perfect, thanks!

(function($){
var getNextRandom = Math.random;
$.fn.shuffle = function() {
return this.each(function(){
var items = $(this).children().clone(true);
return (items.length) ? $(this).html($.shuffle(items)) : this;
});
}

$.shuffleInit = function(options) {
if(!options || !Random) return;
if(typeof options.seed == “number”) {
var r = new Random(options.seed);
getNextRandom = function() { return r.next(); };
}
}

$.shuffle = function(arr) {
for(var j, x, i = arr.length; i; j = parseInt(getNextRandom() * i), x = arr[--i], arr[i] = arr[j], arr[j] = x);
return arr;
}

})(jQuery);

It seems to work fine, assuming that you’ve loaded a class called Random that works appropriately (i.e. a 1-arg constructor to initialize the seed and a next() method to get the next pseudo-random number).

Again, I’d much appreciate tips on how I can improve what I was trying to do.

But I ran into a small problem — all event bindings will be lost after shuffling. I made a small modification that allows you to keep your bindings by using clone(true):

$.fn.shuffle = function()
{
return this.each(function()
{
var items = $(this).children().clone(true);
return (items.length)
? $(this).html($.shuffle(items))
: this);
});
};

jQuery(function($){
var randomItem = $.shuffle([1,2,3,4,5,6])[0];
alert(randomItem);
});

The above will return a random number between 1 and 6.