I have a new co-worker who is working as the administrative assistant for our project team. We have been pushed into a single cubical until someone figures out how to made new ones. It is a good thing that I don’t feel the need to “piss on my territory.”
She is young and lively. I like her. Since the backs of our chairs practically touch each other, we’ve gotten into some nice conversations, and it isn’t very difficult to know what’s going on “over there.”
Right now, our project is just ramping-up so there is some definite downtime. I read a blogs, particularly those blogs from Anglicans I tend to disagree with – it’s good to understand how the other side thinks and what there are doing, after all. There’s no point in reading the stuff of those who you already agree with. Where’s the fun in that? I don’t do that so much with politics. I don’t know why. Maybe I think I know enough about the other side to not have to bother.
Anyway, I’ve noticed that what she does more than anything is watch YouTube. As plenty of people have said before, YouTube is a phenomenon. I can well understand the contention that YouTube has the potential to strike at the heart of our current understanding of what “TV” is and how we center ourselves around a screen to watch other people and things – entertain ourselves, distract ourselves, hide from reality, or innocently do something mindless. Old media, if they don’t change, will be in as much trouble as are the old American car companies that can’t seem to change rightly and are being put out of business by foreign companies that do. Okay, not a good analogue, that it’s the point that counts, right? Old media has been struggling for a long time and recognizes the need to do something, but they simply can’t get themselves out of their old ways. Just look at the old record companies. It’s everyone else’s fault that their revenues are down and they aren’t selling CD’s.
I just read somewhere that some company is going to produce “TV” shows only for cell-phones.
Speaking of cell-phones: iPhone! I NEEEEEEEED one. Apple Computer, Inc. just does it right. (Well, they do design right, except for when Jobs was away, maybe.) Sometimes, something does come along that is worth the money. Of course, it’s all relative – send money to feed a starving family of nine for a year or buy an iPhone???? What would Jesus do?
I know when my current cell-phone contract ends in August, well, I’m goin’ after the iPhone, I am. I really doubt Jesus would do that. Of course, I don’t think Jesus would necessarily be sitting on his Ikea lounge chair, feet up, in a multicolored striped bathrobe at 6:00 am, drinking home made hot chocolate, and typing on his new black MacBook (clergy-black, that is!), writing drivel on his weblog instead of spending time with the Father in his “Quiet-Time.” Yup, I’m not exactly living up to the image of what the “What Would Jesus Do” crowd might think I should be doing.
Of course, I know that I’m not living up to what Jesus would really rather I (is “I” the right word, or should it be “me”?) be doing or who Jesus would really rather me be. With God’s help, I’m tryin’. I will change. I know if I were, all things will be well, as Julian might have said. The question is: change into what? Now that I’ve squandered away the time I have for a quiet-time, it may be the kind of change that old media or the old car companies attempt to do, rather than the YouTube or Apple kind of change. In short, for the better. Who the heck knows?
Anyway, YouTube and iPhones. The world is a changin’.
Really, what would Jesus do?