It’s back to school and that means back to alarm clocks for the kidlets, formerly hardwired to Cartoon Time (or is that just all the kids I know?). So I’ve searched the world over and found some suggestions for you. While I can understand the market for the vibrating alarm clock, we are naturally keeping it somewhat more PG if not actually G on this blog, and have found the perfect alarm clock:

the Glock Clock!

Oooh, how badly I, personally, need one of these, especially on certain mornings. What a way to set the tone for the day ahead!

Alas, all I can find here in North America is this somewhat less brutal, therefore less satisfying, laser shoot ’em up alarm clock:

It’s the 21st Century, my friends, and we are ALL jaded, including the kidlets. Oh, they may not hang around streetcorners wearing berets and quoting Camus (except behind your back) but they, too, affect poses of ennui and world-weariness.

Which is particularly amusing when they are four, but don’t tell them. You know how they sulk!

So they turn to the Dark Side. And not just Darth Tater.

Emily Strange had her day.

Bad Batz Maru is my personal favorite (“Don’t mess with me: it’s a BAD FEATHER DAY!”).

But no flash in the pan shines as brightly, nor burns out as fast, as a jaded hipster trend and it is my solemn duty to report that all of those are, like, SO TWENTIETH CENTURY.

These days we’re all about the Ice Bat Ugly Doll.