Ryan, We Hardly Knew Ye. And TCGS… Do We Still Know You?

If you didn't catch today's show, you missed Ryan Grant's last day as TCGS assistant producer.

Huh?!

Yep-pers… today was Ryan's last day after gracing the producer's chair for just shy of seven months. The reason: he wants to go back to school. Listening to the show over the past few weeks we couldn't help but notice Ryan's absence from the air, and now that he's leaving the show for good his absence will be felt even stronger. Ryan, we bid you adieu with the same farewell message we did with Lou: good luck and godspeed. You're a class act who left much sooner than we had imagined.

Which brings up the topic of TCGS, and its present and future. We're just off celebrating the fifth anniversary of the show, and this is turning out to be the most topsy-turvy year for TCGS that we've ever seen. On one hand, Father Rob joined the show full time, Lino published his first book to a stellar reception, and two more successful pilgrimages were had by all… all strong high points. Counter that with the loss of three crewmembers (Lou in May, Maureen a month later, and now Ryan), a significant reduction in appearances by Father Jim (from once a week to once in a blue moon), and a decisive shift towards more discussion and less game playing (when's the last time somebody won a prize on the show?)… and the TCGS of today looks very different than it did in January.

What TCGS needs now are some good doses of stability and variety. Part of what made the show so successful was a stable core, both personality- and content-wise. When you tuned in to the show for much of the past five years, you knew what to expect: Lino, Lou, Maureen, Father Rob on Thursdays, Father Jim on Fridays, and lots of chances to win Popeners and other cool prizes you couldn't get just anywhere. Nowadays when you tune in you expect three hours of Lino and Father Rob yakking it up about the topics du jour, and the almost daily promotion of Lino's book… and that's it. Sure, the banter between them has been really good... but how about more than just banter? If we want three hours of nothing but Catholic talk, EWTN Radio is just one channel up the dial. (That should bring in a little hate mail.)

And don't even get us started on today's installment of Boring Catholic Radio. It seems like the last few times they've done BCR Lino and Father Rob have been trying waaaay too hard to sound bad, and the whole thing just felt forced from beginning to end. The best version has been (and always will be) the very first one Lino did in 2007, which was completely off the cuff yet much more believable. Today's version leaned heavily toward the "B" in BCR.

Seriously, though… this is our first blog post in more than two months. Part of it is purely personal: a busy schedule, a demanding job, and a wife and two small kids (with one on the way). But the other part of it is that there hasn't been anything truly worthwhile to post about. The $100 Twitter bet between Father Rob and Lino was the last thing that really snagged our attention… we didn't even have the motivation to post anything about the show's fifth anniversary because it just seemed so underwhelming to us, even though a milestone like that shouldn't be.

So here's hoping that:

1. Ryan's replacement will be another top-notch personality that will make a lasting impression on the show;
2. The show branches out a little from its "all banter, all the time" format; and
3. After a while, the show will settle into a nice comfort zone that makes 4:00-7:00pm ET true appointment radio again.

We now return this blog to its regularly-scheduled program of chirping crickets.

Is it "500 followers" or "500 NEW followers"?

UPDATE 9/17 @ 4:05pm ET: With 15 minutes to go, Father Rob got his 500 new followers, and $100 flies out of Lino's wallet. Tune in to TCGS on Monday for the award ceremony!

UPDATE @ 4:20pm ET: Given all the confusion, Lino and Father Rob have agreed to double down on another bet. If Father Rob can truly get 500 new followers (meaning a total of 663) by 4:20pm ET tomorrow afternoon, he gets $100 from Lino instead of $50. If he doesn't make it, Lino gets all of his money back.

UPDATE @ 4:10pm ET: Lino claimed on the show that he meant to say "new" followers yesterday (even though he didn't), but decided to pay the $50 anyway to avoid looking like a sore loser. Yet somehow he still comes off as one because he's putting so much emphasis on what he meant to say. That's talent right there! BTW,

UPDATE @ 2:30pm ET: Father Rob has hit the magic number (see screenshot above)! Will Lino try to use the technicality described below to get out of paying up $50?

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This morning we (@LinoRulliDotNet) had a friendly disagreement with our friends over at CatholicGuyShow.com (@catholicguyshow) via Twitter. To bring you up-to-speed: on yesterday's show, Lino bet $50 that Father Rob could never "get 500 followers" on Twitter (@robertkeighron) in 24 hours, and Father Rob eagerly took him up on it.

The problem centers around the interpretation of "get 500 followers". In our view, it means that Father Rob needs to get up to 500 followers total in order to win... he started out with about 163 followers at the time of the bet. Our fellow fan club's view is that it means that Father Rob needs to get 500 followers in addition to the 163 he already had. Their point-of-view is definitely credible.

Fortunately we happened to record that segment, so we listened to it again to try to make a decisive determination. While we still stand by our view, it's by no means a slam dunk. At one point Father Rob mentioned how "I could somehow conjure up 300 more followers by tomorrow", but at a slightly earlier point Lino mentioned "an extra 500 Twitter followers". That kind of inconclusiveness can only mean one thing: a war of words on today's TCGS like we've never seen before... and we can't wait!

Something's Not Quite Right Here

At the end of the first hour of yesterday's show, Lino recounted how a dating website (in this case it turned out to be Catholic Match) posted the entirety of Chapter 6 of Sinner on its blog without his permission (the chapter where he described his history of break-ups), and then proceeded to (rightly) mock some of the rather tasteless comments that were left by readers.

Wanting to see it for ourselves, we discovered that Catholic Match had acceeded to Lino's demand request to take the entire blog entry down. Fortunately for us (but not for Lino), Google has this nifty little caching feature that takes snapshots of web pages that it crawls. All it took was a quick Google search for "Lino Rulli" and "emissary of Satan", and voila... a cached version of the blog post!

And we couldn't help but notice a couple of inconsistencies:

1. Lino said multiple times that they posted the excerpt from his book without his permission. Yet at the very top of the post was the following disclaimer:

Editors Note: Congratulations to Lino-XXXXXX [Ed: we removed his membership number for privacy], whose new book, Sinner, is released today. The CatholicMatch member and host of the Sirius radio show The Catholic Guy invited us to publish an exclusive excerpt. We chose chapter six, titled "To None Of The Girls I've Loved Before." Enjoy!

"...invited us to publish an exclusive excerpt"??? Sounds to us like they had plenty of permission to post that part of the book. Either there was one huge misunderstanding betweeen Catholic Match and Lino... or Lino decided that he couldn't take the heat being thrown at him in the comments.

2. Lino declared a couple of weeks ago that he was through with online dating and was shutting down his accounts. If that's the case, then why is his account still active? You'd have thought that he would've actually shut down his profile by now.

We're not out to bash Lino by any means... that's not what this site is about. But we don't like being told by Lino that things happened a certain way when there seems to be evidence to the contrary. A little honesty is all we ask for.

A Big Day in TCGS Land

September 6, 2011. It won't live in infamy like some other poignant days in history, but if you're a fan of The Catholic Guy Show, it marks the beginning of some interesting happenings:

1. We're back! (And the applause is just thunderous.) We've been AWOL from this site for two whole months... long story short, we got laid off from our day job, solicited many prayers from friends and family, landed an even better job (thanks to aforementioned prayers), and watched two kids start their first days of preschool and kindergarten, respectively. Needless to say, LinoRulli.net took a backseat during this challenging time.
   


2. Lino's back! (And the applause is even more thunderous.) He's broadcasting live again after a week-and-a-half off to promote Sinner to whoever would listen. We've been keeping track of his whereabouts, and here's a list of links to many of The Catholic Guy's media appearances over the past week plus... we'll add more as we uncover them:
   




• Print and Blogs:





• The Catholic Spirit


• Minnesota Star-Tribune


• The Curt Jester


• Nineveh's Crossing



• TV and Radio:
  




• Catholic TV (begins at 15:30 in)


• The Good Catholic Live


• Fox 25 Morning News, Boston


• KARE-TV, Minneapolis
  


3. Father Rob's back... every day! (We can't hear the applause because Father Rob's karaoke is drowning it out.) After three years of being Lino's punching bag every Thursday, our favorite priest from the Diocese of Brooklyn is now a daily presence on the show. In fact, he's now Co-Producer of the show along with Ryan Grant. Don't take our word for it... read his note to his parishioners (on page 2).



4. TCGS is back... and different! (We detect a smidge of nervousness from the peanut gallery.) When Lino announced Father Rob's promotion (or demotion, depending on your point-of-view) to permanent crew member, he also talked about revamping parts of The Catholic Guy Show and trying new things. We have no idea what's in store, so all we can do is tune in at 4:00pm ET this afternoon and see what's up.



5. Football is back! (And Lino makes snide comments about having to hear Hank Williams, Jr. tell him what he already knows.) We don't know for sure if the crew is still going to do football picks as they have in the past, but if they do, rest assured that LinoRulli.net will be your unofficial official home for the football picks contest. We'll post all of the picks to our homepage as soon as they're made, and declare winners and losers as soon as each game concludes.



6. The end is near... of Lino's Countdown to 40! (Applause mixed in with snide comments from Father Rob.) Today marks exactly fifty days until Lino's major milestone birthday. If you're getting him a present, you'd better act fast!

So strap yourselves in, folks... it's gonna be an interesting ride for the next few months.

Lino's "Sinner" Interview on Catholic TV

Here it is, kids... twelve minutes plus of pure Catholic pleasure from earlier today, courtesy of Catholic TV. Sit down, dab a little Purell on your hands, and watch Lino in an extensive interview about his new book! The interview starts at 15:30 in, so skip to the middle and enjoy.

The Times, They Are A Changin'

UPDATE 7/5: Final piece of the puzzle solved... Vatican Radio's daily 30-minute English program will air in the 11:30am-12:00pm ET slot. Change noted in the schedule below.

UPDATE 7/2: The Catholic Channel has updated their web page a bit... the most obvious change being the complete lack of anything that once mentioned Bob Dunning. But there are two more interesting things we noticed:

1. We were right about TCGS moving its overnight replay but wrong about the time. Lino will now be rebroadcast from 10:00pm-1:00am ET (7:00pm-10:00pm PT).
2. Part of the mid-day scheduling puzzle has been solved... the weekly shows move to 12:00pm ET. Additionally, the daily Mass that is broadcast live at 7:30am ET now gets a repeat at 11:00am ET. That's a pretty good move in our book... it means that more West Coasters can now listen to the Mass every day, and there's nothing wrong with that.

We've updated the schedule at the bottom of the post with the new info.

We tweeted about this yesterday, but now that we know a bit more of its effects on TCGS we're turning this into a full-fledged post. On Tuesday, Bob Dunning announced that his show, Across The Nation, will be ending its long run on The Catholic Channel this coming Friday. It's hard to tell whether he's just moving on to bigger and better things or if this has been imposed on him by the powers that be... given the wording of his announcement yesterday and the lack of any real details as to why the show is ending, we would put our money on the latter. It's sad, really... we don't normally listen to Across The Nation but feel that over the past five years its really become a good show, particularly the "Legal Eagle" segment on Wednesdays and our favorite, "Saints and Sinners" on Fridays. We're going to miss not hearing them on the air occasionally, and we're sure that Lino will miss mocking Bob on a regular basis.

So the obvious question now comes up: what happens to his timeslot? Well, based on what Gus Lloyd has announced on Seize The Day this morning we have a good idea of how the Channel's schedule will be set up beginning next week. There are two major changes coming:

• Seize The Day will be shifting one hour forward and will now broadcast from 7:00am-11:00am ET (4:00am-8:00am PT).
• The Catholics Next Door will be making the biggest move, shifting three hours forward... they will now be heard from 1:00pm-4:00pm ET (10:00am-1:00pm PT).

Gus also announced that the live broadcast times for TCGS and The Busted Halo Show will not change. So given all of that, this is what we predict The Catholic Channel's new weekday schedule will look like (all times ET, and all of this starts on Tuesday, July 5th):

7:00am-11:00am	Seize The Day with Gus Lloyd (with daily Mass @ 7:30am)
11:00am-11:30am	Daily Mass (rebroadcast from 7:30am)
11:30am-12:00am	Vatican Radio
12:00am-1:00pm	Weekly shows (Sounds From The Spires, Pathways Of Learning, et. al.)
1:00pm-4:00pm	The Catholics Next Door with Greg & Jennifer Willits
4:00pm-7:00pm	The Catholic Guy Show with Lino Rulli
7:00pm-10:00pm	The Busted Halo Show with Father Dave Dwyer
10:00pm-1:00am	The Catholic Guy Show (replay)
1:00am-4:00am	The Catholics Next Door (replay)
4:00am-7:00am	The Busted Halo Show (replay)

There's one obvious change that affects TCGS: the overnight replay shifts ahead one hour back two hours and will now be heard from 1:00am-4:00am ET (10:00pm-1:00am PT) 10:00pm-1:00am ET (7:00pm-10:00pm PT). That might not sit well with some people on the West Coast, but it is what it is. We also don't know yet exactly how the time slots between Seize The Day and The Catholics Next Door will flesh out yet... one of them is likely to be for the weekly shows (Sounds From The Spires, et. al.) that are now heard at 1:00pm ET (UPDATE: they move to 12:00pm ET), but we don't know what is being planned for the other hour. When we hear, we'll post it. (UPDATE: daily Mass gets rebroadcast at 11:00am ET, but we still don't know what will happen at 11:30 Vatican Radio's 30-minute program fills out the rest of the hour.)

BREAKING NEWS: Maureen leaves the show again!

Oh, good God... first Lou and now this. Lino just announced a few minutes ago that Maureen is quitting the show for the second time. The story is a broken record: better job, more money. This was the "really bad news" that Lino alluded to on Facebook a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately this turned into more of a breakup than a farewell: Lino took her quitting personally and decided to leave her out of remove her from the acknowledgements section of his new book, and Maureen took that personally.

Missed the live announcement? Catch it on tonight's replay at 2:00am ET/11:00pm PT, and again on Sunday at 3:00pm ET/12:00pm PT. Believe us, you don't want to miss this hour!

UPDATE 6:45pm ET: Lino announced that Maureen will be placed back in his book's acknowledgements.

UPDATE 6/20/2011: We've listened to the hour again, but just haven't had time to write about it. Fortunately our friends at CatholicGuyShow.com have, and we agree 100% with their analysis. So in Vulcan mind meld vernacular: my mind to your mind, your thoughts to my thoughts.

Pre-order yours today!

Here's the cover, so what are you waiting for? Pre-order Lino's new book today on Amazon.com, or for a few dollars more you can hear Lino read it to you on audio CD!

North To Alaska

In honor of Lino's upcoming week in the Great White North (and despite the fact that broadcasting shows from there next week didn't work out), we present to you an oldie but goodie from the late Johnny Horton. Enjoy!

Some thoughts for dustin and Allicia on their wedding day

This is going to be a somewhat unusual posting for this site because 1) it has nothing to do with Lino (at least not directly), and 2) it's going to be done in single-person instead of the usual pluralistic style. The reason? I'm speaking to two people celebrating one of the most joyous days of their lives, and that by itself demands a change in protocol.

dustin and Allicia, my thoughts and prayers are with you today as you confer the Sacrament of Marriage on each other. It's particularly poignant for me because I was in your shoes exactly six years ago today. I can remember the nervousness, excitement, anticipation and joy of that day like it was yesterday, yet I'm amazed at how much has changed in the past six years for me and my wife. I've become a parent twice over: my little girl turns five in a week and a half, and my son turns three just a few days later. My daughter has become a talented artist, and her little brother knows his colors, ABCs and 123s like the back of his hand. We bought our own house and made it a home. My wife lost her beloved aunt to old age, and two of our family's pets succumbed to disease far too soon. We struggle financially but somehow seem to make it through thanks to God's providence. Our marriage has had its ups and downs, and there are days when I question why in the world I married my wife. Then I look at our kids, our home, and everything else good that's happened to us over the past six years. And then I look at my wife, promptly realize that she's the reason why all those things exist, and tell myself to shut the hell up and be grateful that God placed her in my life.

Is there a point to all my rambling? Only that you have a lot to look forward to... probably more than you might imagine now. So cherish your wedding day to the fullest (and enjoy "not sinning" tonight as dustin so coyly put it), because from this point on your lives will never, ever be the same.

Cheers to you two on your new journey together! We have a couple of lovely wedding gifts for you... one is in the mail, the other will be coming soon to a computer near you.

This Day in TCGS History: Ryan enters Lino's show open contest

If you were listening to yesterday's show, you'll remember Lino introducing Ryan Grant as the show's new Assistant Producer. You might also remember him saying that a few months ago, Ryan entered the "Create Our New Show Open" contest, where the listener who created the best new music intro for the show would win himself a Lino Rulli bobblehead. Lino was never able to decide on a winner, but as a tribute to the show's newest crewmember, we present to you the newest edition of This Day in TCGS History: his entry into the contest. Click the audio slideshow above and enjoy!

BREAKING NEWS: Introducing Your New TCGS Assistant Producer

At the beginning of today's show, Lino and Maureen introduced the newest member of the Catholic Guy Show... family (for lack of a better term): Ryan Grant. Former intern at Sirius Satellite Radio, former seminarian, former TCGS listener... and now current Assistant Producer on the show! Proof that pestering Lino long enough and hard enough about something can actually be successful!

Want to know more about him? Just check out his Facebook page.

Ryan, you've listened to the show long enough that you don't need any platitudes from us, so all we have to say is: Welcome aboard!

BREAKING NEWS: Lou Ruggieri says goodbye to TCGS

Boy, talk about springing it on us. Lino just announced on the air that Lou has tendered his resignation from Sirius/XM, effective the day after tomorrow (April 28th), effectively making today's show his last. The reason? He's going back to school after much prayerful consideration.

Wow. We're just speechless.

Thinking about it, though, the way he's leaving is classic Lou: quietly, with no fuss and lots of memories. We'll leave others to write long oratories about Lou's 4+ years on TCGS, but as for us, our message to Lou is this:

Good luck and Godspeed, Lou. You'll be missed.

BREAKING NEWS: The Catholic Channel moves to Channel 129 on both Sirius and XM starting May 4

Not to toot our own horn too loudly, but we definitely called this one. You'll recall that our last post predicted that The Catholic Channel would be moving away from its longtime homes of Sirius 159 and XM 117 in the very near future in order to align channel numbers on both services.

Well, now that move has been officially confirmed by Sirius/XM. Starting on Wednesday, May 4th, The Catholic Channel will be moving to Channel 129 on both Sirius and XM. So get your presets ready, and get used to hearing "The Catholic Channel, Sirius/XM 129". Sounds a little weird, doesn't it?

Say goodbye to Sirius 159 and XM 117

Now before you start panicking, we're not insinuating that The Catholic Channel is going the way of the dodo bird. Or that we're saying goodbye to listening to the channel (although we're sure that some of you out there were thinking/hoping that.) But our choice of words must have piqued your interest, or you still wouldn't be reading this.

Here's the scoop: from the bits and pieces of evidence that we've been able to gather, it looks like Sirius/XM is getting ready to rearrange its channel lineup, perhaps with the goal of synchronizing the channel numbers on both Sirius and XM radios. That means that The Catholic Channel, which has been on Sirius 159 since Day One and on XM 117 since its debut there, is getting a new unified channel number... likely sometime within the next few weeks.

How are we deducing this? Well, we knew something was up when our favorite morning show host, Gus Lloyd, recently stopped using the channel numbers when identifying the channel on Seize The Day... he now says you're listening to The Catholic Channel on "Sirius/XM Satellite Radio" rather than "XM 117 and Sirius 159". The purpose? Likely to begin disassociating the channel with its current numbers, and to make it easier to use these shows as "best-of" material further down the line. We noticed the same phrasing at the end of the Sunday Mass broadcast yesterday... no more channel number, just "Sirius/XM, The Catholic Channel".

Curious as we were, we did a little Googling and found two threads on Sirius and XM fan forums (here and here) that seem to indicate that an imminent channel lineup shakeup/consolidation is coming as early as April 20th. In fact the first post on one of those threads indicated that Family Talk (the evangelical-focused of the three religious channels on Sirius/XM) is slated to move to Channel 131 on both services starting on the 20th (UPDATE: the most recent post on that forum from the same user now cites sometime in "Early May").

In all honesty we haven't been able to listen to Lino for most of the past week, but of the little that we have heard we haven't heard anything out of the ordinary. (Then again, maybe we missed something.) So take all of this with a grain of salt, but it looks like Lino and the rest of The Catholic Channel will be moving sometime in the not-so-distant future. Get your presets ready!

This Day in TCGS History: Some Things Just Don't Change

Hey, we couldn't let an entire calendar month go by without a post, could we? That would break some kind of streak that nobody on God's green Earth cares about! Anyway, we found it funny that Lino was talking about his dating life on yesterday's show after going awhile without doing so... he was doing the same thing exactly year ago! So read for yourself what happened on TCGS on March 30, 2010 to see how little/far Lino has progressed in a year's time:

• Father Rob made a surprise Tuesday visit to the show (because this time last year it was Holy Week and he was going to be kind of busy on Thursday), and he wasted no time in telling Lino how grey his hair had gotten recently.


• Lino gave Father Rob the Readers' Digest version of his dating situation: he's spent over $1,000 on dating two women he was matched with on the Internet... and now both women are either repulsed by him or are just blowing him off.


• Lino's somewhat recent ex-girlfriend from Minnesota was coming to NYC to help him "clean his palate", and his revelation that he paid for her plane ticket prompted Maureen to suggest that Father Rob chaperone the two of them while she's here.


• Checking in on their Lenten penances, Lino, Lou and Father Rob had all been good. Maureen (who gave up smoking)... not so much (using the "I forgot!" excuse).


• Lino recounted a Holy Thursday in his past in Rome where he unexpectedly got to participate in a washing-of-the-feet ceremony, then threw the phone lines open for listeners to describe how their parishes commemorate the Last Supper.


• Lino recently attended a Catholic men-in-media conference, and declared that he intended to hang out with more like-minded (read: Catholic) people in the future. He then took suggestions from listeners as to how to go about doing that.


• Talking with Father Dave as the show wrapped up, Lino complained about how well/not well the Cross is cleaned after each person venerates it on Good Friday, and explained his "special procedure" for venerating the Cross due to his big nose.

This Day in TCGS History: Lino dates two women. No, really!

With Lino in Argentina this week, what better time is there to reflect on days gone by when he was actually in studio doing a show? Today we take you back to February 22, 2010, Lino's first day back in studio after last year's Mardi Gras/Ash Wednesday broadcasts from New Orleans:

• Lino started off by declaring that the listeners had hate in their hearts b/c he took Thursday & Friday off instead of doing a show. He also said that today's show was going to tread water b/c the crew was still so tired from the New Orleans trip (and possibly b/c he burned through all of his funny material on the dates he had over the weekend).
• After stating that he's pretty certain that he won't be discerning a vocation to the priesthood anytime soon, Lino dished on the two dates he went on this over the weekend (and neither date knew about TCGS beforehand):
• Date #1 (Saturday): Went to a Mexican restaurant. Had about four drinks each. Talked about Catholicism, comedy, Letterman. Only 50% Italian. Both were in Italy when JPII passed away. Kissed each other on the cheek good night. Total time: around 3½-4 hours.
• Date #2 (Sunday): Went to the Museum of Modern Art, then to Italian restaurant afterwards. Had two drinks or so each. Jersey girl™, 100% Italian. Doesn't go to church much, believes in reincarnation. Another kiss on the cheek good night. Total time: around 6 hours.
• Today was Maureen's 6-month wedding anniversary, and Lino had the listeners call in with their interesting engagement stories. Most notable: dustin called and explained that she washed her then-fiance's feet at dinner, and proposed while on his knees washing. He also indirectly brought up Lino's date way back when with Mary Beth Bonacci, and then took a cheap swipe at Gus Lloyd.
• After Kayla stopped by to rate Christian music with the crew, they tore apart Father Jim's most recent Sunday homily (entitled "Hey, What's Up Doc?") in Mystery Science Homilies.
• The show ended with an installment of Where In The World Is Lino Rulli, followed by Father Dave talking w/ Lino about the New Orleans trip.

A Love Note to Susan

From: LinoRulli.net
To: Susan
Re: Your comment for us to take our ball and go home

Hi Susan… happy Valentine's Day Feast of Saints Cyril and Methodius! Thank you for visiting our humble fan site, and for your comment related to our posting on February 8th… you know, the one where you told us to go pound sand. We appreciate the time you took on a busy Sunday afternoon to indirectly brand us as a bunch of Lino haters.

We're still a little confused, though. If Lino, in your words, "is who he is", then how does that take away our right to call him out on something that we perceived was a cheap shot? On Tuesday's show, dustin (the numero uno honcho over at CatholicGuyShow.com) called in to comment on a completely separate topic, and Lino seized the opportunity to give him a verbal beating over the lack of updates on his #1 fan site. We understand that life happens, and that (especially with a wedding coming up in exactly three months) things are probably pretty busy for him right now. Life happening is part of the reason why this site is a bit thin on postings, too.

Now in the end it wasn't a really big deal, and our friends at CatholicGuyShow.com took the time to tweet us back saying as much. At the time, though, we didn't like Lino's attitude and we replied in kind. We really don't go off on Lino as much as you might think… most of the posts on our site are quite positive, actually. But we always reserve the right to throw Lino under the bus if we thought he deserved it… and we thought he deserved it there. What you perceived as "hate" was really nothing more than us throwing a bit of cold water at Lino. And we're not the only ones who thought as much.

So given your ultimatim for us to either act like fans or shut down our site, we choose to act like fans… fans that love Lino and his show and aren't afraid to show it, even if it means getting unfairly branded as haters. Thanks again for writing, and God bless you, sister!

Love,
LinoRulli.net

P.S.: Are you the same woman who wrote Gus Lloyd that NastyGram that he read on his show last Friday morning? You know, the one that chastised him for talking about Catholic teaching on marriage? That letter branded Gus a hater, too, so we were wondering if there was a connection.

Note to Lino

To the Catholic radio show host who belittled dustin this afternoon on the show for not posting anything to CatholicGuyShow.com in a while:

Do something on the show worth posting about and we'll be happy to oblige!

Love,

LinoRulli.Net

Shame on you, Notre Dame Basketball!

Boy, Lino just can't catch a break. It's bad enough that yesterday's show got pre-empted for Notre Dame basketball... bu they jumped in a minute early without allowing Lino to set up a proper transition! (Breathe in, breathe out.) Well, we're going to try to make up for that... just click on the video above to hear all of the parts of yesterday's show that got cut off. We rewound the tape just a bit and started with the beginning of the last call before the break, with the actual cutoff point happening about 41 seconds in. Right after that you'll hear Lino's transition that never made it over the air, then we skip right past the commercials and let you enjoy all 10 minutes of the show's last segment, where Lino talks about yesterday's March for Life and the lack of coverage of the march in the secular media. Have at it!

Are you smarter than Notre Dame Basketball?

Obviously you must be if you've come searching for the last part of Monday's show that was pre-empted by said basketball game. Well, you've come to the right place... click on the audio slideshow above to enjoy Lino ranting a little bit more about the programming decisions of The Catholic Channel, followed by one more quick round of Are You Smarter Than A Bad Catholic. Will Maureen pull out a win or get clobbered? Play the audio to find out!

Maybe Lino can regift Notre Dame basketball

Once again the wonderful world of Notre Dame basketball intruded on the last segment of The Catholic Guy Show. And once again, we braved the dark of night (and stepping on stuff that might hurt our feet) to record the segment that you missed from the overnight replay. It's a continuation of the regifting segment that had started earlier in the hour. Enjoy!

This Day in TCGS History: What's a "junkanoo" anyway?

Starting today, LinoRulli.net will begin a periodic feature with the oh-so-creative title "This Day in TCGS History". It's exactly what it says it is: a recap of this day's show from years gone by. As much as Lino prefers not to focus on the past, we thought it would be interesting to highlight the things that Lino was talking about exactly "X" number of years ago as kind of a comparison/contrast with present day show topics. So without further ado, here are the highlights of the January 4, 2010 show... the first show of the year:

• Lino started out by saying that if today's show ended up being terrible, that he wouldn't be back on the air until January 2011. Fortunately, it was a pretty good show… and a pretty good year.
• Lino spent Christmas with his parents in Minnesota... and missed Midnight Mass for the first time in his adult life because of the immense snow there.
• He told us that the Pilgrimage to Italy that was announced on the last show of 2009 sold out within three days. He was so pessimistic that anybody would want to go that he was fully expecting to have to come on the air to announce its cancellation.
• Kayla stopped by to help the crew rate Christian Christmas music... but she got miffed when she found out that she was the only one who picked a specifically Christian artist (while the others chose whoever they wanted). Lino gave her song a 1½ nose curve as a peace offering.
• Lino went to the Bahamas for a week after Christmas, so today was the first of his Bahamian Reflections. Today's topic: his New Year's Day experience at Junkanoo, a traditional Bahamian all night street parade of people in colorful costumes and playing horn instruments that starts at 2:00am and doesn't let up until late morning.
• Turning to New Year's Resolutions, Lino predicted that Maureen's resolution to quit smoking would fall through by MLK Day. Maureen vowed to prove him wrong, with Lou chiming in that she would do so by waiting until the day after MLK Day to start smoking again.
• Finally, the crew debated who among them was the biggest liar (with eyes fixed firmly on Maureen). Lino told us how he avoids lying by not bringing up personal stories that could put him in that situation... and then underscored that point by telling us of his split-second temptation by a woman at a bar in the Bahamas, and how that proved that he really shouldn't be telling stories like that to everyone.

So there you have it: a summary of TCGS on this day last year. We certainly won't be doing this every day, but we'll post "This Day" features on select dates in the future, and we may even do a "This Week" feature from time to time.

Happy New Year, you filthy animal!

Don't forget: starting at 6:00am ET this morning… 23½ hours of The Catholic Guy Show (with a 30 minute break for Mass at 8:00am ET).