OK, so I slapped together something a bit more my style last night just to see what was what in Logic and failed the mixing test. Sounds pretty spectacular on crappy computer speakers or headphones, and completely loses on any sort of actual stereo.

So, uh, yeah, priority number one or two will be a studio monitor system that doesn't suck ass. Never mix with headphones I already know. But right now my choices are headphones, ratty equivalents to laptop speakers, or this super-bass-heavy system my dad gave me. The latter makes for awesome listening of properly mixed things at higher volumes than is acceptable in my neighborhood, and not much else.

So, if you have crappy computer speakers or headphones, and enjoy taking a gander at a metalhead's creative process, have a listen. The drums are too front and center and the guitars are too backgroundy now that I've sat with it for a few hours, but at least it's got that nice br00talz overtone.

Still can't figure out why the manual and the training manual claim overhead on par with any professional music production equipment, yet leveling up to where it doesn't sound "in the background" makes the mains clip. May have to dig deeper there.

SUPAHBOY is an interesting character. He's a guy that works out in the plant and wears wife-beaters and knee-length jean shorts year around. Seriously, twenty below outside and he's wearing a wife beater and a pair of jean shorts. It's insane. I have seen him put on an un-buttoned flannel shirt when it's really cold, but that's it.

Now, what makes the guy interesting aside from his general spaziness, is some of his little quirks. He can't walk. No, I don't mean he's handicapped or differently abled, although that last point may be debatable, but he can't walk. He runs everywhere. Always. So, in the mornings what you'll see coming across the parking lot is SUPAHBOY, carrying a big, giant, holds at least two cases of beer with room for ice cooler in one hand, running crazily with his huge hiking boots *CLOMP*CLOMP*CLOMP*ing along with his open flannel shirt flapping behind him like a cape. Hence, SUPAHBOY.

Oh, there's more. He used to sit outside my cube on his breaks before I moved cubes. He'd sit in the corner eating a bag of chips and talking on his cell phone, or just talking to himself. So I got all kinds of stories about how his best friend was in prison, his best friend's girlfriend was fucking around on him, and she was accusing the friend, who is in prison, of cheating on her because her guilty conscience was bothering her. Or his dreams, which were even more fucked up. All through a constant *CRUNCH*CRUNCH*CRUNCH* *RATTLE*RATTLE*RATTLE* of open-mouthed, digging in the bag of chips eating.

Since the move I don't find him nearly as annoying. More entertaining. Honestly, when you first see the guy the first thing you think is Wolverine. I'm not the only one to think that. His hairstyle is all puffy and weird and just looks Wolverinish. Honestly, if they were holding open casting calls and based it purely on looks, Hugh Jackman wouldn't have stood a chance.

So, this morning BB is on the early crew and he says he's walking casually across the parking lot and hears the coming clomp of SUPAHBOY's run coming up behind him. Then he saw the most amazing thing ever. SUPAHBOY passes him, runs up to a couple of people that are on the narrow sidewalk between the parking lot and the building, pushes through them without breaking stride, then jumps in the air to avoid a snowbank. BB said it was like a scene out of a comic book, SUPAHBOY hanging in mid-air, perfect "I'm taking off" pose, huge-ass cooler-as-lunch-box hanging from his hand, open flannel shirt flapping behind him.

Then he hit the ground and kept on running. But for that moment, he truly was SUPAHBOY. If only BB had had a camera, we'd have been able to get a cover for the book we could write about SUPAHBOY's ways.

SUPAHBOY is one amazing dude.

I get into the building this morning and as I'm walking to my cube in the back of our row I see WahWah standing in BB's cube talking with Destro, and BB sitting there looking up at the two of them laughing like he was ready to kill them both. My hackles raised instinctively as WahWah tried to push into me on my way past. I pushed through him to get to my cube without uttering a word. It was too early to deal with his crap.

I wait for him and Destro to get done giggling like schoolgirls over whatever joke they thought they were telling eachother and went to ask BB what the hell that was about. He said WahWah asked for a color scanner, Destro came to ask BB if he knew of one, then interrupted himself to say he knew where there was one. Then proceeded to explain that it wasn't his, but he knew a guy in the building who had one and on and on and on and on. WahWah asked if it had a paper feeder because he needed to scan thirty sheets and didn't want to have to babysit it. Destro said it did. WahWah asked when he could get it by. Destro said by the end of the day. WahWah then says, "OK, cool. In the meantime I'm gonna call the guy and see if I should just mail them to him instead."

BB's head almost exploded over that. If you're going to all this trouble to scan something, why hadn't you found out whether he wanted them mailed to him first?

The kids upstairs are hosting a slumber party next week. OK, really it's a training session for our dealers, but having witnessed what happens at these supposed training sessions I'm going to call it a slumber party. They spend three days riding the IT department's asses to get their Powerpoint Presentation From Hell of over four hundred slides operational on the barely functioning projection computer and then proceed to put everyone to sleep with it for five days. Making it worse is they print a copy of this PPFH for every person in attendance, so the color printer in the upstairs offices just about dies every time they prep for one of these slumber parties.

And even better, they have the entire department go to kick things off and sing and dance for the dealers. I'm sure that impresses the hell out of them.

Now, there's a single individual person whose entire job is to build and maintain this Power Point presentation. We've explained to her at least thirty times that the reason her computer keeps crashing is because she has a four hundred slide presentation all in one file and every slide has animation, intense graphics, weird colors and anything else you can think of to add to a slide and that she needs to break it up into reasonable, or even semi-reasonable chunks. Say, a hundred pages each or so.

She won't do it. But she has hinted several times that she wants us to do it. We will not, as that's her entire reason for existing here. And yet, for some reason, she remains convinced it's our fault that the presentation computer can't keep loading it.

Without fail, every time.

BTW, in case you think I'm exagerrating the page counts of that presentation, the last actual count of pages that I was aware of was 396. That was about a month and a half ago and every two to three weeks she adds another couple pages. Ever sat through a Power Point presentation of more than twenty slides? Imagine sitting through this monster.

We do so love our crazies.