Lesson learned: not all headphones work with iPhone

There are lots of kick-ass apps for the iPhone. Not news worthy or anything, but every time I see one of those iPhone App commercials I find myself saying, "Ooooooo! That's awesome!" and immediately run for my iPhone to download it (if it's free). The other day I was bored and happened to only have my iPhone with me. I'd gotten pretty bored with popping bubble wrap (I know! No one can ever get bored with that, can they? I didn't think so either, so who knew?) and saving cliff-diving cows by bouncing them across a river. Time for a trip to the App Store! That's when I found it: Tap Tap Revenge 2. Apparently, I'm behind the times because there is a "2", meaning I've completely missed the boat on "1". It's basically Guitar Hero for the iPhone. I've never been big on Guitar Hero. I leave that one to my son and husband to have the battle royale in the living room. I've always seen it as basically one step up from air guitar and a mullet. Secretly, I'm jealous 'cuz I can only do the easy level... stupid orange button. Who has hands big enough to reach that?! OK, obviously my husband does, but that's really more for my benefit (wink, wink). THIS treasure of a game only has three buttons. THREE! Yessssssss.

Skip to today when I found myself at the local torture chamber tire store because I picked up a nail in my tire. This is usually a long, boring process that involves the smell of rubber and burnt coffee and butt-numbing, red plastic chairs. I came prepared tho. I had my iPhone and headphones with me. However, not my iPhone/iPod headphones because those had died the day before (a long, slow death from being shoved in my purse too many times, often ending up tangled around PE's legs). I picked up some Sony ones that came with my laptop years ago as I went out the door.

After a long, drawn-out "discussion" with the tire store regarding whether or not I had previously purchased the tire warranty for said impaled tire, I'm told it will be an hour before my car will be ready. I told the guy that it was ok, I had a movie on my phone (coughTwilightcough) for just that reason. I sat down on one of the chairs and pulled out my iPhone and plug the headphones in. I remember thinking that they didn't make the right "click" noise when I plugged them in, but it's a sideways jack, not the straight one the Apple ones have. Oh well. As I start to go to the iPod button, I remember that I had just put Tap Tap on my phone. Sweeeeeeet. I push that instead and the first song that comes up is "Full Moon" by the Black Ghosts (song at the beginning of Twilight when Bella's plane takes off). Double sweeeeeet.

As I'm playing, I keep thinking, "Hey, the sound's off for some reason. It's really loud, so it's a damn good thing I have my headphones in." Still, I look up and around me, first at the lady a few seats over writing furiously in her diary and then at the poor man's Sayed (from Lost) across the way from me who is typing a dissertation on his Crackberry, to see if maybe they can hear the music. No one looks at me or seems to be any the wiser. I guess it's just me then.

The next song is some Chemical Brothers song and is pretty techno and even louder. I fiddle with the jack connection a bit, but seems fine. Halfway through the song, Sayed comes over to me, leans over and says, "Excuse me, but could you turn your music down?" Completely mortified, I look up at him (headphones still on) and say, "It's playing out loud?" and apologize profusely. I take off my obviously useless headphones and turn off the game.

This is when the lady next to mean leans over :

Diary Lady: That first song? Is that from Twilight?
Me: Yeah.
Diary Lady: I love that soundtrack. My daughter couldn't believe that I bought it for myself.
Me: It's a really good soundtrack! I hope the next one is just as good, but I have my doubts every time the Jonas Bros. or Kelly Clarkson gets rumored to be on it.
Diary Lady: Yeah, I heard something about Drew Barrymore, but I can't for the life of me figure out what she'd do for it.

This is when I have to reveal my Twitardedness to the masses and correct her on the origin of the Drew Barrymore rumor. This is also when I remembered that I have Twilight on my iPod in my car... which the headphones DO work on. RANT: Why on earth did Apple think it was a good idea to have different jacks for the iPhone and the iPod?! I mean, WTF?! My husband says it has something to do with the jack hole (snicker) being longer on the iPhone. Doesn't matter, it's still stupid.

Just to help educate the masses:

Headphones that work with iPhone.

Headphones that don't.

And I just want to point out something in that picture. While I was starting to write this post, the husband disappeared for a while. When he returned, he came bearing presents in the form of Ben & Jerry's ice cream pints! See the one PE's leaning against? It's some limited edition flavour from the mind of Elton John called "Goodbye Yellow Crickle Road." Holy crap! Chocolate ice cream, globs of peanut butter and some sort of candy "Crickle" pieces that results in orgasm-worthy goodness! Yeah, I think I'll keep him, even if he did make a reference to Elton and PE and their "shared preferences" while I was taking the picture.

Oh, and for your listening/viewing pleasure, "Full Moon" by the Black Ghosts: