Is I.C. Wiener there?

"... tell him it's Harry Butz calling."

New nekkid Stations of the Cross in Middle Earth, er, New Zealand.

From A Saintly Salmagundi. I've been checking out the Catholic Blog Award winners recently, if you didn't notice.

Okay, let's talk capybera

There's been a lot of talk around the Catholic blog scene recently about the papal dispensation to parts of South America, allowing them to eat Capybera on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

Now, I won't repeat the story, because it can be found in many place. However, Jimmy Akin, above say:

"I don't like that. I think it's dumb. But that was the consensus on the issue.

The consensus has been changing somewhat. For example, Henry Davis is quite down on villages where seabirds are exempted and says this is likely bogus (he doesn't use the word "bogus") and that it has more to do with villagers obstinately hanging on to traditional privileges. I can look up the quote if needed. "

I haven't read Mr. Akin much, so I don't know where he is in the culture wars, he just happened to make me think about this issue. But, outside of the Sacraments, I'd say there's nothing more culturally Catholic than villagers obstinately hanging on to traditional priviledges. Why the need for whitewashing conformity in such trivial manners? It depends whose trivial matters we're discussing. The Modern attitude is always pro-diversity, unless the custom is older than living memory.

A Modernist could should back at me, "You're for diversity too, as long as it's old diversity. That's just the other side of the coin." Well, yes. That's what makes them traditions, they aren't reinvented every 25 years. Traditions build into cultures which form civilizations that give life meaning and connect us to our ancestors.

Don't ever buy HP products

This is my poor, dead monitor, 18 months old. I've never had a monitor die, since 1989. A hunk of junk - and when it started acting up at 13 months old, the cheapskates at HP wanted to charge me $40 for tech support because it was a month over warrantee.

And this comes after having a bunch of problems in 2003 with my all-in-one printer. First, it died, and the tech guy said they can't handle printing post card. They did replace my unit, but the fax machine requires a 2-pin phone cord. Have you ever tried to buy a 2-pin phone cord?

Doing some research, I found out that these companies will make the same product for the big stores, not just Wal Mart and Target but also Best Buy and CompUSA, that they make for business clients and small computer shops, but the big-store units were usually rush-made to fill big orders. They're assembled in places like Guatemala, made out of whatever parts they were able to buy, to rush 60,000 monitors to Best Buy, or whatever.

McNuggets; two Dappled Things; Red bishop

But not in that order.

From www.cruxnews.com - Archbishop was a Red agent. Schweeet. Cardinal Sodano will no doubt find him very papable.

From http://donjim.blogspot.com - New "New Mass" translation, which incorporates the new GIRM. If the first thing you notice is all the "news," then you are a hatemonger homophobe reactionary who is afraid of change. Seriously though, it's a teeny-tiny step in the right direction, the right direction being throwing the Novus disOrdo out entirely. The NdO is going to change every five years anyway, so as Snoop says, "chill, 'till the next episode."

And, a new Old Rite priestly order has been founded. Good luck to all involved and God bless. In this case, the "new" is canceled out by the "old."

Speaking of McChurch, I noticed ten McNuggets costs $3.39. However, from the dollar menu, four McNuggets are just a buck. So ... I can buy ten for $3.39, or 12 for three bucks? Weeeird. What are the McAccountants doing? I think it's a hidden IQ test. The first employee to notice is made assistant manager.

I don't get it ("it" being sports)

Now, I do understand the desire to paint yourself up, wear silly hats, drink beer, act like a mental patient, and sing old songs. In fact, I take advantage of every holiday I can to do just that. My silly hat collection is quite enviable, in fact.

But I still don't understand sports. Going to games can be fun, even if you don't usually watch the particular sport you are attending, for the above reasons. And parties can be fun, because they are scaled-back versions of going to the game. But how many people sat home in groups of one or two or three, absorbed in the Super Bowl, qua game? And how many of those people, even ones who don't live near a football team, talk about how "they" won or lost and let it affect their day? I won't even bring up the yahoos that trash whole cities now and then.

Now, it must be genetic, because this craziness goes as far back as the Nika Riots, and even further. I must be lacking the gene, because I don't even understand it. I don't like mushrooms, but I can intellectually comprehend why some people do. I can't say that for sports fanaticism.

I would be more inclined to be passionate about sports if the teams were meaningful. Even if you live in a team's city, the players change so much, who cares? Even the uniforms get make-overs every ten years. How can you get attached? Teams should:

• be forced to draw players only from their own state/city, OR
• represent, and be entirely composed of, different religions, OR
• represent, and be entirely composed of, different political persuasions, OR
• force players to stay with the same team for their whole career, or maybe allow one move, OR
• anything else to make teams representational. Only recruit Red Wings whose favorite color is red. Only recruit Packers who really, really, really love cheese. ANYTHING.

Because as it stands now, it seems pointless to me.

Praying for the pope ...

... but I must admit my first thought was "How quick can we fit Cardinal Bertone for a white hat?"

And then my second thought: "How about Ukrainian Patriarch Lubomyr? That'd give the Orthodox fits."

But then my third thought: "They'll probably give it to Sodano or some other whack job. Saddam Hussein is out of work, and the Vatican is deeply in love with him, so maybe he'd end up pope."

Either way, I wish the Pontiff a speedy recovery or a happy death.

New links; now allowing comments

Some fellow sent me a collection of links that I presume he put together, The Byzantine Catholic Daily Prayer and Lectionary. It's impressive, check it out. It's got the daily readings, the Philokalia, liturgical texts, and on and on.

I also added a link to the Douay-Rheims Bible Online; it's the best Bible out there, both in terms of its beautiful translation and faithfulness to the text. Put down that New American Bible modernist PC nonsense and check this one out. Sadly, the DR's hard to find in book stores and usually expensive to buy online.

If you want to have some fun, find a controversial passage in the DR and then check out how the NAB softballs it.

Also, I'm now allowing comments - now all those people who don't read my blog can now not comment on it, too. Twice the fun!

Lost four pounds in January!

I'm quite pleased! In college, I used to work out and got into pretty good shape. But, I slacked off and I just got back into it last year. In September, I rushed myself into it and pulled an abdominal muscle. So, I just got restarted again in mid December. I also made the committment to drastically reduce my beer intake.

I want to lose three pounds per month in 2005. That would get me down to my fighting weight. I was drinking about 100 beers per month, mostly Michelob Ultra with a few homebrews, and in January I cut that down to 17. I was surprised that I hardly missed it at all. And I'm sleeping better. Doing the math, I saved about 9,200 calories that way.

I worked out ten times, and figure (based on tables I've found) that I burned off about 3,300 calories. So, that's a total reduction of 12,500 cals in my "caloric economy" in January. One pound of fat is gained/lost through 3,500 cals, which works out to a reduction of about 3.5 pounds.

When I weighed myself, I had lost 4 pounds, which means that my regular food intake, inclusive of all the fatty garbage I eat, was still responsible for an additional 1/2# of weight loss. I don't eat well, but I always knew I didn't really eat that much. So it seems beer really is responsible for my post-college (class of '98) weight gain.

I gave myself two weeks of cardio before January in order to eliminate the possibility of "water weight loss" throwing off the numbers. I drink so much water and coffee I've never really retained water anyway, but I thought I'd give it two weeks of heavy sweating before I weighed in the first time.

Pretty sweet!