Oh my. I love the conclusion that the small number of refills was a benefit too.

... I love my country. So much.

And now I have songs about moose on the headradio. Curses to earworms.

Sundre wrote:

Curses to earworms.

No kidding! I've got "This land is your land" stuck in my head now...

I hear you can get discount Super Soakers through some of the Medicare Prescription plans.

xeger: I am so, so sorry. But that still beats "Got to get me moose, b'ye!" all to heck.

If you do have an earworm, try to blast it out with a super-soaker. Worth a try...

Dare I ask what happens when folks get various other orifices clogged?

Samantha: perhaps the device could be adapted to aid in removing Public Citizen's heads from their fundaments?

This sounds like something from the Annals of Improbable Research.

Hee! This is exactly like something out of the Annals of Improbable Research. (I'm one of the people who helps out with the Ig ceremony.) In fact, I just emailed Marc the link (with proper attribution of my source, as usual).

He's probably already gotten it, of course; but then there've been at least a couple popularly known weird science links where I assumed there was no way in hell he hadn't gotten them, and he actually hadn't, because everyone else had thought the same thing. I figure it's a less horrifying example of the Kitty Genovese syndrome -- everyone figuring someone else has sent off an email. Diminished responsibility while in a large group, and all that.

Oh... THAT land of socialized medicine and moose...

As a swede in Germany, I'm getting more and more used to 'moose' meaning general image of my home.

Yeah, both British and Canadian medical journal have fun in their year-end issue.

In barely related technological news, use the wonders of web technology to poorly replace editing. I present the Passivator and the Ly Detector.

This is going to be all over the internet by the end of the day. As a mother, I predict that boys between the ages of 9 and 14 will immediately begin shooting each other in the ear with super-soakers, fully pumped. Look for Public Citizen to try to get these suckers--er--soakers, banned.

I realize this is humor, but having taken a child to the doctor for removal of impacted cerumen, which took bloody FOREVER and required about a dozen refills, I have to say a Super Soaker would have looked pretty good at the time.

Last year's year-end issue of CMAJ had one of my favs, an article speculating that Tintin's delayed maturation might be caused by repeated head trauma:

Acquired growth hormone deficiency and hypogonadotropic hypogonadism in a subject with repeated head trauma, or Tintin goes to the neurologist

Tintin's stature due to repeated head trauma, Bob? I'm not so sure... This never stopped Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea's Kowalski from achieving full adult size. On the other hand, maybe he started getting bopped on the head only after he joined the crew of the Seaview, where many strange medical conditions would be known to occur: for example, Captain Crane had a tendency to go into bouts of lycanthropy whenever exposed to radiation. (Or was it Admiral Nelson who suffered from that affliction?)

Okay, just loved this. Both humorous and clinically accurate in its style. Awesome.

I particularly liked: "Which led to his being able to his being able to promptly jump out of bed and attend to his son's needs, excluding breastfeeding."

Well, yeah.

That article fair restored my faith in humanity, it did.

Lila: You and your child have my sincerest sympathy. I've done this to my own ears: a dozen refills is about right. That super-soaker is attractive!

A möøse socialized my sister.

(Well, somebody had to say it.)

I expect the Super Soaker will be restricted Tuesdays, Thursdays, and especially Saturdays. (cf. Konigsberg, A.S., 1967)

Ross: That is 'møøse'. Need to get your umlauts and slashes straight.

Thank you thank you thank you. I finally got around to investigating this. And forwarded to my-cousin-the-doctor. Who, as it turns out, is just opening up her practice, with a number of older patients who need ear wax removal. So this was forwarded to the "ear wax division" of her new practice.

Sure, this seems pretty silly,but is it really any more silly than having a guy with 20+ years of education hose out your ear?

In the cold light of Monday: No

When I'm deaf in one ear causing you to kind of cock your head funny and walk with one shoulder ahead of the other becasue my sense ballance is going off: Get me a specialist damnit!

The Tintin article is excellent. I think my favourite of the year-end stories this year, though, is this one: The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute

Essential reading for anybody who works in an office with a kitchen. Note in particular the Discussion section (which cites, among others, Adams D. The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. New York: Ballantine Books, 1979: 320.) and the Rapid Responses, which seem to be taking over...

I can just see the manufacturer trying to decide whether to offer a re-engineered physicians-only version of the product, with its own pre-packaged sterile reservoirs, replaceable sterile adapter-nozzles (one per ear per patient, various sizes), special fine-tuning controls -- all for a substantial mark-up, of course, but only after satisfying FDA demands for exhaustive testing for safety and effectiveness of what is, strictly speaking, a toy.

Probably better off licensing the patent to a medical supply company.

Back in high school, I suddenly went deaf in my left ear. A fast visit to the local Kaiser Hospital, and it was determined that it was caused by a big build-up of earwax.

The doc removed the wax using what I assume was standard ear-syringing equipment -- a big syringe with a metal splashguard mounted on the nozzle, a basin of warm water, and a kidney pan to catch the drippings. A few spritzes and my hearing miraculously returned.

Not much different from the SuperSoaker method, really. Since then, I've wished I could buy that special syringe -- the wimpy rubber bulb that comes in earwax-removal kits don't cut and turkey basters are too big. Sadly, the SuperSoaker would be too difficult to aim one-handed.

It sounds like a fine excuse for a summer party:
'come have fun with a water gun and get your ears clean too!'

The last time I had a doctor clean out the wax, he used cold water. It's, um, interesting. For about thirty seconds.

I am cursed with narrow ears and moderately heavy wax.

This was discovered in Basic Training, when the earplugs we were issued at the range packed my ears shut.

My ears were flushed, which meant I could both hear, and fall asleep immediately again (it was when I'd been kept awake twice in one night [I had a trick of Fire Guard that night] for more than five minutes each time that I hied myself to sick call).

It's happened a couple of times since then. The Super Soaker sounds like a swell idea.

TK

*snerk*

I love my health care professionals.

I don't think you need the supersoaker. I have very little hand strength, so when I use the outdoor hose for our building, I take the trigger grip nozzle off and put on a sliding nozzle. I can adjust it to a fine strong spray. It's sort of like this but mine is bright yellow plastic and you control the spray by sliding a panel on the cylindrical nozzle.

Calton -- for the purposes you describe, in the UK you can buy cannisters of pre-pressurised sterilised water, which is much more effective than the device you describe sounds to me. I would be surprised if it wasn't available in other countries too. I believe the trade name is "audiclean" or something similar.

For those afflicted with excessive ear wax, may I suggest this thing, which a friend of mine found and recommended. The loop slips up your ear canal to pull the junk out, and the guard bit prevents you from puncturing your eardrum.

Spam

looks like an advert for coupons for a store not in my area. Probably an advert for malware.