First some tech content.. there's some good God stuff below so stick with it.

So I bought an iPod Shuffle from my friend Paul. When we were at Macworld and they were introduced, I thought, hey, those are neat, but I have no use for them. Maybe they'll be good for folks who aren't as into music as I am and who only have maybe 10-20 cds to their name. Paul went immediately to the Apple Store on Market St. to buy one and called me asking me if I wanted him to pick me up one and I passed.

He bought several and had an extra one that he bought as a gift for someone who ended up already getting one before he could give it to them. He couldn't return it without a restocking fee because he had already filled it up with music, so he cut me a pretty good deal: $50 for a 512mb Shuffle.

I think lately I've missed the significance of some big internet developments. Ten years ago when I worked for UR*OnRamp in Tuscaloosa (still the dumbest name I've ever heard of for an ISP) we had an internet cafe that was mismanaged and doomed because of that fact, but it was a lot of fun for me. Back in that day broadband wasn't available anywhere and here I was with the keys to a store that had a T1 in it, so I'd hang out up there at night and download stuff... anyways, I have digressed from the point, back then people would come into the cafe to use our computers and would use AOL IM. I thought of it as just another chat room and i had never really been interested in chat. I knew some people who had bona fide internet addictions who would spend their whole day on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and I really didn't want to have anything to do with it. So it took a while for me to see the beauty of instant messaging.

Same with blogging. I was uninterested for a long time, but since last summer I'm on board and see what the usefulness is. It has really killed off the bulletin board phenomenom, blogs are way more open and community oriented. Community really seems to be the key in IM and blogging, both really were useless until I had a community of people to get involved with.

So now comes the next big thing... Podcasts. All of a sudden with my Shuffle I have a portable talk-radio that has the shows I want to listen to on-demand. It's a bit like the Tivo revolution is finally hitting radio and I don't think radio is ever going to be the same. Even Rush Limbaugh now has a Podcast, though you have to be a subscriber to get it. I listen to Dave Ramsey via my Shuffle, and several spiritual oriented Podcasts. It has really opened my eyes as. I don't think that Satelite radio is the right direction (never have much seen the appeal of that). Podcasting is where the future of radio is and apparently Steve Jobs sees that too. The next version of iTunes (due any day now) will have a better interface for managing Podcasts.

Some to get you started:
The Methocast - Nashville UMC pastor Jay Voorhies has a podcast about all things United Methodist
Wired Jesus - A Postmodern Spiritual podcast. This guy is a Lutheran pastor somewhere and has some interesting things to say about engaging our culture like Paul rather than retreating from it.

For some reason the paradigm of the Shuffle just works better for me with Podcasts than my full iPod. I can use my shuffle when out jogging, wear it around my neck to have it in the car with me, etc.

In other areas, there are some Southern Baptists who are taking part in the Emerging Church "conversation" and I find it interesting to hear about the resistance they get and all. Someone wrote a really great article for SBCLife.org: Things Must Change. Here's an excerpt: