Rosaries, punishment, the usual stuff

The recently announced electronic rosary pictured here appears to do just what it says on the packet. You press a button for each Hail Mary and receive a short but satisfying buzz. When you've totted up enough HMs, the buzz lasts longer, and you can get back to doing something useful with your life. It has all the charm of a battery charger, of course, but, as any believer would tell you, charm isn't the point.

If you're looking for something less solipsistic, though, maybe you should try the electronic group rosary developed by a company called Ron-Coe. This handy little device introduces a whole new level to the practice of group HM-ing. According to an article in Spero News, people tend to gabble their rosaries without giving much thought to them (which tends to happen when repeating the same phrase over and over again). This neat little gadget is designed to prevent this by timing each HM and giving the group leader a nasty little shock to the wrist if the pace gets too frenetic. This might seem cruel, even -- dare I say it -- unhealthy, but, as Spero points out:

...it is far better than bead burn which occurs when people run their fingers over the rosary so fast that the beads heat up burning their fingers.