Where's the $#@*%! alarm?!

Best use of technology EVER. I need one of these so bad, it's not funny. I think I've worn out the snooze button on my clock.

Scientists at MIT's Media Lab in the United States have invented an alarm clock called Clocky to make even the laziest of sleepers, those who repeatedly hit the snooze button, leap out of bed.

After the snooze button is pressed, the clock, which is equipped with padding and a set of wheels, rolls off the table to another part of the room. Each day, the clock finds a new place to hide.

Law "enforcement"?

I know I've probably ranted to some of you in the past how legally, the cops are not required by law to protect you, but now we're in danger of setting the precedent that police are not even accountable for enforcing restraining orders by a court. Scary stuff:

In 1999, a court granted Jessica Gonzales a protective order barring her estranged husband Simon from contact with her and her three daughters, ages seven, nine and ten. The court order also required the police to enforce its terms by arresting her husband if he violated the order.

Simon abducted the young girls a month after the court order, and Jessica immediately called the police. The police told Jessica there was nothing they could do, and said she should call back if the girls did not turn up. Jessica called the police six times that night, and eventually drove to the police station to plead for help in person. The police refused to take action and enforce the court order.

Simple things...

...restoring electricity/sewage/water, and other simple things that are helping improving the situation in Iraq:

3. He showed a graph of attacks in Sadr City by month. Last Aug-Sep they were getting up to 160 attacks per week. During the last three months, the graph had flatlined at below 5 to zero per week.

4. His big point was not that they were "winning battles" to do this but that cleaning the place up, electricity, sewage, water were the key factors. He said yes they fought but after they started delivering services that the Iraqis in Sadr City had never had, the terrorist recruiting of 15 and 16 year olds came up empty.

Squeaky clean on Mars?

You'd think on a multi-million dollar budget, they would have thought of adding a little bottle of Windex and a squeegee arm for the Mars rovers, but hey...you take what you can get:

Mars scientists and engineers are elated about a dust-busting blast that has struck the Spirit rover at its Gusev crater exploration site.

Turns out that a martian whirlwind - dubbed a dust devil - likely zoomed over the robot high up in the Columbia Hills. That fleeting flyby effectively cleaned Spirit's solar arrays, giving the robot a new lease on life.

Engineers report that the rover's power reading quickly shot up to almost as high as when the rover landed on Mars over a year ago.

That just means more cool-ass pictures from the rovers!

Toxic plume?

Ok, I guess I'm blogging another blog now...I sure wish Blogger would figure out how to implement Trackback so you can see who's linking to your blog. Anyway, I'm glad Heather shares my disdain of how how sad the local news is becoming (bowing to those all important commercials):

Yesterday morning we turned on the morning news to find the words BREAKING STORY covering the whole screen. A railcar not too terribly far from our house was leaking acid, potentially life-threatening acid. The reporter said, "Toxic acid is leaking from a train car close to the freeway. We'll tell you which acid it's leaking and how it might kill you, after the break."

AFTER THE BREAK. I MAY BE DEAD AFTER THE BREAK BUT AT LEAST I'LL STILL BE TUNING IN.

AFLAC!

You know it's gonna be a good read with gems like "the strange case of the homosexual necrophiliac duck". Those wacky ducks. And for the ladies out there....here's why it's important that you TELL us your thoughts instead of making us guess them:

"When one died the other one just went for it and didn't get any negative feedback - well, didn't get any feedback," he said.

For some reason, "seminal paper" gave me a laugh too. I am clearly warped.

Kodak moment?

From the "Taking-pictures-while-you-should-be-running Department":

Photographs from the camera of a Canadian couple killed in Asia's tsunami include their final shots of a huge wave as it rushed toward them at their beach resort in Thailand.
...
In a sequence of photos over the course of a few minutes, some curious onlookers are shown wandering onto suddenly exposed tidal flats, a sign of the impending tsunami. In one, a large wave appears to be breaking in the distance.

"I don't know why they didn't run," their son Christian Knill told Global TV in Vancouver. "Either they knew they couldn't or they didn't know the power of the wave."

Their camera was destroyed, but being digital, they got the pics off the memory card. Ah, technology. Mental note: if you're going to die anyway...at least take some cool pics near the end?

Damn kids

You know, I wasn't like this as a kid:

"Apparently playing video games, watching TV and instant-messaging friends isn't relaxing enough. According to a new survey, 71 percent of children say they "need" a vacation. "
...
The worst part of going on a vacation with mom and dad? Getting up early and riding in the car.

Oh, you have a loooong road ahead of you if you can't handle that, kids. Moving out of your parents' house soon? That light at the end of the tunnel is a freight train, bub. The freight train of mortage, taxes, kids....I could go on. Enjoy your childhood while you've got it and shut up.

And you thought this only happened in Cinemax movies....

As usual, I was not available to assist with the "experience".

Twelve American nuns have been suspended from their convent after going on an alcohol and sex fuelled holiday.

The women, all aged between 22 and 31, went on the Club 18-30 holiday without telling anyone where they were going.
...
Amazingly the 12 ladies tried to excuse their behaviour by claiming they wanted to experience sin.

This almost reads like a "Dear Penthouse: I can't believe this happened to me...: article:

...and in other news....

I heard that Nikki Cox finally broke up with Bobcat Goldth-whatever-his-name-is. And is now dating comedian Jay Mohr.

Then I realized...if they ever get married, it would be the "Mohr-Cox" wedding, right?

Oh, man that was too easy.