Extreme alarm clock and the King of the East

• An alarm clock that I really don't want
  The Sonic Bomb Clock has an adjustable volume alarm with a maximum loudness of 113 decibels (just for reference, a jackhammer is about 100 decibels!) And the bed shaker does just that. Slip it under your mattress and your ears will bleed and your bed will shake, and there is no way you will oversleep.
  Jesus Christ. That's one Thinkgeek gadget I'm not coveting.
• Another very tasty blog: Quests of the Dragon and Bird Clan. Take this post on the King of the East as an instance:
  Jewish, Zoroastrian, Christian and to a lesser extent Muslim traditions all possess a theme of the "King of the East" as a key player in apocalyptic times.
  Concepts of cyclic change that began at least by the Middle Kingdom in Egypt appear to have contributed to Egyptian millennarianism in the first few centuries before the era among gnostic and Jewish apocalyptic sects. Interestingly at about the same time in China to the East, ideas of a future millennarian age initiated by a reincarnationa of Laozi also come to fore. This was at about the same time that the Fangshi wizards preached the wisdom of venturing to Penglai, the isle of immortals. During this period, there is evidence of contact between East and West both overland via the Silk Road and by sea via the maritime spice routes.
  Concepts of both a savior king and a destructive king of the "antichrist" type are clearly present during this period.