you’ll probably be seeing a lot less of me…

…because i’ve lost 42 lbs. in just the past two months. for all you math nerds out there, that’s about four inches off my waistline and a full two manssiere cups smaller.

i’m especially pleased with the noticeable nipple reduction

and before you ask, the answer is no, i did not lose this weight because of SSP90X, or any  exercise program for that matter, extremely traditional or otherwise.

i’m not even dieting.

well, not really dieting. just eating food.

real food, that is.

not that fake processed crap that i used to stuff myself with.

ugh, nothing but plastic here; REAL dog poop is pure and organic

yes, in my various wanderings, i happened to stumble across something called the “paleo” diet, which sounded just about as traditional as you can get, so of course i was on board in a second.

as i’ve since discovered, paleo isn’t nearly as traditional or pure as you can get.

i’m still experimenting with the best way to stick to natural, organic food only, and i’ll be sure to keep you posted as i learn more about making sure this REALcatholic gets nothing but REALfood.

off the grid no more

the short story: i had some legal troubles with my landlord sister, was evicted, and spent the past several weeks months bouncing from friend’s couch to friend’s couch, doing odd jobs and waiting for my various accounts to be unfrozen.

the long story: it’ll have to wait. my internet connection right now is spotty at best and my time “off the grid” has left me with 742,588 unread items in my google reader. needless to say, i have some catching up to do in the news and blogosphere departments. apparently there’s a new “pope” to learn to hate.

on that front, it seems that the initially suspicious folks at rorate caeli have had some second thoughts. that’s too bad. (shoot, i could’ve told you in a second that the new guy would be in continuity with the ones that came before him.)

 yes, i hear a link from drudge does wonders for one’s stats.

“pope” resigns: the real story

my best friend, Turk Sorensen, invented this painting several weeks ago, as some sort of joke.

but now it would appear that it was actually something of a prophecy, since it was in fact announced just recently that “pope” Benedict XVI was resigning due to complications from his raging internet addiction.

while certain know-it-all “pundits” went on record saying that the pope had developed an incurable twitter dependency, i happen to know that the situation is a bit more complex than that.

while it is true that the resignation is directly linked to benedict’s recent introduction to the interwebs, it’s NOT for the “official” reasons being given. i.e., it is not social media sites that he’s hooked on, but rather traditionalist sites just like this one.

apparently, it all started when the “pope” got the bright idea of trolling some rad-trad sites, just for fun. bad idea. needless to say, it didn’t take long for him to realize that he wasn’t a real pope at all.

i started getting anonymous comments on this blog, written in a german accent, asking things like “vat should vone do if vone ist un anti-pope?” and “how does vone becomen un REALkatholik like zu, Troll zwei?”

i started sending him some books just after christmas–classics like John Vennari’s “The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita,” fellow fake “pope” Michael I’s “Upon this Rock,” and “Cash” by Johnny Cash. the pope couldn’t get enough.

by the end of january, he knew that he was living a lie and couldn’t go on like this much longer. when he asked me for advice, i mentioned that Murphy had quietly retired to a monastery and was enjoying it greatly, and that perhaps he would like something like that too.

and the rest, as they say, is history.

Undated AP file photo of Pope Benedict XVI standing next to President Barack Obama.

pope benedict, baby-eater

perhaps he’s slipping because of old age, or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t give a crap anymore, but on his last full day as the obviously unlawful occupier of the chair of Peter, “Pope” Benedict XVI has revealed to the world what had previously been his shameful and abhorrent secret: he eats live babies.

it started out innocently enough…

and then the unthinkable happened…

well, unthinkable to you maybe. i’ve always said that novus ordo types can’t be trusted to not eat their young.

full horrific story here.

what’s all the fuss about?

ooh, so now it’s big news that there’s no pope.

whatever, i’ve been saying that for, like, forever.

fake “pope” Michael I is similarly unimpressed.

“I’m all like, ‘as if,’ like, totally, you know?”

feeling the love

“what do you say we go below deck and read some ‘theology of the body’ to each other?”

since the bitter defeat of two weeks ago, i’ve been feeling pretty low. and what with Murphy being gone, i have no one to put my head on straight when i get all bent out of shape. hence the constant tears and crippling depression.

but then i thought to myself just last night, “sometimes i get flattering remarks in my combox spam filter, and that would be a great pick-me-up.” sure enough, reader Szoc2573 writes:

May I just say what a relief is to discovering someone that genuinely understands what they talking about on teh internet. You actually realize how to brings an issue to light and make it impotent. More people had to read this and understanding this side of the story! It’s surprising you aren’t being more popular because you certainly possessed the gift.

surprising indeed. if only i were more appreciated. as i am by reader claudinha_doidinha, who writes:

keep sharing such ideas in the future as well. this was actually what i was looked for, and i am being glad to come here!

and finally, there is this from reader Townsend:

artikelnya sangat informatif sekali..terimaksih banyak

which apparently is idonesian for “you know yes where you can buy cheap viagra!”

thank you, dear readers. thank you.

my heart will go on.

greatest blogger alive – UPDATED

no, please, hold your applause, i have so much more to say

while Mark Shea is busy wringing his hands over cults of celebrity and how to avoid them (as if he really needs to worry about that), i am pleased to announce that my own cult of celebrity is steadily waxing.

and i don’t mean the bad kind

yup, not only am i currently in negotiations to be the newest a-list blogger at “Patheos,” but i’ve also received numerous nominations for the “Sheenazing Blogger Awards,” which are, um, uh, well i don’t know what exactly they are. but i wants them. i wants them all.

“Hey how come Mark Shea didn’t get any nominations? Sorry, stupid question.”

although i feel pretty confident that i’m a lock to win every category, i do want to encourage all of my many loyal readers to support my candidacy, voting both early and often.

together we can show these fools what REALcatholic™ winning really looks like.

UPDATE

well, it turns out that i didn’t win anything at all. in all three of the stupid “sheenazing” categories for which i was nominated, i lost out to folks whose subscriber numbers are in the thousands. i don’t mean to whine and moan and be a sore loser, but THIS IS AN INJUSTICE!!!

and, to add insult to injury, the winner of “best blog by a catholic man” was none other than bad catholic, who is barely even pubescent. as if that makes any sense at all.

in her mass email to all the “losers” of the awards, awards host Bonnie thanked us for participating and encouraged us to try to get more readers, “because otherwise there’s just no way you’re ever going to be able to compete against the juggernauts of Simcha Fisher, Jen Fulwiler, Bad Catholic, and Like Mother Like Daughter. And the competition will only get fiercer: next year I’m planning to add Fr. Z and @pontifex, and maybe even Facebook, Wikipedia, and Google, which aren’t really blogs, but are still very popular. More popular than you’ll ever be anyway.”

well played Bonnie, well played.

and now there’s nothing left for me to do but go sit in a dark corner and cry burning tears of shame, self-loathing, and resentment.

“Looking for tears? Let me take a stab at it.”