you guys are quick. thanks for all the info. tried moving 'podcast' to the top of the list of plugins. -> no help
tried deleting one plugin at a time and then rechecking.. the one that finally did it was 'something about author info'. works now. if anyone wants to know exactly which plugin it was i ...

installed podcast plugin and worked flawlessly. put up a few test mp3 using the [podcast: "...."] and they showed up in the blog with out the markup with some little 'greyed out' icon next to them. click on them and they play. whoohooo!!!!!

since everything was so easy, i decided to add/remove some ...