I tried to work up a decent rant a few times this week to no avail. All I succeeded in doing was repeating myself with the same old spew. I may have expunged all my irritations. So I started a story. Once upon a time, in a dark and dingy studio there lived a small pig named Cosmic. He had proudly named it Cosmic Pig Studios, Purveyors of Exlint Sound, although it was generally referred to as The Room Of Pain by those who had recorded there. He was, for the most part, a very happy little pig. He had a purpose, which was to turn the horrid shrieks emanating from the monitors into plush and beautiful sounds that warmed the heart and made the bathroom smell clean. He was quite pleased with his purpose, though he had originally asked for a porpoise. His spelling was not great before he was born and he'd filled out the form all wrong. He wasn't a terribly smart pig. When they were handing out brains he quickly rushed to the front of the line, but then got stuck holding the door for everyone else. To top it off, it was the door marked "Brians", which meant he was probably dyslexic, and entirely in the wrong section. By the time he got the proper door figured out there were very little brains left, and he was too stupid after that to correct the porpoise thing. But for all that he was a happy pig. In the dim glow of the blinky lights emanating from the mysterious machinery placed around the Room Of Pain he would spin and zoom merrily about in his ancient ergonomically designed chair with it's worn oval shaped wheels bumping along squeaking out happy eegity-eegity sounds of encouragement. He would mutter and giggle and twirl tiny knobs and push little levers and buttons that transformed the awful screechy farty noises into love and merriment. The wee pig had two indentured interns that assisted him in his task. He had won them in an illicit back alley Whack-a-mole game back in the days when whack-a-mole was analog. This was long before the Antares company came out with the digital autowhacker plugin that allowed anybody to pretend they were expert whackers. Now, usually studio intern means you work for free until nothing happens, then you go get a real job. It's similar to being a musician except without the drugs and hot chicks. "indentured" studio intern means the same thing, except with false teeth. One of the indentured was a small green frog named Mojo. He was a lovely translucent green and very hard to see even when he was staring you right in the face. Mojo would often be found glommed onto a microphone with his cute little suctiony toes stuck in terror to the grille. He spent much of his time being screamed at unintelligibly and dodging flying spittle so he was a rather irritable frog. The other was an old somewhat lumpy gray hamster named Muse. He had an itty bitty teeny tiny light bulb protruding from his ass that blinked when it came near great musical inspiration. Unfortunately the itty bitty teeny tiny light bulb was very hard to see, so Cosmic was constantly bending him over to see if it was a good take or if they should play it again. Muse was also rather irritable. One day as Cosmic flitted and danced gleefully about pushing buttons and twirling knobs he heard a strange sound. He had heard many sounds over the years in his endless quest to fulfill his purpose, but never a sound quite like this. It was an odd sounding sound, empty of character, as if it had no heart or soul. If he wasn't such an expert on sound he would have assumed it was some kind of impending doom squeal from a Medicalert bracelet, or someone's cell phone urgently warning of it's imminent demise via low battery, but it was pitched too low for such crappy and entirely useless speakers to reproduce. Because the sound had so little depth it was hard to pinpoint where it was coming from. After much snuffling around with his ears cocked this way and that Cosmic realized it must be coming from a dim corner of the studio. A large area purposely invisible and dangerous to even think about. It was a darkened corner where sound feared to tread. Where no blinky lights blinked and nary a gleam was to be had from lever or button or fancy mic. The outlines of all manor of mysterious equipment and instruments could be seen stacked precariously high with wire guts and broken strings trailing out every which way like disemboweled corpses. It grew constantly and the little studio was ever in peril of being completely engulfed by it's evil presence. It was the dreaded To-Be-Fixed pile. During his first few years of tenure in The Room Of Pain he had fought valiantly with the To-Be-Fixed pile. He would wave a magic wand that looked a bit like wire strippers and stab it most vigorously with a sword that looked a bit like a soldering iron until he was overcome by the fumes and multiple burns and wire slivers. Only then, bleeding, singed, and dizzy, would he retreat to fight another day. One day after a particularly bloody foray into the pile he had a revelation. A dawning of great wisdom that happens only through soul shattering pain. As he sat back sucking a burned thumb and admiring his blobs of handiwork through one eye still stinging from the smoke of battle, his sword rolled off the desk and into his lap. At that moment a great plethora of obvious became clear to him. Firstly, in all the years of vigorous skirmishes with The-To-Be-Fixed pile he had yet to fix anything, and secondly, he had soldered his weenie to the ergonomically designed chair. In that phoenix-like moment of clarity it became clear to our most heroic rotund rasher that the best way to fight the The-To-Be-Fixed pile was to put it off. Put it on the back burner as it were, and maybe deal with it later when he had time. So, with the wheels dejectedly eegity eegitying out his ignominious defeat, he rolled carefully away trying to make no sudden moves for fear of further enlightenment via his weenie. The only thing that prevented the entire studio from winding up in the dreaded to-be-fixed pile were his only friends, two overly jovial hale-fellow-well-met types named Long and Mcquade. Long would happily print up tiny little contracts for the wee pig to sign, then give him fancy new boxes with blinky lights and Flash Gordony looking mics that worked dandy as dandy could be, which is quite dandy indeed by gum. Mcquade on the other hand, followed Cosmic around deeming last month's boxes with blinky lights obsolete and asking for money. It suited the impassioned pudgemeister just fine as the old boxes had stopped blinking and been sent to the To-Be-Fixed pile long before they were obsolete or paid for, and thusly did the pile grow. With his ears cocked Cosmic inched himself hesitantly forward towards the pile in the ergonomically designed chair he was soldered to. "Eegity? ...Eeeegitty?" went the little wheels in squeaky fear. Long and Mcquade looked on in alarm. If something still worked in the pile they might lose their justification for constantly irritating their porcine pal with tiny contracts and boxes with blinky lights. They tried to distract their most cherished chubster by waving glossy pictures of gear and emails that began with "Our records indicate..." But Cosmic was determined and shooed them off with promises of payment next week, for sure this time. No, really. Mojo and Muse saw the imminent danger and quickly went to Starbucks to get everyone coffee, stopping to clean a toilet or two on the way out. Cosmic wheeled into the pile, turned a corner, and disappeared from sight. What will become of our piteously imperiled porker? Will the evil encroachment of the To-Be-Fixed pile finally triumph with the consumption of the wee baconator? Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion. Or better yet, call me to do some recording.