Thanks for the suggestions, guys. What I've done for starters is to create a "Good Morning" message (have no idea it it will work, will see tomorrow morning). I really like the media player/alarm clock idea. Pretty clever.
As for the automatic re-sleep without keystrokes or mouse movement, I changed the registry default setting of 2 min. to 15 min. (guess I could do longer). That way it'll give me more time to get my butt out of bed and input something.