With Halloween approaching, things are pretty spooky here at PC Magazine headquarters. Jen DeLeo's cubicle is covered in stage blood and cobwebs; Reviews Editor Dan Costa has been wearing his Batman costume to work for the entire month. I thought I'd seen it all.

Nothing, however, prepared me for paranormal activity right here in the PC Mag Labs! I was attempting to test the new Griffin Evolve, an iPod dock with wireless removable speakers, when the device started...to control itself. The volume raised to excruciating heights without me touching the remote; songs were skipping at random moments, sometimes pausing on a whim.

After about 5 minutes of this, I'd heard enough to arrive at the only logical conclusion: This was the work of a ghost. Actually, I was pretty sure Sascha Segan was in his nearby office with an identical remote, controlling the device from afar, laughing hysterically as he played God with my testing bench...with my sanity. This theory had a serious hole, though: Sascha was in San Francisco.

After this revelation, I went back to the ghost theory. I was happy to leave it at that--until John Falcone from CNET reached out to PC Mag editor Brian Bennett via e-mail with a cryptic question: "Hey, do you guys have a Griffin Evolve?"

You see, CNET's New York offices are a mere floor below ours, and as it turned out, John and I were actually controlling each other's Evolves unintentionally. The scenario was dark, indeed: he, horrifying me by changing the volume of my new Radiohead album at will; I, terrifying him at an afternoon meeting by playing--then pausing--then playing again, his Kenny G tunes. Both of us assumed conniving co-workers were filming our reactions with a hidden camera for a YouTube post.

So as it turns out, the RF remote control is super strong. It works not only down the hall but on different floors of a building. That's great if you are far away from your Evolve, but it's not so great if both you and your neighbor own one.

John and I now have to work out a schedule for reviewing our respective Evolves, since we clearly can't test simultaneously. He suggested a 10-round boxing match to determine who tests first, but I've seen him and know he can take me, so I'm just going to work at odd hours and forget about sleep. In the coming days, John and I will have to rely on something called "the honor system," resisting the burning temptation to achieve the glory only remote-controlled sabotage and office tomfoolery can bring.

Look for my review of the eerie Griffin Evolve at PCMag.com soon.

Post by Tim Gideon