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The new Apple iPhone is about the best pocket-form-factor gadget that I forsee on the market this year. It combines phone, iPod, and web-browsing technologies in a simple to use, but very elegant package. Seeing the demo on Apple's iPhone site, I find it hard to imagine how much engineering went into this thing. And the fact that most details about the iPhone were kept under wraps also surprised me. I just hope Apple can ship enough of these to satisfy demand—even at the MSRP of $499 for a 4 GB version and $599 for an 8 GB version (with a 2 year Cingular wireless contract), these phones will probably sell like nothing else.

I just received this information a short while ago:

Sunday, January 14, 2007 at 10:00 a.m. at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis.

Archbishop Burke is celebrating a Mass for Vocations in support of vocations to the priesthood and religious life. All the people of the Archdiocese of St. Louis are invited to attend and show their support, especially teens! After Mass, the Archbishop will host a private reception in Boland Hall for the young religious in formation, seminarians and all teens and young adults who would like to learn more about the vocation to the priesthood and religious life and meet Archbishop Burke, the seminarians and young religious.

Continuing a tradition I started my first year in the Seminary, I'll be spending the time from 11 p.m. - 1 a.m. in adoration and at Holy Mass. However, this year, instead of going to a private holy hour and Holy Mass at the Seminary, I'll be going to the event at Incarnate Word Parish. They have a holy hour, confessions, a Rosary, and midnight Holy Mass with Rev. Eugene Morris as the main celebrant.

All are invited—and if you live outside of St. Louis, check and see if any local parishes in your diocese are having similar liturgical schedules. What better way to start the new year than by receiving a plenary indulgence? (Well, that is, if the conditions [USCCB.org, CCC 1471-1479] are met...).

I spent a few minutes tonight streamlining this blog - I took out the Trackback feature (no one used it at all during the last year), I reshuffled the section under each post, and I took out some of the useless junk on the left hand navigation bar—hopefully, the blog pages will load faster and look better for those of you reading it!

After many weeks of hectic activity, I found a few hours this week during which I finished reading blogger Dawn Eden's (of The Dawn Patrol) new book, The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding fulfillment while keeping your clothes on.

In a no holds barred attack on the popular media's assault on a Christian understanding of sexuality, Dawn explores current Sex and the City-style views on sex and lifestyle. Dawn takes no time to reveal to the reader who she is and why she's writing this book—instead of dwelling on these things, she dives right into the sexual morass created in our modern media-driven culture and finds reasons for hope, and practices for developing a proper and fulfilling chastity.

Over the course of the past month, I acquired a 60 GB 5400 rpm 2.5" hard drive for my iBook, which I installed a few days ago. Experimenting with my Canon camera's 'Intervalometer' feature (basically, it takes a picture at a set interval, like 1 per minute), I made a short video clip of the process and posted it to YouTube: