According to Amazon.com there is now an official release date set for Stevie's new record.

Woohoo! It's done!

It's an all new edition of The Catholic Cast hosted by me! There's a very good homily by Fr. Bryce (in honor of his late Weblog), music from Don McClane, and there's even a new "Catechism Rock!" in there, so be sure to check out.

Woohoo! I'm doin the Catholic Cast this week. Should be great. I just don't know if the world is ready for it or not, though.

Look for it on Friday or Saturday.

Hey Ya, Charlie Brown

Probably the happiest thing I've seen in a while.

The Long Tail: Robot Child-Herders

Although it's fine at sucking up dirt, finding its way around the room and returning to its charging station, its real achievement is in not only getting the children to clean up their toys first but also tiring them out before bed.

This works with three magic phrases:

1. "Roomba's coming out tonight. Clean up your toys or Roomba will eat them!"
2. "If you can clean them up fast you can stay up to watch Roomba!"
3. "Here goes Roomba. Don't let him touch you!"

I don't care what anyone says: you've got to have Catholicae Testudines to 'blog from the Catholic Student Center at the University of Maryland in College Park, MD.

Yo! Check out the latest Catholic Cast. I don't have any new music in it, but Jayson interviews the Catholic Mormon Podcast folks; I would SO desperately like to do their themesong, except I think it'd get 10 million Mormons angry with me (and the last thing I need at this stage in my life is any more mormon women missionarily dating me). Oh, and he plays some tracks from this band, Pierced, which has a really great sound -- very nice piano work and composition. They're a Catholic band, just in case you don't get that from their website. So I would say it's quite a good show and you should check it out.

And every time you vote for Jayson's podcast at Podcast Alley a crocodile doesn't maul someone to death.

Tonight's series finale of "Everybody Loves Raymond" was very sweet and not what I at all expected (I thought Frank and Marie would move back to the condo... boy was I wrong).

Anyway, as a "status quo" finale where the entire cast doesn't die ("Angel") or form the United Federation of Planets ("Enterprise"), or get trapped in the Celestial Temple, indefinitely ("DS9"), or destroy the whole town ("Buffy"), it was a nice change of pace.

A fitting end to Enterprise this past Friday: we started watching the show at the end of the third season (and caught that season in repeats). It's pretty telling that the show wrapped up as little more than a footnote to a good The Next Generation Episode (though, since I missed the first few seconds, I thought we were in the future (like maybe stardate 62000 or something), but we were actually back in the Pegasus episode, which was cool). But it's pretty appropriate: it's a lot easier for me to cope, after the loss of Deep Space 9, by thinking that Enterprise was nothing more than some Newhart-ish holodeck program and not a real Trek series (though they did a lot in the fourth season that was cool: most notably explaining what happened to the Klingons' ridges between Enterprise and The Original Series... it even jibed nicely with Worf's reluctance to talk about it on that DS9 episode). Anyway, the finale did nothing for me so much as to make me realize how much I missed Riker and Troi and the whole TNG universe. When all is said and done, Paramount really screwed over the franchise with "Enterprise".

Oh and the "Catholic" episode of The Simpsons was very funny. Granted, it suffered from some common misconceptions of the Church, but if The Simpsons is a cultural barometer, then at least we know what areas we need to address.

Engadget.com: Watschendiskurs: robots on semiotics gone fisticuffs

Be sure to watch the video. I'm rooting for the pink froggie. And also I'm now not all that afraid of the coming robot apocalypse.

I promise you: Catechism Rock! will never sink this low.

Link via the Angry Twins. You should check out their thoughts on the Our Lady of China Cathedral in Taiwan.

Okay. As bad as colds are, migraines: much worse. Well, that was a fantabulously pathetic loss of a perfectly good day.

Day 5... still sick. I hate colds.

Rice: Gun Rights Important As Free Speech

Well, duh. Any talk of "rights" is pretty meaningless if you don't have any basis for defending those rights.

"Purgatory" in high-quality .mp3 format over at Catechism Rock!.

You can also read the thrilling story of its conception, learn what role James Preece played at its bris (er....), and find out how it finally left the nest. And there's a never before seen LamToonS video clip there as well (it's jut an animation test, so don't get too excited).

I'd love to hear your comments! And don't forget the soothing lullaby of the Flying House of Loreto is now playing only at The Catholic Cast (Jayson does a very nice introduction to the tune for those of you who may not know that Mary's house was actually flown from Palestine to Italy by angels. And if you think that's improbable, just think: what would YOU do to save yo mama's house from marauders? Now: imagine that you're the Son of God).

New Catholic Cast!

Lots of neat stuff there, including a talk with the Catholic/Mormon Podcast People (I haven't gotten to that part yet, though). And there's a new Catechism Rock! tune, too ("Flying House of Loreto").

Check it out and then vote for Jayson's podcast on the Podcastalley.

It might be pretty sad to admit this but the funniest thing I'd seen in a while was the latest iteration (or "sketch") of Will Forte's "Oh, nooo!" guy on Saturday Night Live (but only because Fred Armisen's latest iteration -- or sketch! -- of Richie B, the deaf comic (and his interpreter Marcus) wasn't as funny as the original (being, as it was, a direct reproduction of the original but with different jokes (slightly))).

Anyway, who knew that having someone yell "Oh, nooo!" into a phone (or Will Forte for that matter) could be so amusing. Instant macro.

New 'Blog!

Okay, so it's my new 'blog but who cares...

Happy Mama's Day to all the Mama's out there!

Eric Scheske on National Homebrew Day. Very nice and I might have to try homebrewing someday.... How does one go about homebrewing a vodka martini or a nice Chilean Cabernet Merlot?

That '70s Show: another fine piece by Mark Shea.

I completely missed it, but yesterday was my FOUR YEAR BLOGGIVERSARY. Yep! Four years! I'd like to tell you how many posts that is, but 'Blogger hasn't updated my profile with a new count in like a year so I have no idea. It's a bunch, though. I'll figure it out.

Anyway... I've been doing this for four years. Ugh.

Give your senators the finger. The BLUE finger, that is.

Yeah, I'm not 100% sure I get it, either. But it's for a good cause. What senator couldn't use more foam appendages?

I thought of something over the weekend and I realized how happy I am to be part Polish and part Bavarian: I'm 2-for-2 with the last 2 Popes. Now if the next Pope is Flemish (unlikely -- sorry Danneels) I'll have a sweep. Or hat trick. Or whatever you want to call it.

Check out the latest Catholic Cast for some great interviews and some new music from me: something I'm calling "Catechism Rock". First up is "Purgatory" (which you may recall was an instrumental piece I did about 18 months ago. Well, now it has vocals). These tunes will be Catholic Cast exclusive for the first week or so, then I'll post them to all of my various and sun-dried music sites. I probably won't be able to do one-a-week as I did with the "Robot Love" album, but should be able to crank these out every other week or so. Enjoy!