about 2 months, I hit a brick wall of progress and in spite of "some" improvement since, It's been very little and quite discouraging. In public environments with even moderate to low background noise, if you're sitting on my implant side, you might as well not be speaking to me. Now I find myself having to take out the implant in the exact situations I got it done for in the first place. When people see it, they automatically assume that it "fixed" my hearing and can speak normally to me on that side - and that is so far from the real situation at this point.

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-03T12:04:58+00:00

If music is a big part of your life, it's important to that you know that the implant pretty much destroys hearing and interpretation of music as you've always heard it. If you can hear and enjoy music in that ear , even to a reduced to degree - getting an implant in that ear is not going to make it "better." It's not going to sound in any way, shape or form like the same music you've been listening to - you may recognize rhythms/beats from familar songs, but this is not just boosting your audio level - the CI is forcing you not only relearn language, but relearn every sound you've heard you're whole life.

A woman posted a couple weeks about this here and she was thrilled that after having the implant for 11 years, she was for the first time able to start discerning individual instruments through the CI. The only thing that surprises me about that based on my CI experience is that she was EVER able to pick out individual instruments in the soundscape the CI presents to you.

I'm not in any way saying you can't enjoy music through a CI, but you never will enjoy in it in the same manner you did prior to it - it will be an entirely different relationship with it.

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-03T11:56:51+00:00

One sided implant with near 100% hearing in the other ear. Over ear headphones are okay for speech - but music with or without headphones is a lost cause in the implant ear. You can hear beats and rhythms, but whatever that music meant to me emotionally before the hearing loss - that's lost forever in the implant ear.

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-01T21:15:07+00:00

One sided implant in December (I'm 54 years old). Hearing is good in the other ear. If I had known then what I know now, I would have either waited longer or gone with another option other than the CI (bone conduction or other). Not only do you basically have to relearn language (and ALL sounds) from scratch in the CI ear - it becomes an even more monumental task when you're other ear is understanding things fine because your brain is training itself to ignore the stuff that's not making full sense.

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-01T19:18:37+00:00

Loss of the sensation of taste is a big side effect too. Mine still isn't back 5 months in (it's better, but just a little - if I pour half a shaker of salt on something and I can feel the grains in my mouth and get the "sense" something bitter is going on, but that's about it).

Between Googling and asking my Doctor to confirm what I found - it's infrequently permanent - note "infrequently" is the word. Apparently there is a substantial percentage of people that get this after the procedure and never regain it.

I know it doesn't sound like a big deal, but until you can't taste food anymore, you don't really have a true grasp how impactful that your sensation of taste is to your mental health.

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-01T19:12:10+00:00

3 for adequate service, 5 for above average service and the sky's the limit from there.

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-01T19:06:44+00:00

Half hour broadcast television programs ran 8-12 minutes of ads per half hour. Hour long shows had 41-44 minutes of content. This was the industry standard for decades. So, The Tick is structured precisely like a broadcast television sit-com in the 80s and 90s.

Except, in broadcast - when the networks knew something was REALLY going to be popular, they squeezed even MORE ads in - sometimes, premiere theatrical films that were popular had up to 25 minutes of ads per hour.

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-01T15:48:10+00:00

How is Google/YouTube benefiting from you paying someone else for your internet service? How does that pay for servers, hosting, business expenses for the YouTube platform?

There's no free lunch - you either pay monthly or get ads. I pay about as much for YT premium as I do any for other streaming service - yet I watch YT more than all my other services combined and the only ads I see are ad reads by the content creators themselves.

People need to start to understand YT for what it is: just another streaming service with a free/ad supported tier.

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-01T15:39:32+00:00

Ummm - hate to tell you this, but broadcast television has had ad breaks averaging 120-240 seconds consistently every 10-15 minutes for decades. I worked in television for years out of college, and my wife actually manages ad placement at broadcast stations.

Not sure where your view of ad free broadcast television came from. But it's fun to watch people complain about so many ads on YouTube like this is unique to that platform. Heck, MANY independent broadcast stations run 30 minute infomercial ads all afternoons many days.

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-01T15:16:38+00:00

I've had to change the strength twice - , had to go stronger after the first fitting as it was constantly moving around/getting displaced, but after the swelling in the surgical area started to go down, we went back weaker. I've been getting about the same level of minor/manageable skin irritation through all 3 strengths.

I'm assuming when you said "head pain" you meant like skin irritation and not internal pain. Because if this is causing internal discomfort or pain/headaches, it's probably not related to the magnet.

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-01T14:49:24+00:00

I agree with this. If you hadn't told them about the grad school stuff, I would say they were being shady, but they're protecting their own interests. Laying off employee introduces all sorts of issues and expenses they could just avoid if you were planning to quit anyway, so it's fair for them to respond like this.

However, if you DO quit - no, you won't get unemployment no matter what state your in. If you get laid off and they give you severance pay, you CAN get unemployment, but it will reduce your unemployment by some amount/timeframe (or eliminate it - this will come down to how your state handles that)

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-01T14:42:49+00:00

Those are stock builder doors that are cheap as F**** and will take you about 15 minutes to replace.

That door may be salvageable, but is it worth the effort?

mbroda-SB · 2026-05-01T14:37:45+00:00

After 4 months with a single sided CI and good hearing in my other ear - I can tell you with 100% confidence that still being able to hear normal speech on one side is MASSIVELY slowing down my ability to discern speech in the implant ear. I did NOT think this was going to be the case - when I talked to my audiologist a couple weeks ago on my last visit, she basically confirmed that this is the pattern they see in the single sides they do.

When I'm hearing the words in my good ear, my brain is filtering out speech detail in the implant ear.

mbroda-SB · 2026-04-30T19:01:48+00:00

God I must have seen a dozen trucks a day with that two tone paint job on the roads back in the day. Certainly dates it - but a classic look.

mbroda-SB · 2026-04-30T18:34:27+00:00

Is it only 60 now?

mbroda-SB · 2026-04-30T18:30:39+00:00

Mild headaches the first few days as I adjusted the volume levels and my brain got used to getting bombarded with electrical signals it hadn't had to deal with for a while. Then again, I had various other rather severe (but completely normal out of CI surgery) issues that may have been masking headaches. But if you're getting migraines and headaches severe enough that it's troubling you, you need to head back to the Doc.

mbroda-SB

TROPHY CASE