Yesterday Boing Boing pointed to a trailer that promotes a Spinal Tap reunion for Al Gore’s “Live Earth” concert benefit. I took delight in seeing the where-are-they-now segment of the clip, and seeing the band try to negotiate an elementary count-in, but sadly, the Live Earth site and the trailer are crawling with Microsoft proprietary gimmicks. I would have hoped Al “Keynote” Gore would oversee a sustainable-web organization.
I got over that disappointment, and was gathering my wits — OK, my “wit” — OK, half of it — when I observed Boing Boing’s plug for the Stephen Fry talking alarm clock. Pippa loves Jeeves and Wooster, but she already has an alarm clock; now I’m trying to think of someone else to whom I can rationalize giving this delightful implement. Bonus: you don’t need to buy the clock to hear many of the alarms. The clock’s manufacturer has cleverly offered the world the first few messages free, for anyone to download. Their website could use a useability makeover too, so I could point to the downloads page, but if you go to the main page and click on the Downloads button, you’ll have access to such gems as, “The rising and shining cannot be postponed indefinitely. Though shining isn’t compulsory in this intractable world, the rising eventually is.”