var showing;
$(document).ready(function() {

    showing = jQuery('#rotating_items div.rotating_item:first'); //## Initiate the 'showing' variable as the first rotating_item
    showing.siblings('div').hide(); //## Hide all other rotating_items
    setInterval("show_next_rotating_item(showing)", 6000); //## Set the rotate time to 6 seconds

    jQuery('#rotating_items').show();

    //## When a link in the rotating_item is clicked
    //## we want to instead treat it as if the whole
    //## box was clicked.
    jQuery('#rotating_items a').click(function() {
        jQuery('#rotating_items').click();
        return false;
    });

});

//## Below is the code that picks an item at random to display
jQuery.jQueryRandom = 0;
jQuery.extend(jQuery.expr[":"],
{
    random: function(a, i, m, r) {
        if (i == 0) {
            jQuery.jQueryRandom = Math.floor(Math.random() * r.length);
        };
        return i == jQuery.jQueryRandom;
    }
});

//## The below function repeatedly gets called, to do the rotating
function show_next_rotating_item(t) {
    jQuery(t).fadeOut('slow');

    //var next_rotating_item = jQuery(t).siblings('.rotating_item:random'); //for random selection
    var next_rotating_item = jQuery(t).next();
    if (!next_rotating_item.attr('class')) {
        next_rotating_item = jQuery('#rotating_items div.rotating_item:first');
    }
    next_rotating_item.fadeIn('slow');

    showing = next_rotating_item;
}