Lino's Lenten workout

So, after the listener voting for what Lino should do/not do for Lent ended in a three-way tie between giving up Chipotle, attending daily Mass, and being nice to Jared and/or Gus Lloyd, it came down to Christine to break the tie. What she came up with is intriguing:

1. Lino has to attend daily Mass
2. He can't eat Chipotle on any days of the week containing the letter 't' (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday)
   
3. He can't insult Gus Lloyd on the other three weekdays (Monday, Wednesday and Friday)

Personally I like what Christine came up with, but I don't know if Lino's going to be able to handle a schedule like this. Of course, this just gives him plenty of opportunities to entertain his listeners by screwing the whole thing up. As Lino pointed out, though, the real person who gets screwed in all of this is Jared, who sadly was left out of Christine's decision entirely. Poor guy... I shall eat an Italian BMT from Subway tomorrow on Thursday in his honor.

UPDATE 2/26: Yesterday he added the Liturgy of the Hours to his Lenten obligation. Now I'm really interested to see if he can keep this up.

Lino's new boss

As Lino comes back from his vacation to the Bahamas, word comes from the Vatican that Pope Benedict XVI has selected the Archbishop of Milwaukee, Timothy Dolan, to succeed Edward Cardinal Egan as the Archbishop of New York. And since The Catholic Channel is a ministry of the Archdiocese of New York, Dolan becomes the new HBWIC (Head Bishop Who's In Charge) of the channel. In effect, he'll be Lino's new boss as of April 15th, the date of his installation.

Hmmm... I don't know if Archbishop Dolan is a Packers fan or not, but if he is, watching Lino the Vikings fan make nice with the new Archbishop ought'a be a real treat.

Spoiling it for the rest of us

Have you ever looked forward to watching an episode of a popular show on TV (especially one that gets really hyped up), only to have it spoiled for you before you get a chance to watch it? Depressing, isn't it? Well, that's how I felt today after having the results of Friday's edition of Who's More Catholic? thrown back into my face before I even had a chance to listen to the program.

Even though I work from home on Fridays, I don't normally get to listen to the live broadcast of Who's More Catholic? because I'm playing the role of husband and father by the time it comes on. So I usually record the program and replay it at work the following week.

Yesterday I went over to CatholicGuyShow.com to check out the latest about Lino on their site when I discovered to my horror that Mike in Burbank had already posted a recap of Friday's Who's More Catholic? on the blog, less than 2½ hours after the live show ended and well before the Midnight ET replay began. Fortunately he didn't just blurt out who won at the beginning of his post, so I averted my eyes of the rest of it and kept myself in the dark.

This afternoon I went to the site again since there were several more posts I wanted to read (and I knew which one to avoid like the plague). But right there on the homepage in his Twitter feed, Dustin blurted out the end result of the contest, spoiling it for me and everyone who hadn't had a chance to listen yet.

Maybe I'm just getting too worked up about this, but not everyone gets to listen to the show live. Some of us have to wait for the overnight replay; still others can only catch it on the weekend replay; and I'm sure that there are others like me who have to record the show and listen when it's convenient. I also have no wish to speak badly of the other bloggers who follow The Catholic Guy. We're all fans of the same show and want to make our voices heard when we have something to say… and the bloggers at CatholicGuyShow.com certainly have a lot of good things to say.

Bottom line: I'm not advocating that there should be some arcane rule about spoiling the show for others. But I am advocating a little more consideration for those of us who haven't heard a recent show yet. And ask yourself how you'd feel if the show were spoiled for you... not all that great, I'd imagine.

The Valentine's Day Massacre: One Year Later

I already posted about this back in December as the First of the Twelve Ten Days of Lino, but since today is Valentine's Day and Lino is once again on vacation, there's no better time to revisit this special moment in Catholic Guy history. So grab a cold one, sit back, relax, and enjoy…



Fortunately for Lino he has a girlfriend this year, so there was little risk of this getting repeated in 2009. But that's okay… I'm sure there will be plenty of opporunities this year where we'll be treated to fantastic shows at his expense. :)

Takin' one for the team

Kudos go out to Garland in Houston, Texas, who called in to yesterday's show during the 11th Commandment segment and promptly got the famous Lino hangup... all for being a fan of Gus Lloyd.

How's that? Well, he got on to Jared for his first installment of Saint Who?, which by anyone's lowest standards truly sucked. Then he dared to mention that he felt compelled to turn off Lino's broadcast (because it was so bad due to the aforementioned sucky segment) and played a recording of Seize The Day instead. And before you know it he got sent to the cooler. Hey Lino…

1. He's listening to your show LIVE and recording Gus'… seems like he has his priorities straight already.
2. If you can't take responsibility for the quality of your program (or lack thereof), you shouldn't be the one casting stones. This show isn't called The Catholic Guy with Jared Rizzi.
   

But no, all dissent must be crushed! Wait a minute… I… I see a commercial coming on…

We interrupt this intermittently-updated blog from some baby news!

Getting away from all things Lino for the moment, I am pleased to report some happy news related to Greg and Jennifer Willits, hosts of The Catholics Next Door from 10:00am-1:00pm ET. On Saturday afternoon, Jennifer gave birth (a week past her due date, no less) to a beautiful baby girl named Lillian Grace Willits. As you can see from the above photo, Mom and baby are doing just fine.

Hop on over to Greg and Jennifer's website to read and see more about the birth, and to send congratulations their way!