Ah, sleep. That's where Ralph Wiggum—and perhaps every one of us—is a Viking.

So an alarm clock—no matter how cool—can be a hard thing to love. But for every rule, there's a welcome exception.

Presenting the Ambient Mist, an alarm clock with email. Yes, email.

Every day, you'll wake up to a message sent by friends and family. Think of it as a daily textual surprise, brightly displayed for your perusal. The notes will undoubtedly range from the personal ("How does this thing work again? Love, Mom") to the even more personal (buddies offering fantasy baseball trades). Just don't let the addy slip into the wrong hands—after all, the last thing you want is your boss asking where the men's room key is on your day off.

The handy device isn't a one-trick pony, either—it also displays the day's weather, provided in detail by the cloud-watching geeks at AccuWeather.com. There're the daily high and low temps, whether it will rain or shine, and some short text on the day's forecast. It even tells time.

You'll never need to get out of bed again.