Hooked up avatar chatting and other questions

Does anyone know if their electrode hooked up chatting was completely made up or exists in some form? I thought they did a nice job of making it look plausible (enough so that I'm asking here, lol).

There were a couple of things that puzzled me, the best example of which was the leg being bandaged. It was the guy's leg, right? And was there any significance to it or it was just another element in the flow of things?

I was really puzzled regarding how some of the characters connected, especially the girl and tall guy from the home radio station with D. Arquette. I don't mean how, I mean why wouldn't they have already been acquainted with one another prior to Isabel (?) arriving in New Orleans to search for her sister?

A lot of the material related to the fireman (fireboy, lol) and the widowed woman had me baffled as well.

Keep in mind, I liked the movie despite of -- or maybe because of -- all the seemingly random and jarring events. The film's random, surreal nature had me constantly off balance and even uncomfortable, which was an accomplishment.

I only saw this movie last night for the first time. I can tell I'll need to watch it several more times to get a better grasp on it.