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" I&amp;#039;m not a sleeper. I often find myself dozing off around the time I&amp;#039;m supposed to wake up. That&amp;#039;s why I need a good alarm clock. I use my BlackBerry&amp;#039;s built-in alarm, since I&amp;#039;m on it most of the night sending angry e-mails. [Editor&amp;#039;s note: This is true.] But lately I&amp;#039;ve started to hate my BlackBerry as the evil thing that wakes me up in the morning. That&amp;#039;s why I&amp;#039;m testing alarms.  There are now several clocks that let you plug in your iPod. My favorite is the compact iHome iH9 ($100; ihomeaudio.com), because a good alarm clock is as much about nightstand real estate as it is high fidelity.   The Sonic Boom ($77; sonicalert.com) is both incredibly loud (113 decibels) and lets you adjust the tone of its buzzer, so you can select the most annoying pitch possible. You can plug a lamp into it, which strobes with the alarm. If that still doesn&amp;#039;t get you out of bed, there is a vibrating attachment, which I placed between my headboard and pillow.   The Clocky ($50; nandahome.com) is a small alarm on wheels that beeps loudly and annoyingly and then rolls off your nightstand onto the floor, where it continues to scuttle in various directions, including, if you&amp;#039;re unlucky, under your bed. (You can set it to roll away immediately or after one or two snooze breaks.) The fact that you have to get out of bed to find and turn it off makes this thing quite effective. Sadly, as with the Sonic Boom, it put me in such a profoundly bad mood that I realized it is better suited for Chloe, my fifteen-year-old, who both needs an abrasive wake-up device and is probably going to be in a bad mood all day anyway.   If you get up more easily, I&amp;#039;d recommend the Hammacher Schlemmer Peaceful Progression alarm clock ($50; hammacher.com), which can be programmed to gradually wake you to the sounds of waterfalls or birds or rain forests, or even a traditional beep. The device can be set to slowly illuminate over the course of a half hour, which is a lovely and gentle way to wake up. The Progression also comes with aroma beads, which emit various scents -- from soothing lavender (didn&amp;#039;t like it) to coffee (not bad) -- fifteen minutes before you&amp;#039;re set to wake up. Does anyone sell bacon beads?   Since I&amp;#039;m not much of a sleeper anyway, I prefer a clock that entertains, and for that, nothing beats the Hammacher Schlemmer projection alarm clock and weather monitor ($80; hammacher.com). During my daytime waking hours, I&amp;#039;m mainly tuned to the Weather Channel, and I&amp;#039;m equally enthralled by the weather at night. This device projects the time and external temperature on the ceiling of my bedroom. &amp;quot;Hey, it&amp;#039;s 3:28 a.m., and the temperature just dropped two tenths of a degree!&amp;quot; With that kind of excitement, who needs sleep?  Barry Sonnenfeld is the producer of Pushing Daisies on ABC. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/cars/a4358/alarm-clocks-0408/>