I was just listening to a Jean Shepherd radio program that was originally broadcast more than 30 years ago.  Jean Shepherd himself died nearly 11 years ago and his tale on this radio show revolved around influences on his writing. He mentioned a book that I had not heard of before named, "Nightlife of the Gods" which was published nearly 80 years ago.  It took me about 2 minutes, while still listening to the podcast radio program, to locate a copy of the book on a Gutenberg Australia server and a few more seconds to download it  to my Sony reader.

So what's so special about this? Well, this process of obtaining the book without even getting up from my chair would have been imaginative wishful thinking even as recently as when Shepherd died in 1999; it would have been pure wild-eyed science fiction speculation when the show was originally broadcast in the 1970's and might possibly have gotten you locked up as a lunatic if spoken out loud when the book was originally written.

The rapid progression and application of technology really is amazing - we are living in the moment, sometimes even taking the rapid changes for granted and not really seeing the big picture as to how much how world has been changed and in many ways for the better  because of it.

Sometimes we really do need to take a moment - sit back and smell the roses; read a book or  listen to an old radio show.