My IdleStation 2

Many many moons ago, my parents bought me a Playstation 2. It was a grand machine and my families first DVD player. It served well and while I had less then 10 games, it still provided hours of entertainment. I never was much of a gamer, I never 'beat' a game and I rarly stayed up past 2am playing on non school nights. But the early PS2's had laser problems and my little machine wasn't immune. It became so bad that I couldn't load anything. No games, no DVD's, no nothin. So I decided to sell by busted equipment to EB Games for $30 store credit and bought a new Playstation 2 at $150. Quite the deal, huh. Well, four months later my new and improved slim PS2 sits idle next to my T.V. holding up some stupid glass candy dish (empty) and my deoderent. I maybe played it a dozen or so times since I have upgraded, all of those exclusivly on the Grand Turismo 4 which is a cool game, if you have the time to commit and the coordation to kick butt. Oh well, it does make a decretive coaster.

Baseball, Cell Phones, And a World of Hurt

This is an old story, but an article I just read on Wired.com resurected it from my vast memory banks. One Sunday in June, I was inside taking a break from mowing the lawn while Jenn was at work. I was sitting on the couch under our one and only ceiling fan watching the College World Series with my dad. I'm not much of a baseball fan, but it wasn't like I was going to ignore the T.V. or demand my dad change the channel so I decided to watch an inning while I cool down. While I'm watching, Jenn calls on her break at work. We were talking and all of the sudden something on the T.V. caught my eye. It was a bad call on the umpire and they were constantly showing replays of diffrent angles. I was intrigued and while this televisionary distraction was unfolding Jenn aperently asked a 'fill in the blank' question to which I must have responded a 'yea' to. Now I'm in hot water. I have just been caught not listening. I was whole-heartily paying full attention up to the point of the foul play, then I focus 55% of my attention to the T.V. durring a critical point in the conversation and my night is ruined. She never did tell me what she asked and I was harassed and ridiculed all night by not only Jenn, but my experienced and histairical father who heard the entired event unfold and who has himself been in such a pickle. Anyways, what started this rambling was this article in the Furthermore section of www.wired.com.

Say What?

Men who are accused of never listening by women now have an excuse -- a new study says women's voices are more difficult for men to listen to than other men's. The Daily Mail, reported that researchers at Sheffield university in northern England discovered that the brain responds differently to male and female sounds. Men decipher female voices using the auditory part of the brain that processes music, while male voices engage a simpler mechanism. "The female voice is actually more complex than the male voice, due to differences in the size and shape of the vocal cords and larynx between men and women, and also due to women having greater natural 'melody' in their voices," said researcher Michael Hunter. The findings may help explain why people suffering hallucinations usually hear male voices, as the brain may find it harder to conjure up a false female voice accurately.
-- Associated Press

Now, the most important part of that article is the first sentence. Let me repeat it. " Men who are accused of never listening by women now have an excuse -- a new study says women's voices are more difficult for men to listen to than other men's." So basicly, had I been gay, this would have never happened. But, I'm not gay (with no regrets) so things like this are going to keep happening.