Things that go "beep" in the night

I’m a gadget whore, plain and simple. If you were to come into my apartment, you would probably be surprised how many useless techie gadgets I have. From my iPod stereo adapter to my Satellite radio in my car, I just love things the beep and glow. This isn’t a recent development either — when I was a kid, my parents always made sure I had some type of computer around to play with. My first experience in the realm of engineering came probably around the age of 12 when I decided it would be a great idea to dismantle my entire commodore 64 and it’s disk drive using a screwdriver — I did manage to put it all back together again, but the look on my mom’s face when she came home that day to a floor full of computer parts was absolutely priceless.

As I get older, I’ve been less impulsive with my purchases, since I now realize that every gadget I own is just another thing that can break and force a costly replacement. So, as things die, I’m reevaluating whether or not I actually really need these things around, and if not, I don’t replace them. I recently turned off my Satellite radio subscription (even though it’s only $12 a month) because I just don’t really use it enough to justify the cost.

But one of the recent side effects of having all these gadgets around is the unexpected noises that they sometimes make. For example, last night I was getting ready for bed when my cell phone started beeping and vibrating violently. The culrpit — some fun birthday party debachery by none other than Miss604 herself — the phone was set to give me a reminder for a late night meeting entitled “Rebecca is great!”

Tonight, while lying in bed, I heard the odd gadget chirping in the other room. After doing some exploring, I found the culrpit in my bag — a high tech portable computing gadget I had brought home from work. Apparently it likes to let you know when it’s not really doing anything by emitting a really loud annoying sound. Thanks gadget. I wasn’t doing anything either until you rang — now I’m walking around my place in my boxers with a hammer looking for you.

I also seem to be fighting an ongoing battle with my iPod to disable the alarm in it. No matter how many times I disable it, it somehow always ends up going off in the middle of the night. Which is sort of stupid really, because it just makes a mildly audible sound that wouldn’t really wake me up if my head was lying directly on top of it. I guess I could tape my headphones into my ears and set the alarm, and then maybe it might do something. But for the most part, it just annoys me.

And while this doesn’t classify as a beep, my Macbook Pro has a light on the front with a slowly oscillating intensity that indicates it is in sleep mode. However, when I usually go to bed, it’s right beside me, and it’s sort of the visual equivalent to a dripping faucet. I guess I could turn it off, but that sort of defeats the purpose of having a sleep mode.

Anyways, I’m off to bed, assuming the gadgets cooperate.