I hate waking up. Does anyone really like waking up? I hate it. And worse, I'm not very good at it. For a while now, I've been waking up by setting my cell phone alarm, or actually, three cell phone alarms in succession.

Enter the HoMedics: Sound Spa. I went to Bed Bath and Beyond in an effort to find a better solution. I will preface the following by saying I am very picky about how I wake up. I'm not a fan of buzzers or chimes, and while I don't mind the old fashioned "ring-a-ding-ding" ones, I can't stand going to sleep to ticking noises and I always forget to wind them. And waking up to the radio always plants a horrible song (or worse, talk radio) into my head for the rest of the day. So yes, I'm picky.

Even if I wasn't picky though, this would still be an annoying waste of $30. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Waking up to birds singing and going to bed to summery crickets outside sounded like a wonderful proposition. Buying a bird and a tankful of crickets might have been a better choice.

The HoMedics: Sound Spa really did not do the trick. While it does essentially what it says - tells the time and plays some sounds in a timed sort of way, it does it badly.

First, and most obviously, it's too big. With its UFO shape, it takes up half of my night table. I could live with that if it didn't have this next main problem.

The sound is awful. The speaker sounds tinny, even on its lowest setting. On its highest setting - the only one capable of waking me up - it sounds like brakes on a rusty bicycle.

The (presumably digital) sound loops are too short and sound like they are of a bad quality, even if you could hook them up to external speakers, which you can't. Some of the choices, notably the 'Rainforest' and "Thunder" are so short that the sound peaks just create a rhythm that is much more distracting than soothing.

Going to sleep to "Thunder" just made me feel like there was a trancing, thumping rave going on down the street and I was hearing deep booming trance music distorted through several walls. Waking up to "Rainforest" just gave me an overwhelming desire to kill the bird that was squawking in my ear every 10 seconds. "Summer Night," "Ocean," and "Waterfall" pretty much just sound like antenna-less tv static, "Summer Night" being the worst, with the sound of tv static plus millions of crickets riding rusty bicycles over your head.

There is only one alarm to set (unlike on my phone) and the power button is right smack on top of the clock, inches above the "snooze" button - which is sort of hard to press anyway. So, though I am sort of surprised that I am this smart even in my sleep, I just turn the thing off as soon as I hear that damn bird.

There are two good things I will say about the HoMedics: Sound Spa. As advertised, it tells you the time. Also as advertised, it will project the time onto the wall or ceiling in blue numbers that you can see in low light, which is just kinda neat. Its not $30 worth of neat, mind you, but neat all the same.