It's 5:30 EDT and I can't sleep. Maybe it's that I'm too bored to sleep. Maybe it's the thrill of victory from winning an entire $2 ($2 more than my weekly salary) at poker earlier in the evening. Maybe it's the adrenaline rush I got from naming all 195 of the world's countries in 9 minutes 29 seconds (Beat me, I challenge you). Regardless, although I am awake, much of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States will be rising shortly for a new day. In the next few hours, millions will begrudgingly struggle out of bed, only to dream all day of being able to go back there. And this brings us to our Daily Topic: ALARM CLOCKS
Now there are few if any topics in this world on which everyone can come to a consensus on. However, I am willing to bet that almost every person worldwide has at one time thought that the alarm clock is the most vile, abhorrent and loathsome invention known to mankind. There is nothing like being awakened from a warm and peaceful sleep by the torturous sound, whatever it may be, of your alarm clock. The worst part? They're becoming even more evil. For several hundred years, since its invention in 1559 in the Ottoman Empire, the alarm clock served one purpose: make an obnoxious noise at a certain time (it makes you wonder what peoples' excuses for being late in the morning were before them). However, with the dawn of the digital age, the wrath of the alarm clock loosened slightly because of two factors. First, the ability to wake up to music or radio. No longer is a single volume bell necessary to give you near-heart failure when it is time to get up. Second is snooze. Oh snooze. Both a blessing and a curse. Never before have seven minutes of extra sleep felt so good. Never before have I been able to multiply my seven's times table so well. But the snooze button represented a serious waning in the effectiveness of this cruel machine. It is much too easy to hit snooze for an hour and convince yourself that your pillow is much more interesting than 9:30 Spanish.
However, to amend for their brief lull in tyranny, the alarm clocks are coming back more
ferociously than ever. There are many new alarm clocks that are more dedicated than ever to get you out of bed, but here are the three most cruel. First, the Laser Target alarm clock, which consists of a small target and a laser pointer. You place the target across the room and when the alarm goes off, you must hit the minuscule center of the target with your laser pointer in order to shut 
off the alarm. Even more of a downside: no snooze at all. Second, is the Sfera alarm clock, a white orb that dangles menacingly over your bed at all times. When the Sfera alarm goes off, you reach up and touch the ball to snooze the alarm. However, each time you hit snooze, the wire holding the ball retracts further and further into your ceiling until you are forced to get
up and turn it off. Lastly, and most cruel of all, is the Jigsaw Puzzle alarm clock. On top of this alarm clock is a circle composed of four, plastic jigsaw pieces. When the alarm goes off, the pieces are launched into the air, scattering about your room. The ONLY way to turn off the alarm is to retrieve and reassemble the pieces of the puzzle. Pure evil. But as analog alarms become more obsolete, I predict (saddeningly) a new array of alarms and obstacles in the near future. I, as I'm sure many others do, use my cell phone as my alarm. With the rise of smart phones, it is likely that applications for Blackberry, iPhone etc. will include alarms with all sorts of puzzles, similar to Gmail's drunk-email-proof math quizzes. You should just pray it's not "name the world's 195 countries" or only me and a select few will be snoozing in the future.-ROF
Daily Food: Barbecued Pork Chops
Daily Activity: Poker
Daily Song: Jukebox Hero - Foreigner
Daily Attire: Pink/White Striped Button Down
Daily Life Goal: See the Sun Before Summer is Over
Daily Complaint: Rain
Daily Drink: Nantucket Nectars Orange Mango
Daily Television: JeopardyDaily Movie : Claim
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