plug

A smarter way to wake up

/ Shane / 3 Comments

There are a lot of cool alarm clocks out there. Maybe they just look cool or retro or maybe they do something crazy or unique when they go off. Sara has a Moonbeam alarm clock, which starts blinking a light before the actual alarm goes off, to wake you up more “gently”.
I say “gently” because when it is dark in the room, a huge flashing light is just about as jarring as the actual alarm. But I digress.

So there are clocks that try to be a little more gentle waking you up, but now there is an even cooler clock out there, one that actually improves your sleeping. Basically how this thing works is that you wear a head band while you sleep and that head band wirelessly sends information back to the alarm about your brain waves. You can then plug this into a computer and get print outs and graphs about how your sleeping schedule is working for you and even tips about how to improve things.

But here’s where it gets really cool. A tip a sleep doctor gave me about sleeping is that if you feel tired when you wake up, try waking up 30 minutes earlier. This is counter-intuitive obviously, but moving your alarm time might catch you in a lighter sleep cycle, which would make you feel more rested when you wake up.  So, with this clock, you can set the alarm so that if it detects you are in a light sleep cycle and it is almost time to wake up, it will go ahead and wake you up. That way, it avoids waking you up in a deep cycle which would leave you feeling groggy.

That is some pretty sweet technology at work. Is it worth $400? I don’t know. The article kind of indicates that it might fix your sleep simple because you’re like, “I’m not wasting $400 without some results!” so you actually do all the things you know you should be doing anyway.

Run Pee

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Have you ever sat in a theater, needing to go to the bathroom so bad but trying to hold out for fear of missing a vital piece of the movie? Well, no more! I give you Run Pee.

This is so brilliant. Basically, you look up a movie you want to see and it gives you a little timeline with certain points marked out that are okay to run out of the theater during. Usually these are little scenes that are maybe character builders, but don’t really advance the plot in any way.

It will tell you something like, “An hour 23 into the movie, such and such a character walks into a room and says this” and then tells you, “You have 4 minutes.” So you can look through and find a suitable place to go. And here’s where it gets really brilliant, it will give you a little synopsis of the scene you are missing so you really don’t miss out on anything. But that synopsis is scrambled until you hit a button, so you can check it out without seeing any spoilers!

Godzillionaire

/ Shane / 2 Comments

There is a humorous blog I read by the annoyingly named comedian Myq Kaplan (that’s right, his name is Mike spelled Myq) called Godzillionaire. It is kind of hard to explain what this blog is. It’s like a play on words where you combine two words together and then explain why that’s funny. See, there’s just no way to describe it that sounds funny, so I will give you some examples:

Sudan.
Danza.
Sudanza.

One of the worst things in history, PLUS genocide in Darfur.

Please help stop these atrocities.

or

Know.
Nothing.
Knowthing.

Socrates and Confucius both claimed that true knowledge was in knowing the extent of one’s ignorance.

So if they DIDN’T know that, then they would have been even wiser.

Socrates.
Confucius.
So Confused.

I’ll give you another one:

Adultery.
Terrycloth.
Adulterrycloth.

Using a towel that isn’t yours.

Philander.
Drying.
Philandrying.

Well I don’t care what you say, I think it’s funny.

Perfect for Guest Bathrooms

/ Shane / 4 Comments

I shill for ThinkGeek so much I’m waiting for a paycheck, but they just have the greatest stuff. Tell me this wouldn’t be an awesome shower curtain / bath mat set for your guest bathroom:

I also think this is a stellar idea. Basically, you can add a little extra monitor that runs off your USB port, no external power cord. So you could conceivably add as many extra monitors as you have USB ports! They’re small, but it could be good if A) you have a laptop, or B) you have a lot of them. They could also be useful to keep up certain apps like instant messenger or winamp.

Bacon Bits

/ Shane / 1 Comment

What happens when you combine two great things, space invaders and bacon? You get a fantastic shirt from WOOT.com.

My favorite part was:

“I’m gonna wait for the bacon to steal my guy and then rescue him back and then I’ll have two guys at once to shoot at the… wait, then I’ll have to share my bacon.”

I was always torn if I should get my guy get captured (which seems like a failure of some sort) vs. the power of having two guys at once.

Anyway, hurry up and order, I believe you only have until the end of the day!

I’m glad everyone is thinking of me, since I received this link from Meg, Tony, and Jackie (congrats on engagement btw!)

Check back tomorrow for the regular Monday Evie update…there are things a foot! (that’s a pun, but you won’t get it until tomorrow)