After posting that last note, I closed Firefox just to see and my ability to play audio was restored. It is definitely related to firefox or one of it's plugins like flash as mentioned above by Motin.
-- /dev/dsp busy, but no program using it https://launchpad.net/bugs/76876 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
