I was one of the first to board an ORD-SNA flight and was getting settled in my exit row window seat. Was annoyed to hear very, very loud music coming from across the aisle and one row forward. A young lady, already seated, was rocking out to the Ipod music.

Funny thing was, she was very much off the beat of the music, sort of like Elaine in that famous Seinfeld episode.

I tried to ignore it, reminding myself that I'm somewhat thin-skinned about these things and I should just chill.

It took a few minutes to figure out that it wasn't her music that was annoying me. Remember on UA some aircraft still have the two headphone ports for the old, acoustic heaphone tubes? The ones that you can hear without headphones? Well, they're still active, and someone had turned the middle seat's audio way up and that what I was hearing. It was directly in line between me and the young lady.

I thanked God I hadn't asked her to turn down the music!

Why are these headphone ports still active?