I was beginning to think that my left ear was going bad faster than my right. Today I realized that
my beloved Sony headphones were just getting a little bit clogged up. So I opened 'em with a paperclip, took off the screens, and tried to clean them. The holes were too small for a paper clip, so I ended up using a 33-gauge lancet. It was too small to work properly, but I eventually got 'em cleaned out and nearly new.
And all of a sudden, I could hear the chords on the left side of
Jonathan Coulton's "Code Monkey" (a wonderful song, even without my left ear)! Frabjous. And next time I'll either use a thicker-gauge wire or I'll just buy a new pair. Yes, it's terribly thriftless of me, but
ten bucks versus fiddling around with sharp bits and possibly puncturing the drum of the headphones? Probably a good idea.