Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Groundlings
October 17, 2006

There are these creatures that live under my porch, and up until yesterday, they were quite friendly with me.

When I first noticed them, I thought that someone had dropped a sack of potatoes near the walkway to the front door. They were each about the size of a potato, with brown mottled skin, not unlike the textrue of a potato. They had very small eyes that were entirely pupil sunk into their noseless faces. Each had a pair of twig-like legs and arms, and some of them carried twigs sharpened into potato-people-sized spears. They seemed altogether shocked when I happened upon them.

Silent Alarm
October 15, 2006

I went out for lunch and shopping with my mom yesterday. We stopped at Best Buy in my quest to find a new amplifier for my computer speakers, which has still gone unresolved.

However, I did find a new DVD player for the family room, an updated version of our old DVD player, which I will move to the kid’s TV in the playroom. The new one is DivX Ultra, and actually plays some of the TV shows from the current season that I was having trouble with. It also has a USB port to play files directly from a USB keychain or hard drive. All that with HDMI upsampling to 1080i for under $100, and I was totally sold.

New Alarm Clock Design
October 10, 2006
alarm clock

Nana is on vacation this week, so Berta is home with the kids and sleeping in late. This means I can sleep in a little, but it has caused some issues with our alarm clock. The most aggravating thing with our alarm clock in the new house is that it seems very loud. Combined with the size of our new bedroom, and the "across the room" philosophy of forcing someone to get out of bed to turn off the alarm, I'm sure that the neighbors hear our alarm for a good 20 seconds before someone turns it off.

Our current alarm actually has two separate alarm times. Each of the alarms has a different chirp pattern and pitch. This is interesting because at the old house we had always used one alarm for Berta and one for me, and although Berta's alarm went off before mine, I wouldn't wake up for it. I suspect that's due to me becoming conditioned to respond to only one of the two alarm sounds. I've read a bit about alarms that gradually get louder when they go off, instead of creating an ear drum-piercing siren at the onset. And perhaps instead of a chirping siren, the alarm should use music or some other noise to gently wake us us. Maybe this is also the solution to the neighbors being affected by our alarm.

But while I'm thinking about improving my alarm clock, let's go completely high-tech.