Wednesday, August 05, 2026
Alarm clocks
Chris Siebenmann uses iPhone as an alarm clock, and his reasons are largely why I too, I keep my old iPhone (which is no longer supported by the Oligarchic Cell Phone Company) as an alarm clock (and why I don't have a new iPhone that is supported is a complicated story I'd rather not get into for my own sanity).
And I use the iPhone for all the reasons that Chris does. But one aspect that Chris doesn't mention is the ability to change the alarm sound to prevent myself from being conditioned to ignore the alarm. I have two stories about an old alarm clock (of the type that you plug into the wall) that illustrate my being conditioned to an alarm.
Both of these happened in the mid-90s when I had been using the same alarm clock for maybe a decade at that point. The first was a dream. I was at work when my boss approached me. “Baah baah baah baah baah baah,” he said. Nothing I said deterred him from his speech impediment. “Baah baah baah baah baah baah.” He just would not shut up. It took a while for me to realize that my alarm clock was going off, and that I had incorporated the sound into my dream. “Baah baah baah baah baah baah,” indeed.
For the second, I must explain that I had placed my alarm clock out of arms reach. In fact, I had placed it across the room, meaning that when I realized the alarm was going off, I would be forced to get out of bed to shut it off. But as I found out, that wasn't enougn.
There was one time when the alarm went off, “baah baah baah baah baah baah,” I would roll out of bed, take the two steps to cross the room, slap the “snooze” button, two steps back, roll back into bed. “Baah baah baah baah baah baah.” Roll out of bed, two steps, slap, two steps, back to sleep.
For three hours!
At which point, the alarm clock said “enough of this silliness,” and shut the alarm off itself. I am not proud to have learned this.
So yes, I still use the iPhone for an alarm clock, as when (and I think it's a matter of when) I become conditioned to the current alarm sound, I can change it.
But that still leaves one question—why does “snooze” only last for nine minutes? The most plausible answer is one popular model did it that way. So there you go.
The surprising email to “Sean Conner” that wasn't meant for me
I received yet another email for Sean Conner but this time, it wasn't at Gmail!
It was surprising because it was sent from my friend Lorie who currently lives in Pennsylvania, about the new Area Director for Toastmasters, which is funny, because I do not live in Pennsylvania, nor have I been involved with Toastmasters since the 5th grade (ages 9–10 for non-US people). I wrote her back about this, and I received the following back:
Oh my word, I was trying to send to a different Toastmaster that was Sean Conner - and the email got confused - so sorry!
My God! The Internet is full of Sean Conners it seems!
Notes on an overheard conversation coming from the Family Room
“The TV remote isn't working again!”
“You need to really smash that select button.”
“I am! See?”
“Hmmm. Let me try … oh. There you go.”
“The remote hates me!”
“It seems so.”
![[Self-portrait with a Christmas Tree] Oh Chrismtas Tree! My Christmas Tree! Rise up and hear the bells!](https://www.conman.org/people/spc/about/2025/1203.t.jpg "Oh Chrismtas Tree! My Christmas Tree! Rise up and hear the bells!")