The words “magical” and “Disney” seem to travel hand in hand. There’s something extra special about the whimsy of princesses, princes, singing mice, talking ducks, and bungling dogs. Walt Disney captured the hearts and minds of not just children, but of men, women, and children all across the globe. In the early 1920s when Mr. Disney created his Laugh-O-Grams, no one foresaw the network of theme parks and multimillion dollar movies in his future.

Everything about the Disney parks is as whimsical as Fantasia. The buildings, the rides, the food, and even the clocks all have something special.

One clock that always captures the hearts of the visitors is the “It’s a Small World Clock” . This “clock” is a building. A towering castle that houses animatronics, automata, and all sorts of gears that whirl, click, and chime out the tune of “It’s a Small World”. The seemingly random and impossibly attached panels that comprise the exterior walls capture the wonder of onlookers young and old. The clock castle rings, buzzes, and clicks its own introduction to its own show. At night, lights flash on the facade. Bold shades of red, blue, yellow, and the rest of the spectrum perform a visual ballet. The holiday decorations and lights are breath taking. The building hums with a red glow and yellow accents. The top of the peaks twinkle and a green tree sits upon the apex of one section. Every fifteen minutes this clock building performs for guests. Things spin, doors open, and mechanical dancers dance. Finally, two large doors swing open. Buglers play their instruments. A bell gongs and huge panel displays the time. This building doesn’t merely house the clock. It is the clock. There’s something almost meta about that concept.

Perhaps that’s too grand for your tastes. Other clocks aren’t towering buildings, but are just as magical.

Maybe you want to enjoy the thrill and the chills of toying with the other side of the veil between life and death. The Haunted Mansion has a tall grandfather clock with a glowing face. A demonic face with jagged teeth surrounds the face of the clock as if the demon were trying to devour time itself. The swinging pendulum is a winding tail that seems to point towards hell. If that weren’t scary enough, the clock runs backwards. There’s no abomination like a backwards running clock. That alone is certain to give children and OCD clock lovers everywhere very disturbing nightmares. This clock has one more trick in its gears. It measures time to the 13th hour.

But not all of Disney’s clocks are castle-like buildings or abominations birthed from my nightmares.

The Toontown Clock Repair Store sign is an adorable fun clock with bright colors and repaired hands. The “Nightmare Before Christmas” clock jumps out of the movie with a countdown timer that records the days till Christmas. (Always felt that was a little chintzy. Our Christmas countdown timer shows the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until Christmas, but who are we to argue with Disney?) The Tiki Room preshow has a water clock featuring the God of Time, Maui.

None of these clocks seem to carry the same flair for magic as a clock that hardly any visitors will get to see beyond clips on Youtube.

Above the Pirates of the Caribbean there’s an apartment. This apartment was built for dignitaries and other VIPs. It’s called “The Dream Suite”. Inside the living room of the Disney Dream Suite, an ordinary grandfather clock stoically sits. Every hour when this clock strikes, Disney magic happens. This unassuming clock strikes and the living room comes to life. The face glows and the hands and numbers of the clock yield to a princess dancing with her prince. A curio cabinet across the room will light up with bright blues and greens and the figurines dance. Other times, the sound of birds chirping will send visitors scanning the room. On the mantle above the fireplace, mechanical birds sing inside their cage. There’s another special performance for this clock that involves something magical with a mirror, but we won’t ruin that special surprise for you.

Not all clocks just sit somewhere and cave to their monotonous repetitive fate.

Not all clocks are stogy stoic workhorses. Some clocks spark wonder and awe while others sing and dance; and yet, through it all they perform their time keeping duties.

From the mystery of the ancient clocks to the whimsical magic of Disney clocks, these wonderful time pieces possess our thoughts.

Does anyone still wonder why we love clocks and have made them the focus of our business and our life?

Postscript: We know there are lots of loyal fans of the Disney parks around. In this blog post, we’ve tried to accurately portray some of the details relating to some of the various clocks that can be found in the Magic Kingdom, both through our own personal experiences as well as via online research.  Bu if we’ve made some mistakes, or have left out some details…or even if we’ve left out a clock or two that you find special…please don’t hesitate to sound off via the comments form below!

Tags: alarm clock blog, disney clocks, disney parks, dream suite clock, haunted mansion clock, haunted mansion grandfather clock, it's a small world clock, magic kingdom clocks, small world clock, toontown clock

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• We Wish You A Merry 1234567890 !

Hey Clock Fans:

It’s been some time since we’ve devoted an entire blog post to a crazy clock that we’ve discovered. But we recently found a crazy alarm clock that we just can’t avoid writing about.

Ladies and Germs, we give you: The Thermal Nuclear Alarm Clock:

As you can see, someone definitely has too much time on their hands…combined with a very sick sense of humor. But still, we’re strangely impressed and wanted to share with you someone’s (twisted) vision of the ultimate alarm clock.

Mankind started with water-based clocks, then moved on to mechanical clocks, and then to battery-powered clocks, and even to online alarm clocks…so the next logical progression seems to be, yes indeed, a thermonuclear alarm clock.

We think that users of the thermonuclear alarm clock will certainly be highly motivated to turn off the alarm before it reaches critical mass.

Just to be on the safe side, we won’t be using one in our homes any time soon. And don’t even think about trying to take one of these with you to the airport on your next flight to visit the grandparents.

Moving right along on the theme of nuclear, atomic and ka-boom, we have another crazy poem from our years as struggling middle-class English majors in college (yes, it was a hard life, and we were deprived of deprivations the entire time, but somehow…we got through it, though we have this strange habit of always referring to ourselves in the plural).

So without any further yabba-yabba, here is a beautiful poem written by the creator of OnlineClock.net entitled, “The Lonely Atom”:

The Lonely Atom

There once was this friendly little atom named Dave.

But Dave was a lonely, lonely little atom, because he didn’t know any other atoms and he didn’t have any friends.

So Dave decided to place a classified ad in the Sunday paper.

And the ad he placed there read:  “LONELY ELECTRON SEEKS NEUTRONS AND/OR POSITRONS FOR SOLID MOLECULAR BONDING.”
After running this ad in the Sunday paper for twelve consecutive weeks without getting even a single response, Dave the lonely atom went and split himself in two out of despair.

As a result, thousands of people died in Cleveland, Ohio…and hundreds of square miles were contaminated by radioactive fallout for a very long time.
So–if you ever meet a lonely atom in a bar…buy him a f***ing drink.

Well, didn’t that just bring tears to your eyes?

Believe it or not, there was a time and a place, back in the early 1990s in San Francisco’s Mission District, that this little ditty was highly esteemed in that city’s “Open Mic” or bad poetry circuit.

(Anyone remember the Chameleon club on Valencia Street? Bucky Sinister, are you still breathing?)

Anyway, that was a galaxy far, far away…and now we’ll leave this atomic-themed blog post with a related video showing someone’s hobby version of an atomic bomb, constructed in their very own backyard, just for fun:

And of course, ABSOLUTELY NO computer-generated graphics were used in creating the atomic video shown above.

Until our next post, we bid you peace and wish you freedom from fallout.

Tags: alarm clocks, atomic, bad poetry circuit, Crazy Alarm Clocks, Crazy Clocks, fallout, lonely atom, nuclear clock, the mission district, thermal nuclear alarm clock, thermalnuclear alarm clock

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Do you ever wish you could turn back time?

Here at Online Clock we’ve seen just about everything when it comes to clocks.

We’ve reported on alarm clocks that fly, alarm clocks that explode, alarm clocks out of paper and who knows what else. You name it: we’ve seen a clock for it.

So it was with great joy and abandon that we discovered something new in the field of clocks the other day: clocks that run backwards.

We have no idea who would want such a crazy clock.

The concept of a backwards running clock is pretty subversive, you have to admit. The whole purpose of a clock is to display accurate time so, by deliberately obscuring the correct time, you’re basically unclocking the clock…or making it less clocky or…well, you get the idea.

All Backwards Running Clocks seem to share two common traits:

1. Their numerals run in the different direction (first you see the 11, and then the 10, etc…looking in a clockwise motion around the dial)
2. Their hands actually run counter-clockwise (and this is what we find real freaky with these clocks!)

There are even Backward Running Wristwatches you can buy. (Heck, I guess some people will spend a lot of money just to try to be different!)

Here at Online Clock World Headquarters we can easily imagine someone waking up to one of these backward clocks in their room and thinking they’re having the worst nightmare or hangover of their life.

Like Backwards Running Clocks, Salvador Dali's melting clock images are similarly subversive.

These peculiar backwards running clocks are reminiscent of Dali’s images of melting clocks….because they take the very idea of showing the current time and they warp this concept, almost beyond the point of recognition .

So, perhaps with a little effort you can still tell the time with one of these backwards-running clocks, but obviously, that’s not their main purpose. You would really only have one of these gadgets in your home for decoration purposes.

Here’s a video showing an actual Backwards Running Clock in action, so that you can get the real feel for how disconcerting these strange objects actually are in person:

And here we’ve found a video which displays the installation of possibly the World’s Biggest Backwards Clock. Or, as its YouTube description reads:

The [video shows the] installation of the 20ft diameter backwards clock for Tobar, in Elough, Beccles, Suffolk, UK

Can we divulge some personal secrets here?

Compared to a lot of people, we probably have some strange artifacts in our home. We’re talking vintage Japanese monster posters from the 1960s, a Frankenstein mask hanging up on the lavatory wall and even a plastic elk’s head trophy hanging above our refrigerator. BUT, a backwards running clock?! No way, we wouldn’t buy one, and we sure as heck wouldn’t hang one of these things up in our home. Each time we’d look at it, we’d probably think that we’d gone mad.

But you can go ahead and buy one.

Just don’t invite us over.

And we’ll keep running backwards…away from you.

Tags: alarm clock blog, backwards clock, backwards clocks, backwards running clock, clock that runs backwards, clocks, clocks that run backwards, Crazy Clocks, online clock

• Doggone Alarm Clocks
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The subject of today’s post on the Alarm Clock Blog is somewhat similar to our earlier post about Alarm Clocks for the Hard of Hearing.

When we refer to Soundless Alarm Clocks, we’re of course referring to alarm clocks that use some means other than sound for alarming people or waking them up.

If you do a little bit of research online, you’ll find that there are actually quite a few different Soundless Alarm Clocks to choose from. Such alarm clocks definitely have valid uses, and here we can easily think of some of them:

• Soundless Alarm Clocks will are great for persons with hearing impairments
• They can be a big help to couples sleeping together, where one of the pair has to wake up at a much different time than the other
• Soundless Alarm Clocks might be a better solution for those situations and locations where there is perhaps already a lot of noise in the surroundings. Such noise might make it difficult to notice an alarm going off. Or, if there’s a lot of noise in the vicinity, someone attempting to sleep might have to resort to using earplugs, which would make hearing a normal alarm quite difficult!
• Let’s say you’re using such an alarm clock to alert you, instead of to wake yourself up. In such cases, it might sometimes be advantageous to be alerted without disturbing anyone else around you, especially if you happen to be out among other people!

So, now that we’ve ascertained that there are definitely some valid uses for Silent Alarm Clocks, let’s take a look at some of the different kinds of makes and models of them that are out there.

First we discovered the “EezAwake” which, in its own words:

It’s the silent alarm clock!! Sick of waking up on someone else’s schedule? Use the EezAwake to wake you up on your time! The secret is EezAwake’s triple-action oscillating nodes that are embedded within the comfortable wrist band. The pulsating nodes wake you softly and quietly so you never have to be annoyed waking up again!!

…But their website looks like such a crass sales letter, it’s kind of difficult to take their product seriously, in our humble opinion.

Another potential problem we have with wristbands is: do you really want to sleep while wearing something on your wrist? The first thing we do, when we go to bed, is take our wristwatches off, because it’s simply more comfortable to sleep this way.

EezAwake have published one of their television commercials on YouTube describing the product in more detail:

As you can easily tell by watching the video, this product is a kind of a wristwatch that alarms you via some kind of pulsating vibrations. We’ve found several other makes and models of silent alarm clocks that function in a similar manner: they’re essentially vibrating wristwatches.

But we did find another kind of Soundless Alarm Clock that inspires a little bit more confidence in us. It’s called the Shake Awake Alarm Clock and, instead of functioning as a vibrating wristband, its a device small enough to fit in your pocket and it kind of reminds of us of the old-fashioned pagers that a lot of people used to carry around before mobile telephones became so widespread.

According to the ShakeAwake.com website, they offer vibration alarms and a “multi-alert timer (patented). It flashes, sounds and vibrates.” We think it’s pretty neat that there’s the option of additionally using flashing lights as an alarm…this might be a good way to be reminded about something when you don’t want to actually carry the device around in your pants pockets the entire time.

Still other forms of Silent Alarm Clocks involve purchasing any kind of alarm clock that offers a vibration module (such as the Sonic Bomb Alarm Clock which is mentioned in our earlier article) and then simply trying to deactivate or mute the sound alarm, leaving only the vibration alarm active. This is surely one solution that ought to function well.

…And then there’s the designer solution.

Johan Brengesjö, an Industrial Design Engineer from Sweden, was recently awarded a Silver medal at the IDEA (International Design Excellence Awards) in 2008 for his rendition of a Soundless Alarm Clock.

Johan Brengesjö's Soundless Alarm Clock

As you can see from the photo below, Mr. Brengesjö’s solution looks quite elegant, and consists of a simple, flat digital clock with two rubber wrist bracelets, which are kind of designed as “his and hers” alarms. In other words, each partner wears a separate rubber wristband which can be set up to alarm him or her separately at a different alarm time.  The basic idea is very similar to the vibrating wristwatch concept, but the execution sure looks much more refined.

To the best of our knowledge, however, Mr. Brengesjö’s Soundless Alarm Clock can not yet be purchased in stores (if you happen to read this, Mr. Brengesjö, and your alarm clock actually is for sale already, please correct us via our blog’s comments form).

So there, Dear Clock Fans, you have a short introduction to the topic of Silent Alarm Clocks, including a presentation of some of the more popular makes and models of these devices.

If you could use a Soundless Alarm Clock, we hope we’ve been able to give you some good ideas of the different possibilities which are available to you.

Until next time, we’ll remain here as your not-so-silent alarm clock…waking you up loudly, as usual.

Tags: alarm clocks, Crazy Alarm Clocks, Johan Brengesjö, shake awake, silent alarm clock, silent alarm clocks, sonic bomb alarm clock, soundless alarm clock, soundless alarm clocks, vibrating alarm clock, vibrating wristwatch, vibration alarm

• Your New Job as Human Alarm Clock
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Henrik Amberla calls his alarm clock creation "The Milky Way".

On our Alarm Clock Blog, we’ve reported on many clock pieces of art in the past, and today’s post continues on in this tradition.

Designer Henrik Amberla has created a truly original alarm clock that, you’ll have to admit, is more than just functional – it’s truly a piece of art.

Mr. Amberla is a student at the Industrial and Strategic Design program at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, Finland, where he’s getting his Master’s degree.

The clock in question has been named The Milky Way because of its milky-white, twisting shape. This design project was completed by Mr. Amberla in the Fall of 2009.

If you take a look at this unique and fascinating alarm clock, it looks more like a sculpture or a piece of jewelry. But it doesn’t just look cool – this really is a fully functioning alarm clock.

On one side of this image we present an image of our Milky Way Galaxy, and on the other, a photo of Henrik Amberla's Milky Way Alarm Clock. Can you tell which is which?

There’s not a great deal of information available about this innovative clock, and we’re guessing that it exists, like many of the other alarm clock art pieces we’ve already blogged about, more as a kind of design prototype at this stage than as a commercial alarm clock which you can purchase in stores. (In other words, don’t expect to be able to buy one of these Milky Way Alarm Clocks in stores right at the moment!)

However, it appears that you have to twist the clock in order to set the time and the alarm, as well as to use the clock’s snooze function.

To quote the designer:

The shape reflects on the duality and unity of the sleep/wake cycle as well as illustrates a turning motion that triggers the snooze function. Another turning motion is applied to setting the time and the alarm.

You can find out a little more about designer Henrik Amberla (but unfortunately not a whole lot more) on his own website located here.

We can only hope that cool art like Henrik Amberla’s Milky Way Alarm Clock will get enough attention in the press and in the media to encourage him and others to actually bring this unique alarm clock into production, so that we can all hope to buy one for our own homes at some point in the future.

All we can say in summation is: cool clock and a great job, Henrik!

Are you a designer with a unique idea for an innovative alarm clock? If so, please contact us using our comments form below. We love reporting about unique alarm clocks of all kinds – the more unusual, the better!

Tags: alarm clock blog, Amberla, Crazy Alarm Clocks, designer alarm clock, designer alarm clocks, Henrik Amberla, Milky Way Alarm Clock, Milky Way Clock, The Milky Way

• Your New Job as Human Alarm Clock
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Hey, are most of our readers a little bit too young to remember Dick Tracy?

Dick Tracy, of course, was the comic strip detective who had his own regularly published comic strip for years and years, stretching out from the 1930′s to the later 1970′s.

The thing that makes Dick Tracy interesting to a blog about alarm clocks, however, is his wristwatch.

When we were kids we were more interested in seeing the little diagram-like drawings of Dick Tracy’s wristwatch then we were of reading the actual comic strip (which is probably the reason why we grew up to create a website and a blog all about clocks and watches).

The special thing about Dick Tracy’s watch was not how it kept time, but what you could do with it. It was a  “2-Way Wrist Radio“: a device he could use to speak with other members of the police force.

In later versions of the comic strip, Dick Tracy’s wristwatch even developed video capabilities…

So what does the wristwatch from an old comic strip have to do with modern-day clocks and watches?

Everything! Because the truth is that the fantasy gadget thought up by Dick Tracy’s inventor, Chester Gould, has now become a reality!

In our efforts to stay on top of current news about cutting edge clocks and watches we constantly inform ourselves about new developments in clock-related technologies.

And lately, we’ve been seeing a great deal of information on wristwatches that incorporate mobile phones into them. Just think of it: a wristwatch that you can use as a telephone, either to call up the police like Dick Tracy…or to just call up your wife to request your favorite meatloaf at home at the end of the day. The possibilities are endless..

We’re not going to pretend that this blog post is a comprehensive look at the subject of mobile phone-enabled wristwatches. Instead, let’s think of it as a general introduction to the subject. Still, we’d like to present to you a couple of general videos about these gadgets that we’ve discovered along the way. These are videos demonstrating cell phone wrist watches that are apparently already available to purchase, at least in some parts of the world.

A Couple of Different Wristwatch Telephones

Please keep in mind that a couple of the videos we’re presenting to you below might be a little crassly commercial in nature. OnlineClock.net does not in any way endorse these products, nor are we in any way reimbursed for their inclusion here. It could well be that these things don’t even work and are a piece of crap – we just don’t know. We’re simply presenting them to you here for informational purposes, so that you can see what kind of wristwatch phone products available out there!

So here’s a video presenting a cell phone watch that actually looks like a somewhat serious product, and the video is from Reuters, so you know it’s got to be newsworthy:

By comparison, when you strap on this wristwatch telephone, it kind of looks like you’re wearing a Buick on your wrist (perhaps this was an early model?):

And here’s a kind of a funny review of one of these wristwatch telephones, which might help to give you a real-world perspective on these gadgets. (But hey, it sounds like the guy in this video had way too much caffeine before he made this video!):

Well, there are apparently hundreds of different videos on YouTube about the subject of these new mobile phone wristwatches, so if you’re really interested in the subject, we invite you to do your own research and look around. Just search for “wristwatch phone” or “wrist phone” or something similar.

With the advent of these telephones that you can wear on your wrist it’s a new day dawning…one in which it’ll be much harder to use excuses like:

Sorry I forgot to call – I had no idea how late it was!

Buyers beware.

Tags: 2-Way Wrist Radio, cellphone wristwatch, Chester Gould, clock, clocks, Dick Tracy, Dick Tracy's wristwatch, mobile phone watches, watches, wristwatch, wristwatch telephone

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Who let the dogs out (woof, woof, woof, woof)

Are you a dog lover?

Here at Online Clock World Headquarters we love dogs, cats, small children and even small, defenseless green plants. We’re just like that: we’re cool.

Which is why, while posting away on our Online Clock Facebook Profile (now with just around 1,500+ followers!) we discovered just how many hilarious videos there are on the subjects of dogs interacting with alarm clocks.

So we decided to create a collection of the best Dog Alarm Clock videos we could find and post them here for your entertainment. There really are some hilarious videos here, especially if you’re a dog lover. Don’t get us wrong: this post is not about Animal-Themed Alarm Clocks as we’ve written about previously. Instead, we’ve collected some pretty funny videos that show dogs’ interactions with the alarm clocks of their owners.

For some reason, dogs seem to passionately dislike alarm clocks even more than their owners.

So, sit back in your favorite easy chair, let Fido fetch your slippers and a cocktail for you, relax and prepare for a good laugh as we present to you: Online Clock’s Official Collection of Doggone Alarm Clocks!

Alarm Stopping Dog
Usually you’d think that dogs would want their owners to get up out of bed so that they can go outside for their first walk of the day. But this favorite video of ours seems to disprove this fact and it’s actually quite amazing. It shows a dog going over and shutting off his master’s alarm clock when it goes off in the morning!

Gumbert the Alarm Clock Wailing Mutt
In contrast to the previous video, Gumbert here doesn’t like his alarm clock AT ALL. And, apparently not talented enough to go and shut the alarm by himself, he seems to content to howl and howl until his owners finally go and shut it off for him.

Wailing Boxer Dog Alarm Clock
This boxer dog’s reaction to the alarm clock in his house is kind of similar to Gumbert’s, except that it’s more of a slow, painful wail.

Chancey The Rat Terrier Alarm Clock
Where’s Tatum, Chancey? And how come you can’t wake her up? I swear, how is the little kid in this video able to sleep through this? This rat terrier terrorizes her bed and she apparently sleeps through it all…

The Yorkshire Terrier Alarm Clock
This truly cute little Yorkshire Terrier seems more confused by his owner’s alarm clock than anything else and also seems to be incapable of truly howling at it.

Dakota the Retriever’s Bed Blanket Attack Alarm
Dakota here doesn’t howl at the alarm clock. He IS the alarm clock. And he terrorizes his master by staging a “blanket attack” in his master’s bed. This looks like it would actually hurt.

Tail Wagging Wall Clock
No Alarm Clock Blog post would be complete without a video of an actual alarm clock, so here’s the cutest dog-related alarm clock we could find, complete with a clock pendulum in the form of a dog’s tail that wags back and forth with the passage of time.

Whew – that’s a whole lot of dog-related alarm clock videos, and there are some good ones in there.

We hope we got your tails wagging by watching them. Which of the above dog alarm clock videos was your favorite? We’re personally huge fans of the first video, in which a very talented dog turns off his master’s alarm clock all by himself…and also of the video with the rat terrier (how can someone sleep through such an attack in bed?!). Feel free to vote for the video you like the best by using our comments form below.

If you’d like to view all of the dog alarm clock videos listed above plus a couple more than didn’t make the final cut for this blog post, you can access our Doggone Alarm Clocks YouTube Playlist and even send it to someone else via email if you wish.

So, until next time, Clock Fans – here’s wishing you something nice for your dog’s dish, keep your paws clean and…don’t eat yellow snow.

Woof !

Tags: alarm clock blog, alarm clocks, clocks, Crazy Alarm Clocks, Crazy Clocks, dog alarm, dog alarm clock, dog alarm clocks, dog alarms, dog videos, doggone alarm clocks, online clock

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Hey, do you like Christmas?

You know, all that stuff with tinsel, some big fat clown in a red outfit who calls himself Santa…and even the part about having to go to [gulp!] church on Christmas Eve??

Well, if so…then buzz off…get out of here. Go and read some lame little kids’ blog. Because, here at Online Clock, we like Halloween and we think Christmas sucks.

Do you know why Christmas sucks so bad?

Well, it’s got a lot to do with the taste of eggnog.

And it’s got even more to do with all those Christmas commercials on television.

But more than all of this it has to do with the godawful Christmas Clocks that you can find around stores during the Christmas Season.

We hate kitschy Christmas Clocks so much that we decided we’d collect the most ghastly specimens we could find and present them to you here, in our Alarm Clock Blog post lovingly entitled, “A Cynical Look At Stupid Christmas Clocks.”

So sit back in your big easy chair positioned next to that lit plastic Christmas tree and put your favorite Dean Martin Christmas album on the stereo.

Take another whiff of that frankincense and myrrh and try not to choke on the mistletoe.

We’re now going to show you some extremely bad Christmas Kitsch that’ll back up our case against the fat man in the red suit.

Evidence Number One: A Santa Puppet Dancing to the tune of Rock Around The Clock:

One, two, three o’clock, four o’clock – STOP. And somebody put a sock in that sock puppet’s mouth.

Evidence Number Two: A Round, Tingly Christmas Wall Clock:

It’s jingly, it’s jangly, and it’s just damned annoying. Ho ho ho? No no no.

Evidence Number Three: Mickey’s Clock Shop:

What’s the matter, can’t these people afford any rat traps in their houses?!

Evidence Number Four: The Santa’s Coming To Town Clock:

Not if we can help it – time to move. Quick, bolt your windows, doors and chimneys!

Evidence Number Five: The Santa’s Workshop Clock:

There he goes again, exploiting child labor. Santa seems to have everyone believing that they’re really forty-year-old elves…

That’s it…stop it…stop it right there.

We actually had a whole lot more kitschy Christmas Clocks that we wanted to show you but we can’t go on – we just hate them too much.

So go on…hit the road, people..nothing more to see here…go on and surf on over to some online shopping website where you can purchase your own Crappy and Stupid Christmas Clock for this festive season. You know you want to.

Bah, Clock-Bug!

Tags: alarm clock blog, christmas, christmas clocks, christmas kitsch, christmas sucks, christmas wall clocks, clocks, Crazy Clocks, eggnog, kitsch clocks, online clock

• Doggone Alarm Clocks
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We at Online Clock love to keep our eyes and ears open for new trends in alarm clocks…this just happens to go along with the territory of running the world’s most popular online alarm clock website.

This is why we were recently surprised to learn that there are so many Talking Animal Clocks available out there.

There is certainly something primitive in us that makes us love animals. From the time when we’re small children, up until we become adults and obtain our own menageries of house pets, human beings just love animals. (Well, actually not enough, right? Because if we truly loved animals we wouldn’t push them into extinction or hunt them and eat them…but that’s a separate topic.)

Human beings love buying objects and clothes and anything at all with an animal motif or animals printed on them. This holds true whether we’re talking about t-shirts, pajamas, bed linens, wallets, porcelain keepsakes or even…you guessed it…alarm clocks.

Recently, we discovered an entire zoo’s worth of Talking Animal Clocks and we wanted to present the most interesting of these animal-themed clocks to you here in our alarm clock blog.

So, without any further yabber, yabber, yabber, here is Online Clock’s official list of the very best Talking Animal Clocks:

Hambone Animated Talking Pig Clock
This clock has an animated pig who talks with a Texan cowboy accent. This idea for a clock sounds ridiculous but the clock is actually pretty neat. The Hambone Animated Talking Clock spouts off wake-up messages when the alarm goes off such as: “Does any one feel like a Texas two step?” and “Heeeere, piggy, piggy, piggy!”.

Kimba Animated Talking Chimpanzee Clock
Kimba is apparently the name of the chattering chimp in this Talking Chimpanzee Alarm Clock. Kimba wakes you up by shrieking around a lot like a chimp and spouting a few not-so-notable sayings such as, “Get up!” and “Hi there”. Although Kimba’s wake-up messages are pretty lame, the somewhat hideous shrieking sounds made by this chimp are enough to wake the dead.

Beaks Animated Talking Parrot Clock
The talking parrot in the Beaks Alarm Clock here has a decidedly maritime theme, and it wakes you up with seagoing-related messages such as, “All hands on deck!” and “Wake up or you’ll be shark bait!”. All in all, the Beaks clock is one of the funniest here: it’s kind of like a bird version of Captain Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean who has the job of waking you up each morning.

Bossy Bessie Animated Talking Cow Clock
Bessie is a cow who’s really a bit bossy when she wakes you up with words of wisdom such as, “Oh dear, is it morning already?”. She seems to be a bit vain and is always batting her eyelashes and probably fishing for compliments regarding how good she looks (or so she probably thinks).  Reminiscent of Miss Piggy from Sesame Street.

Talking Pink Cat Clock
This talking pink cat really has nerves. She wakes you up with sayings such as, “Milk time…be a dear and go get me some” and “it’s not easy, being this pretty, you know”. As with Bessy the cow (see the previous alarm clock), this is one vain, stuck-up alarm clock: she probably thinks she’s just purrfect.

Boss Frog Animated Talking Clock
Finally, we present to you the Boss Frog Alarm Clock. This is a big robotic frog who wakes you up froggy-style with such pearls of wisdom as, “It’s move it or lose it time!” and “Froggy to the beat, baby!” and “You snooze, you lose, pal!”. There’s something likable about this robotic frog, so if your kids are frog fans, they just might get a big kick out of this clock.

These clocks are all similar in that they present to us some idealized form of an animal that’s used to wake us up, and they all attempt to come up with witty sayings that are used as alarm messages. Some of the clocks we’ve presented to you succeed more than others in this, and it’s of course up to you to decide whether any of these clocks is good enough to grace your bedside night table.

As you can tell by looking at our collection of Talking Animal Clocks, there is no end to human beings’ imagination when it comes to thinking up ideas for tacky, kitschy, but sometimes wonderful animated clocks with animal themes.

We think this is a good thing, and certainly, if you have a young son or daughter, they will share our opinion.

So, if you’re currently seeking ideas for Christmas gifts for the upcoming holidays and have an animal fan of some kind in your family, keep in mind the possibility of purchasing for them an alarm clock which bleats or barks or otherwise wakes them up with an agreeable animal noise of some kind: a Talking Animal Alarm Clock.

We look forward to our next excursion into the realm of weird alarm clocks with you and say, until then, good night.

Translation: meow, oink, ribbit, etc…

Tags: alarm clock blog, alarm clocks, animal alarm clocks, animal clocks, Crazy Alarm Clocks, Crazy Clocks, talking animal alarm clocks, talking animal clocks

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Vadim Ryazanov from Baku, Azerbaijan has created Mr. Wake, a robotic rolling alarm clock.

Mr. Wake was created as part of the Mr. Basic V2.0 contest going on at the incredibly fabulous Let’s Make Robots website.

As you can see by taking a look at the photos of Mr. Wake, it’s a rolling robotic car with an alarm clock on its back.

The idea is that, when the alarm on Mr. Wake’s back goes off, he begins rolling around your apartment, forcing you to get out of bed to find him first, in order to be able to turn its alarm off. Of course, by the time you’ve done this, you’re pretty much guaranteed to be fully awake. There is no snooze button on Mr. Wake either (something that we approve of) so this further reinforces the fact that Mr. Wake will indeed wake you up!

Mr. Wake is kind of an alpha geek’s version of Clocky, which we’ve already written about.

Now, we don’t know if you noticed it in the video or not, but one of the things that makes Mr.Wake so cool is that it actually has an infra-red sensor on its back that, when the alarm goes off, propels the vehicle away from you whenever you attempt to grab it. This makes the process of turning off the alarm on Mr. Wake’s back much more difficult, further reinforcing the fact that, when you finally do succeed in turning this alarm clock off, it’ll be extremely likely that you’ll be 100% awake.

Another fascinating thing about Mr. Wake is that the frame of its vehicle has been created from the plastic tubes of about 20 different common pens. You know, the kind of pens that you use to jot down notes or do some drawing with! The pen tubes have been “welded” together and formed into place using a common household lighter. Now that’s ingenuity using common objects!

We think that Mr. Wake, the Rolling Robotic Alarm Clock is a great example of human inventiveness and congratulate Vadim on a job well done.

We hope to see more dazzling designs for offbeat alarm clocks in the future from you, Vadim – keep up the great work!

If you like robots, be sure and take a look at the Let’s Make Robots website for all kinds of wild and wacky robotic devices.

Tags: alarm clock, alarm clocks, Crazy Alarm Clocks, Crazy Clocks, mr. wake, robot, robotic alarm clock, robots, rolling robotic alarm clock, Vadim Ryazanov

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