Last modified: Sunday, October 28, 2007 1:50 AM EDT Hold the applause, please... Get out your martini shaker and let's celebrate together a new milestone: I've joined the Clapper generation. You've seen those commercials on TV. Old people walk into a room and clap and the lights go on. The magic of senility. Well, I have a Clapper. Two, in fact. And I'm going to get more. Good night Let me talk a minute about my sleeping habits.They're weird. I might fall asleep in my lounge chair with a blanket after, say, the Red Sox teach the Rockies what big league ball is all about, and sleep there 'til morning. Or I might fall asleep earlier - like after "Jeopardy" - and wake up at 2 and watch a double feature on TV (like "Raising Arizona," or even "Easy Rider," which I caught the other night) and then get up and get ready for work. If I'm really restless in the middle of the night I might do a little work on the Internet, or throw together a snack, or play cyber chess. Insomnia? Who cares. It's a lot of fun. But most nights I try to spend some time in bed. Reading. I read. I doze. I wake up. I read again. I doze again. So, invariably I end up sleeping in bed with the light on, because when your eyes glaze over and you can't see the words any more, reaching over and turning off the light is a Herculean task. Enter The Clapper Now, when my eyes get droopy, I clap softly three times and the light beside the bed goes out. If I wake up with my brain a'buzzing, I clap three times and the light comes on and I'm back to my book. I love that Clapper. When I'm not sleeping, I'm dreaming up new uses for The Clapper. The TV, the radio, the hall lamp. Those are the easy ones. How about the air conditioner? My electric toothbrush? The crockpot in the kitchen to start a meal? The list is endless. Anything that's plugged in. Of course, listening to live concerts on CDs can be a problem. The song's over, the audience claps and the TV, my reading light and my toothbrush spring into life. Like I said, the wee hours can be a lot of fun. Thanks for the cuddlers Thanks to the persons who dropped off, anonymously, two bears, five bears and seven bears. That brings our bear total to date to 5,050. The bears, new please, go to Bears on Board, a program of the Greater Attleboro Area Council for Children. They are given to local police officers, firefighters and ambulance drivers to give to children in crises. Thanks for the papers "My daughter and I were in Tucson, Ariz., in August and went sight-seeing," writes Bub McKillop of Taunton. "We found out there is a real 'Tombstone.' "Thought you might be interested in seeing what The Sun Chronicle might look like over there." He sent along a copy of The Tombstone Sentinel. See you next week. ORESTE P. D'ARCONTE is publisher of The Sun Chronicle. Reach him at 508.236.0394 or at darconte@thesunchronicle.com.