And not just the role reversal problem of Jessica Biel no longer getting her period while Justin Timberlake is starting to get his. No, I’m talking about a relationship problem. They’ve been dating for two years but the last time they were spotted together was in May.

“Things don’t look good for them right now - they’ve hit a really rocky spot,” confides a source close to Timberlake, who adds that serious problems began back in February during a boys’ trip to Las Vegas.

“Justin had to leave dinner once because Jessica was calling him incessantly. They got into a huge screaming match over the phone about how she’s always ‘checking up’ on him. She’s extremely needy and is always keeping tabs on him.”

Well, I’d be worried too since he’s goddamn Justin Timberlake. As soon as he sits down, girls come over to bury their faces in his crotch.

But Jessica isn’t only needy says the friend, she’s also one of those girlfriends.

“All his friends think she’s really annoying,” added the source. “She’s always trying to be one of the guys. She and Justin have no chemistry.”

Justin’s friends are big pussies. They’re probably just pissed Jessica emasculated them during touch football. It’s not very manly to have a girl sit on your chest and make you slap your face with your own hand while asking, “Why are you hitting yourself. Why are you hitting yourself.” It’s arguably less manly to whine about it to the NYDN.

Sources say Justin is in London right now taking a break from Jessica. Don’t worry though, Jessica is an excellent tracker. She’ll find him. I mean, the last thing she said was, “The hunt… is on.” She sounded serious.

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Remember training your brain through games? Since bursting onto the scene a few years ago in Nintendo’s hit Brain Training games, the concept of gaming our way to bigger, better cortexes has flamed out a bit, due largely to a flood of poorly-made, copycat titles and the dwindling of the belief that this sort of thing actually makes you smarter.But while consumers have shifted away from the pseudo-educational genre, scientists have dropped it under a microscope in the hope of gleaning some insight into exactly how games affect the mind.

And according to some recent studies, it turns out that playing video games not only stimulates those synapses, but might actually make you a sharper thinker after all.

Courtesy of a $1.2 million grant, researchers from North Carolina State University and the Georgia Institute of Technology are hard at work studying whether or not video game playing can boost thinking skills and memory in the elderly. Rather than simply determining if certain games increase certain brain functions, the team is hoping to first identify the qualities that make a game good for the brain, then use that information to build a prototype brain games from the ground up.

The game best suited for the job? Oddly enough, it’s EA’s critically-acclaimed Boom Blox games. Dr. Anne McLaughlin, assistant professor of psychology at NC State, believes the Wii puzzle-party franchise contains three fundamental brain-strengthening qualities — attentional demand, novelty and social interaction — key to making a great brain game.

“For example, if we find that novelty and attentional demand improve cognition, we’ll then develop a game that focuses on that,” she said.

While McLaughlin and her crew aim to help grandparents stay sharp, other are examining what effects gaming will have on the next generation. A recent article in Scientific American targets “plasticity,” or the brain’s ability to dynamically change in response to experiences. Children are more susceptible to this kind of change, which means that the kinds of games they play could have different effects on their adult skill sets.

So which games are best for kids? That depends on what they want to be when they grow up. A study at the University of Rochester indicates that playing action games can increase hand-eye coordination and sharpen vision, while playing games like The Sims 2 might improve social interactions and even make people more empathetic. So if Johnny wants to be a fighter pilot, he might want to play some Wii Sports Resort instead of Wii Music.

Plus, you know, it’s just a better game. And it doesn’t take a big brain to figure that out.

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games

TweetGenius is a Twitter application you will certainly enjoy if you have a Blackberry. This application was created by a group of BlackBerry-lovers who really know what other BlackBerry-lovers need when it comes to making use of a Twitter app.

One of the best things you will find about this application is the fact that it was designed with the integration of a ground-breaking UI. In this way you will have the chance to get the benefits of highly efficient user-orientated features such us the ability to create a new tweet, as well as to start new searches, etc.

At the time of Michael Jackson’s death last week, it was well-known that he was preparing for a 50-show concert series at London’s O2 Arena later this month.

What was less well-known — and what many are now speculating about — was what kind of recordings Jackson had done for the last few years.

Billboard has learned that the singer was working on two albums at the time of his death: one in the pop vein that made him famous and another that would consist of an instrumental classical composition. And while some believe the star wanted to recapture his ’80s glory days — or escape financial trouble — those who worked with him recently say he was motivated by his fans and his children.

Jackson was working on the pop album with songwriter Claude Kelly and R&B star Akon, who says that Jackson was motivated by the ticket sales for his performances.

“He said, ‘My fans are still there. They still love me. They’re alive,’” Akon says. “His kids are like his first priority, and they had never seen him perform live. He was trying to create the most incredible show for his kids.”

Kelly, who wrote “Hold My Hand,” the Akon-produced Jackson track that leaked last year, says Jackson never lost his passion. “He was the King of Pop, the biggest to ever do it, and the one thing you never lose — whether known by the whole world or just 10 people — is your love for music,” Kelly says. “That never goes away, and it never went away for him amidst his troubles.”

Composer David Michael Frank had worked with Jackson on a 1989 TV tribute to Sammy Davis Jr. and received a call from the star’s assistant two months ago about collaborating again. Jackson invited Frank to his home in Los Angeles’ Holmby Hills, told him he was working on an instrumental album of classical music and asked for help with orchestration.

“He had two demos of two pieces he’d written, but they weren’t complete,” says Frank, who adds that he was impressed with Jackson’s knowledge of classical music. “For one of them, he had a whole section of it done in his head. He had not recorded it. He hummed it to me as I sat at the keyboard in his pool house and we figured out the chords. I guess this recording I made is the only copy that exists of this music.”

A few weeks ago, Jackson called to see how Frank was progressing on the orchestrations. “He mentioned more instrumental music of his he wanted to record, including one jazz piece,” Frank says. “I hope one day his family will decide to record this music as a tribute and show the world the depth of his artistry.”

Although questions arose about Jackson’s health, and the impact it had on his dancing and singing, those who collaborated with Jackson say his voice was in fine form, despite his frail appearance.

Greg Phillinganes, a keyboardist who collaborated with Jackson as musical director of the “Bad” tour and appeared on several of his albums, says Jackson sounded as good as he ever did. “He still had a good voice and never had a problem singing,” says Phillinganes, who last spoke to Jackson in March. “There were questions about him being able to pull off the tour on the choreography side, but sources working with him told me he was dancing all the time, every day, and was very focused, excited and committed to making this tour the best it could be.”

Akon last spoke to Jackson three months prior to his death. “He would always tell me to eat right and ask me if I was exercising and drinking water,” he says. “He’d always stress you had to take care of yourself before you can go off and do anything else.”

Frank agrees. “He seemed totally healthy, not frail, and gave me a firm handshake when we met. He seemed in good health, had a good voice and was in good spirits,” he says. “He was very skinny, but from what I knew, he was always thin. He was also taller than I pictured, but he might have been wearing some platform shoes. And he was impeccably dressed.”

Much has been made of Jackson’s intense rehearsal schedule, but Phillinganes says that Jackson lived up to his reputation as a perfectionist. “It was the biggest comeback of his career, arguably the biggest comeback in pop music — even bigger than Elvis,” he says. “So obviously he’d want to do the best he could. He never did anything half-assed, which is what originally got him to the stature he had.”

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