Tuesday, August 06, 2013

Clock It

Buying a bedside clock requires two things; does it work and will the alarm wake me and take a good bashing in a morning. So faced with this knowledge born of my many years on this earth I decided to replace my now broken bedside timing device with something resembling 'up to date'

I now realise the folly of the expectation I set myself, one does not simply 'buy' a bedside clock just as one does not simply walk into Mordor. Buying a clock now requires hours of contemplation, comparison and endless decision making. Do you want analogue, digital, radio controlled, multiple alarmed, big display, small display, green or red display, night light, EazyRead daylight or even multiple alarm tones. The entire process has been bought up to the 22nd 'I can't cope and I'm not even old' Century.

When I was growing up, old people and by that I mean over 65 used to get confused by new technology but they had to wait until 65 to get confused. I today's world technology advances at such a rate that even at my slightly ancient age I'm already experiencing this confusion. I grew up with technology, I spent many years as a programmer, I embraced with open arms all sorts of new stuff, I was using the internet at the end of a dial up phone line way back in the late eighties in a time of Archie and Gopher and no World Wide Web to speak of so why the confusion?

Well, I think the pace of life has narrowed the age gap, just as technology ages as fast as its created the age at which you can take on board all this new stuff has also been reduced so the confusion kicks in earlier.

So I stood comparing clocks like a demented half wit trying to decide. I wanted a simple clock, digital with a nice light and preferably a radio signal set clock to help with my fixation on detail. Instead when I got it out of the box I had purchased all the said things as well as a moon phase simulator, a thermometer, although how you stick the dam thing somewhere to take it eludes me, a calendar and a laser light show.

No, really, it failed to mention that every time you press the light/snooze button (if only it did make you have a light snooze) a mini projector carves out the time on the wall, ceiling, back of your retina depending where you point the damn thing. Which leads me to another thing, I was trying to set the clock and it displayed 22:6 on the wall which looks like a date or I have purchased the optional bible reference attachment. I took me a while to figure out that I was twisting the display the wrong way, it was actually 9:22, they in their haste to cram as much technology into such a small piece of plastic had forgotten to switch the display over if its rotated.

So really I have purchased a six button, light show shaped like a digital camera that is currently telling me that the moon is in (()) phase and the temperature is 22.4 degrees, which is I assume is the room temperature and not the moons. Amidst all this tomfoolery is the time, taking up a little less than half the display.

Last night though it did come in useful. I waited until Jayne was asleep then tapped the light button. Viola! Jayne's forehead turned into a digital clock without her waking. Cool!

Just got to break it to her that the laser made a slight mark and she has a red impression of 1:45 which looks like information regarding her scale.

On second thoughts probably best not mention it...

 

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