so, my church had a night of worship back in november. we recorded it and now the original & public domain songs are available free online for you to enjoy. the whole night from start to finish (featuring 6 more songs) is available on CD in our chapel store on sundays for you locals.

go grab it. we don’t ask for your email or anything.

YES, I WILL CLICK HERE AND GET A FREE WORSHIP ALBUM.

thanks to mr. munoz

i’m not real deep into art, but this exhibit/installation/celebration really impressed me.

i also love the other ideas that this could be used for, like the ones shared here.

what else could we use this for?

HT/PASTORGEAR

i love technology.

unfortunately for me, games are a big part of technology. and i’m not good at games. at all.

there is an upside, however.

having an iPhone means i get a daily dose of humility as i hang my head, hand my phone to my wife and say, ‘can you beat this for me?’

thanks for the level ups, honey.

so, i’m sure the vast majority of you already saw this on mr. mundy’s lovely & newly themed blog, but it was too mind-blowing for me to pass up.

now all i need is an iphone…and a trip to south america.

ht:mr. mundy

so, yesterday on twitter i learned about formspring.me.

it’s a new spin on micro-blogging/social networking, where you ask people questions and then they determine whether they will answer them or not.

here’s how they put it:

Send and receive anonymous questions, and learn more about people you find interesting by following their answers.

i think it’s a smashing idea.

now, i will say that i think that the name/url of ‘formspring’ is going to cause them problems.

i mean…what does that even mean?

perhaps they feel they make up for it because it ends in [dot]me…but…if i was them i’d be looking into new branding.

that said, i like the concept a lot. it takes a portion of what we like about social networking and focuses on one task: questions. it also takes the interactivity ‘pressure’ off since the whole point is for one person to come with questions and the other to come with answers.

this seems like a great avenue for more prominent folks like bands or artists or politicians who already use twitter/facebook/websites well and desire a good back-and-forth with their fans.

then again, it seems like just a fun thing for regular people (like us) to do. yeah?

so, all that to say: i signed up. and i’d love to answer some questions. and if you sign up, i’ll ask you stuff too.

let the sharing begin!

…but it’s not quite plastic either.

if you’re like me, you get emails like this on a pretty regular basis:

just a friendly update that JesusBoatMuseum/Sunset_Plaza/AsthmaWatch (not to mention the morally inappropriate accounts) are now ‘following’ you on twitter.

on the one hand, we’ve come a long way from even just the beginning of 2009 where i would still regularly hear people knocking twitter. but, with its popularity it has brought a host of spam/commercial/not-real-people with it.

now, i love twitter. i think it’s a great idea. it’s fun. it’s engaging. it’s even helpful.

i love reading about what my friends are doing, listening to, driving toward and, yes, even eating.

i also enjoy keeping up with various church accounts from different calvary chapels or friends’ churches. it’s fun to see what people are studying on sunday mornings, what events they’re having on thursday nights, how life groups are going and get messages from the pastors.

i even follow a few commercial accounts (IMDb, DreamHost and Colorburned to name a few).

but the spam i could do without.

because they’re not helpful. they’re not personal. they’re not actually participating in the whole point of twitter.

while one could argue that the commercial/celebrity/church/company/correspondence accounts i follow are not overtly personal either, i think there’s a basic difference between information I’M seeking and spamformation that seeks me.

it’s not the real thing.

just like the stuff you buy in the can.

it’s not quite meat, but it’s not quite plastic either.

let’s end with a suggestion and a question:

here’s the suggestion: though it may feel like it doesn’t make a difference, let’s take 5 minutes every now and then to block every spam account that is following us. at very least those with inappropriate content.

yes, they’re automated.

yes, they keep coming.

but we can do our part to clean house.

here’s the question: does twitter spam bother you or does it not make a difference?

lay it on me.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcsSPzr7ays&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

ht: mr. munoz, as usual.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8[/youtube]

circa 1993.

like the caption on the youtube page says…an interesting view of the future.

ht: mr. munoz

it’s sunday and that means it’s time for another round of Star Struck, a post series where i share a post that i ‘starred’ in Google Reader sometime this week for any number of silly reasons.

today’s installment is, once again, courtesy of the fine folks over @lifehacker, whose post on wednesday the 15th provided a possibly fantastic resource.

it’s called ContactHelp and it’s a web database that gives you tips, helps and techniques to getting through automated customer service lines and connected to a real life person. GOLD!

it was definitely star worthy, so, head over to lifehacker and read about it yourself.