Lent

Collection managers are databases optimized for collectors. Tian's GCstar is a free tool that can not only help you manage your collections but also keep track of items you've loaned to friends and neighbors and even update your records automatically by fetching additional information online. It's an open-source project, but it's not some half-app work-in-progress.

GCstar opened with its main interface and a New Collection dialog showing numerous default selections. GCstar can manage any collection, which is to say a collection of anything, from digital snapshots on your hard drive to vintage cars in your garage. … Read more

If there is, indeed, a second life, I'm still not sure I would want to come back as a bishop. It's not merely that I don't look good in a long skirt. It's the difficulty of the job.

Somehow, you have to try to influence people who have long ago sailed down the Material River, as if their first port of call will be Nirvana.

However, this seems not to have stopped the bishops of the Church of England from suggesting that, now that we are in the ashen 40 days and 40 nights of Lent, you should, for these few weeks, give up on Nirvana. And the Cowboy Junkies. And Jay-Z. And any other musical accompaniment with which you normally plug your ears.

The bishops have found a very material argument for this highly spiritual sacrifice. According to the Telegraph, they are suggesting that you go on a technology fast to save the rotting planet, as well as your equally putrid soul.

Indeed, the whole project is called the Carbon Fast and its motto is phrased in serious tones: "To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8) What does the Lord require of you?"

Hark, too, the herald of doom that is the Bishop of Oxford, the Rt. Rev John Pritchard: "Giving up technology is a more serious way of looking at the issues that face us as a global community. It is a statement [of solidarity] with a world that does not have that ability to communicate the way we can and a reminder to us that perhaps we may have got beyond ourselves in terms of our own consumption of technology."… Read more

When your town is home to Ferrari and Maserati (oh, and Lamborghini has a factory there too), perhaps you might not be in the most comfortable position to suggest people swear off their technological toys.

Unless you're Monsignor Benito Cocchi, the Archbishop of Modena, Italy. Monsignor Cocchi has got together with other Italian archbishops to suggest that believers give up texting, Facebook, iPhones and computer games.

Oh, this isn't just on Fridays during Lent. No, he wants his flock to give up these heinous gizmos for as many days as possibly until the Second Coming. (No, not the … Read more

Jeff Bakalar makes his return on Fat Tuesday--how appropriate. Justin reveals to the world that he loves Alvin & the Chipmunks, on top of his fascination with Disney music. Disney we can forgive, but really? An Alvin & the Chipmunks cover of "Uptown Girl?" And we figure out that Alvin wears a giant "A" because he's committed adultery.

On today's show, Justin learns some new racial slurs from Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino." Jeff tells us to check out Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler"and reveals to us that he once was a professional wrestler known as "The Flying Daisy." In actual news, newspapers are asking the federal government for a bailout. Get with it! Newspapers are going the way of the dodo. On top of that, it's National Pancake Day, so head on over to your local IHOP! Let Fat Tuesday's debauchery begin in earnest.… Read more

I'm not Catholic, but every year when friends and family give up wine, cheese, or bad TV shows for the 40 days of Lent, I get into an ascetic spirit. I convince myself to drop, say, white flour, then decide three minutes later that all things are OK in moderation. Who really needs 40 days off croissants, anyway?

But I think maybe I do need a break from Facebook. Checking Facebook first thing in the morning, all day long, and just one more time after I brush my teeth is probably not the best use of my time. My … Read more