For my birthday last Saturday, a few people were generous enough to give me itunes gift cards, so I had the thrill of going music shopping. I love music shopping, but rarely get a chance to do it these days. The first step in any of my musical treasure hunts is to think about the good music recommendations of music lovers I respect in the blogging world or friends who have shared with me new music they are listening to, then I comb the itunes, amazonmp3, and Paste websites for music that speaks to me, and by the time I’m finished Iusually have some good songs, and in some rare cases, some good albums (don’t you know that nobody buys albums anymore?). So in light of all that, here is some of the music I’ve purchased electronically thanks to yours truly turning 34 last Saturday:
Sister Hazel (album) – Release
The Boxer rebellion (MP3) – Soviets
Lady Sovereign(mp3) – Jigsaw
Skillet (mp3) – Monster
Skillet (mp3) – Hero
Third Eye Blind (mp3) – Bonfire
Making April (mp3) – So bad
Yeah Yeah Yeahs (Album) – It’s Blitz
Toby Mac (mp3) – City on our knees
And I still have credit left! Anything else I should buy?
Here’s the newest top 10 items in my i tunes for the last month: There’s some good music out there!
10. Chance by Ken Block
9. Resurrect me by Jon Foreman
8. Weapons by Jars of Clay
7. Just wanna say by Israel Houghton
6. Funny how it is by Dave Matthews Band
5. Easier to Lie by Aqualung
4. Fly from the inside by Shinedown
3. Rise by Robbie Seay Band
2. In the Hands of God by Newsboys
1. Viva la Gloria! by Green Day
Your #1?
Last fall, I shared with you my most played songs on itunes. Here’s the renewed list.
top 25 songs on my ipod list.
25. Still Here – The Undeserving
24. Like a stone – Audioslave
23. Love Bites – Def Leopard
22. Boston – Augustana
21. Jesus, You alone – Tim Hughes
20. I don’t want to be in love – Good Charlotte
19. Let’s see how far we’ve come – Matchbox Twenty
18. Move – David Crowder
17. So Great a salvation – The OC Supertones
16. A Murder of One – Counting Crows
15. Stars – Switchfoot
14. Majesty – Matt Redman
13. Wonderful – Everclear
12. Deeper – Delirious
11. Blush – Plumb
10. What I’ve done – Linkin Park
9. Bigger than my body – John Mayer
8. Unforgetful you – Jars of Clay
7. Bed of Nails – Jake Holman
6. Surrender – Sister Hazel
5. Rise – Robbie Seay Band
4. First Time – Lifehouse
3. Give until theres nothing left – Reliant K
2. All because of you – U2
1. It’s not over – Daughtry
Holla at me if your favorite music should be on here.
Part1, part 2, or part 3
Hey, guess what I’m doing right now. Come on, guess, just this once…
I’m creating content, the number 4 way that is changing the world and my world right in front of our eyes. The freedom and ability of all of us to do what we can do when we like to do it at a low cost (if any). So I blog because I like to write. WordPress or blogspot or typepad give us the “freedom” and the platform to blog and to start a conversation about life or religion or politics or any number of topics that we may associate ourselves with. Facebook and Myspace give us the freedom to start a web site about ourselves that can interact with other web sites that talk about our friends. And with google, I can have the weather, a map, all the blogs I read, my to-do list, my news, my calendar, my podcasts from Fellowship Church, and any free itunes downloads I can have access too all on the same page. And it’s all “created by me.” (Everything but the codes)
And this is just the social aspects of it. New academics can join the Wikipedia community and write (or rewrite) essays for the encyclopedia version of things that we want to know about like William Wallace and The War of 1812. New reporters can make a name for themselves without having to interview inside of any newspaper establishment. Computer programmers who want to go beyond the scope of their jobs can do so on their own time solving problems in “open source” software communities. Bible teachers can now wax eloquent with their own studies in places like You Version. Retired? Thats a thing of the past if you want to keep going. I read a story recently about a retired scientist who had retired from a company and then got involved with solving “open source” problems offered on the web by the scientific community. He solved problems to the tune of $25,000 a pop.
And this is in our hands. We now have more tools to do what we love and to create content. Sure we might have to still stay up late and write or solve or search or draw, but the point is this – we can create content and be a part of something bigger than ourselves, and do it with things we love to do. Now the only question is…
What do you love to do?
Special thanks to those of you who have helped “create” this discussion on where our world is going.
Sometime in 2005 I took a test to find out what my strengths were. I found that my top 5 were as follows: 1. Ideator, 2. Positivity, 3. Connectedness, 4. Competition, 5. Developer
I noticed as several of my friends took the same test that several of us had one of those in common. Out of the 7 people I know that took the test, 5 of them had connectedness as a strength.
Some qualitites of someone with this strength – “That I gain confidence from knowing that we are not isolated from one another or from the earth and the life on it; I am part of a larger picture, and I must not harm others because I will harm myself; and I am a bridge builder between people of different cultures.”
Enter the beauty of web 2.0 to people like me.
I’m not a fan of compartmentalizing my life. I like things, whether it’s people in my life or web sites I go to, to all be connected to one another. This makes my mom and google both very happy.
How does this affect me?
I like it when my family and my friends and all the people in my life meet. What makes this interesting is when they don’t get along. I think everyone should get along. Not like each other, just get along.
I like using google and itunes. My friend Clay swears against itunes, and probably rightfully so, but I like when things connect together easily, so I use it. I know, I know Clay, I sacrifice things to use itunes. Google connects a lot of things in my web life, like my Calendar, my way to find where I might be going, my blog reader, my connect with Fellowship Church podcasts, and even my weather, not to mention my documents (I don’t have to pay for Microsoft office again!)
Weather
