Shopping, Style and Beauty

Virgin America Headphones – Well Worth the $2

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My camera battery is dead and theres no pics on the internet of the damn headphones, so this will have to do.

My camera battery is dead and there's no pics on the internet of the damn headphones, so this will have to do.

I’ve been flying Virgin America a lot lately.  It flies directly to most of the place I have to go (San Diego, LA, NY) and it’s as cheap as any of the other airlines.  Seriously, why the fuck would I spend a 5.5 hour trip to NY on a janky-ass airline who hasn’t updated their fleet since the Gulf War (I’m looking at you American, Delta and United), when I could sit in comfortable seats that have an entertainment system in the headrest?  Especially when the flight is direct and costs the same as the aforementioned janky-ness.  Yadadamean?  So yeah, Virgin rocks (Hey Richard Branson, can you please make that check out to Stuart Schuffman?)

Anyway, so when you fly Virgin they sell these cute headphones for $2.  When I say “cute” I mean that they don’t have duct tape and visible sweat stains like the pair I had before I stole the Virgin headphones.  That’s right, I said it, I stole my pair of $2 headphones.

But this isn’t a tale about morality (or lack thereof) this is my attempt to tell you that, even if I had paid for these headphones, they would totally be worth every cent.  Because of the shittiness of my last pair (see: pervious paragraph) I had forgotten what it was like to hear those ambient sounds that musicians and producers purposely put into their songs.  Listening to Portishead on my new Virgin headphones reminded me why I used play that shit during coitus in college.  That music is sexy especially when you’re able to hear all the intended sounds.

The only drawback I’ve found with these headphones is that if it’s breezy out, and you’re walking into the wind, it creates a little wind tunnel in your ear.  It’s not too bad, it’s just annoying because it sounds like a loud, drunk stage whisper.

So what’s the point of all this rambling?  I’m glad you asked.  The point is: next time you fly Virgin, make sure to grab a pair of the headphones, even if you have to pay for them.  It’s totally worth $2 to hear music sound good again.

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Broke-Ass Stuart - Editor In Cheap

Broke-Ass Stuart - Editor In Cheap

Stuart Schuffman, aka Broke-Ass Stuart, is a travel writer, poet, TV host, activist, and general shit-stirrer. His website BrokeAssStuart.com is one of the most influential arts & culture sites in the San Francisco Bay Area and his freelance writing has been featured in Lonely Planet, Conde Nast Traveler, The Bold Italic, Geek.com and too many other outlets to remember. His weekly column, Broke-Ass City, appears every other Thursday in the San Francisco Examiner. Stuart’s writing has been translated into four languages. In 2011 Stuart created and hosted the travel show Young, Broke, and Beautiful on IFC and in 2015 he ran for Mayor of San Francisco and got nearly 20k votes.

He's been called "an Underground legend": SF Chronicle, "an SF cult hero":SF Bay Guardian, and "the chief of cheap": Time Out New York.