BretFiirtwangi.hr | Graphic artist
Dela
day
Alarm clocks haven't
gained much respect
since their creation 150
years ago, with most
Americans pushing the
snooze button at least
once each morning
BY BRIAN R. BURKE
DAILY EMERALD FREELANCE REPORTER
We all know the feeling:
Immersed in a perfectly good
dream, the voices of classic
rock disc jockeys invade your
subconscious. No matter what
time an alarm is set for, it always
comes on a few minutes too soon.
Thankfully, one of the greatest
innovations ever is usually within
arm’s reach of the bed: the snooze
button, a procrastinator’s favorite
way to start the day.
According to USA TODAY,
40 percent of American adults
use the snooze button every
morning, with one-third of those
late sleepers pushing it three or
more times.
While the earliest American
alarm clocks date back to the
1850s, sleep-deprived citizens
would have to wait until 1956 for
General Electric to introduce
the first snooze feature. In the days
prior to digital alarms, the snooze
button was made possible by
incorporating a new gear into the
mechanics. The arbitrary align
ment of this new mechanism and
the pre-existing cogs left manufac
turers with two options: either set
the snooze feature for nine or
10 minutes. GE decided it would be
easier to market a more punctual
alarm that kept you in bed for less
than 10 minutes. When digital
alarms replaced the mechanical
clock, the nine-minute standard
carried over.
“People set their alarms for
when they would want to get up
and give themselves a little bit of
extra time. Ten minutes would
make most people late for work,”
said Allen Davis, service manager
at Creative Clock in Eugene.
Nowadays, there’s an alarm
for everybody’s needs. Snooze
features come in a variety of time
increments, though the 10-minute
snooze is still a rarity. Creative
Clock carries more than
100 different alarms and is the only
antique clock museum on the
West Coast. On the hour, chimes
of all timbres simultaneously fill
the small shop.
“We don’t even hear them,”
Jeannie Innocenti, a Creative Clock
salesperson, said. “It’s like living
by the railroad tracks. After a while
you don’t notice the trains.”
While Creative Clock houses
an impressive collection of
German cuckoos and historical
relics, most customers arrive
in search of something to help
them get out of bed.
“Students come in looking for
the loudest, most obnoxious alarm
clock,” Innocenti said.
Creative Clock has every type of
shrill alarm imaginable, including
a pink hula-hoop hippopotamus,
a Jeep with spinning tires and a
Dalmatian in a firefighter’s helmet
that barks “I love you.”
“If that’s your alarm clock, you
know to wake up before it goes
off,” Innocenti said.
Interestingly enough, few of the
employees at Creative Clock even
use an alarm.
“I found that when I set
an alarm, I’d always wake up just
before it went off,” Innocenti said.
According to the National Sleep
Foundation, college students
get an average of 6.8 hours of sleep
each night, two hours less than
recommended for optimal mental
performance. A simple way to get
out of bed in the morning
is to open the blinds and let
the sun shine into the bedroom.
Sunlight halts the body’s produc
tion of melatonin, a chemical that
induces sleepiness. While this
might not be enough to kick the
snooze habit, it should get
students to class on time.
Nutrition
info could
join daily
specials on
restaurant
menus
BY ANGELA DELLI SANTI
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TRENTON, N.J.— Show a group
of nutritionists a 10-ounce restau
rant hamburger and a side
order of onion rings and have them
calculate the number of calories in
the meal. Easy, right?
Well, not exactly. The food experts
consistently underestimated the 1,550
calorie meal — by an average of 685
calories — in a study of 200 dietitians
by the Center for Science in the Public
Interest and New York University.
“If well-trained food professionals
can’t accurately estimate calorie con
tent in a plate of food, you can be sure
the average consumer is at a loss when
looking at a menu,” said Claudia Mal
loy of CSPI in Washington, D.C., which
co-sponsored the study and is lobbying
to force restaurants to provide nutrition
information on the foods they serve.
New Jersey is among a half-dozen
states considering food labeling laws
for restaurants. Under a recent propos
al in the New Jersey Assembly
and pending in committee, chain and
fast-food restaurants with 20 or more
franchises would have to post calorie
counts on menu boards — Big Mac,
590 calories; Starbucks’ grande cafe
mocha, 400 calories — and more
extensive nutrition information, such
as trans and saturated fats, salt and
cholesterol, on menus.
Similar legislation is pending in
Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts,
Illinois and Hawaii, and is expected
to be reintroduced in the U.S. Senate
and House of Representatives,
though no state currently has such a
law, Malloy said.
Many chain restaurants, from Mc
Donald’s to Subway, already make nu
trition information available, although
it’s not always publicly posted.
Nutrition labeling bills may have
gained momentum with the recent
success of “Supersize Me,” an
Oscar-nominated documentary
exposing the health risks of a
fast-food diet, and publicity over a
lawsuit blaming McDonald’s for the
obesity of teenage customers.
To the New Jersey Restaurant
Association, such proposals amount
to over-regulation for an industry
already struggling to turn a profit.
“Our position is that the individual
who is concerned about obesity
should emphasize healthy lifestyle,
personal responsibility, regular
exercise and moderation,” said Dale
Florio, legislative counsel for the state
restaurateurs.
No one on either side of the issue
believes posting calorie and fat con
tent will produce drastic changes in
what people eat. But proponents say
such information could lead diners to
make healthier selections and would
provide sorely needed information to
those with health problems who
need special diets.
“When they purchase foods at
restaurants, most people are using
their instincts and their desire,”
said Daniel J. Hoffman, assistant
professor of nutritional sciences at
Cook College in New Brunswick.
“This is a nice compromise between
telling people what they should eat
when they’re out at a restaurant and
giving them information so they have
the power to choose.
The OC':
Oh, so addicting
The FOX show gives the rest of us a glimpse (and some
an obsessive gaze) into the drama that is life in the OC
BY AMANDA BOLSINGER
NEWS REPORTER
“Welcome to the OC, bitch! ”
And so the addiction began.
It could have been just another
show about teen angst, but
FOX’s “The OC” quickly gathered a
cult following.
“I watch it every week basically,”
freshman Taylor Thompson said.
“Sometimes I have stuff I have to do,
but I get the lowdown from a friend. ”
The show first aired in August
2003 and is a soap-opera-like story of
the lives of high school students in
California’s wealthy Orange County.
It’s about the not-so-perfect lives of
the rich and beautiful and all of the
drama that even the most exorbitant
amounts of money can’t fix.
The show features 20-somethings
as 16-year-old high school students,
but that’s not an issue to the faithful
followers, the older actors portray
much more attractive students than
most people gracing high-school
halls. The drama is always full speed
ahead as make-ups, break-ups, hook
ups and a formal party are critical
components for every episode. For
instance, Marissa’s parents get a
divorce, her ex-boyfriend starts
sleeping with her newly divorced
mom, and her parents don’t know
she has an alcohol problem.
“It’s nice to watch other people
and their drama and not have my
own drama,” freshman Christina
Early said. Early began watching the
show in fall 2003. She works most
Thursday nights but tapes the show
so she can catch up on it later.
“I asked for season one (the DVD
set) for Christmas, but it was sold
out,” Early said.
Not to worry though, at least
one person in the 456-member
thefacebook.com group “OC addicts”
must own the set and would be will
ing to loan it to her. The Facebook
group is described as being “for
anyone hopelessly addicted to the
delicious drama that is the OC.” The
group has men and women. And
there are law, business, sociology and
landscape architecture students, just
to name a few. There is no typical OC
addict. Perhaps the addiction runs so
rampant because the show can make
nearly anyone’s life seem “normal.”
To carry the addiction further, a
single Internet search produces fan
clubs, message boards, newsletters,
magazines, trivia, clothing, posters,
music and even a drinking game
created by the show’s faithful.
“The OC” airs Thursday nights at
8 p.m. on FOX.
abolsinger@dailyememld.com
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