This is ‘gadget’ @ TheTechStop(net) — we welcome geeks, dorks, nerds, dweebs, uberGeeks and yes… even NORMAL people to come and get their geek on! We’ve been producing this show since March of 2007 and thanks to you, our wonderful fans and viewers, we’ve had more than 14 million YouTube views, links and downloads. Not bad for a show that we would do just out of our passion for technology!

‘gadget’ is primarily hosted by Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ — a Catholic Priest who is a member of the Jesuit order — but you’ll also see appearances from anybody else that he can pull into the show. We’ve mostly focused on consumer-level technology, but you’ll notice that we often stray into the WayUberGeeky and occasionally into the tech of the professional IT world. — It’s just our way of showing the world that the convergence of technology is a real thing… and we want to prepare you for it!

Now you might be asking yourself… “self… why IS a Catholic Priest hosting a show about technology? What about the conservation of the planet and the Catholic rejection of the material world? Isn’t he shunning his priestly duties by defecting to the side of technology?”

This is a great question to which I can only have one answer… “No” — You see, to think that a rejection of materialism is synonymous with a rejection of technology is to fall into a trap that sets the spiritual life against the world in which we live. — And that simply isn’t what my Church believes.

You see, the Catholic “anti-materialistic” mindset isn’t about rejecting the things of this world… it’s about rejecting the control that we give those things over us. The moment we live out lives to obtain gadgets, gizmos and technology is the moment that lost sight of the fact that those things are supposed to serve us. – Though there isn’t a whole lot a short tech review program can do to fight that mindset, it is my hope that it can at least show an alternative: an appreciation for technology without the overriding lust for that same tech.

‘gadget’ is produced by the Center for Apostolic Technology. We’re based out of San Jose, California but we film at the University Catholic Center in Honolulu, Hawaii.