UI向用户显示的事件？

I would like my main activity to load a loading message. Once this is displayed i would like to start my tab activity which has to load a fairly heavy RSS feed. Problem is i have tried overriding onStart and onWindowFocusChanged if hasFocus but neither draw the view before starting the other activity. Anyone know how to do this? All the splash screen examples use a timer which is not what i want to do, i want it to stay while the data is loading and clear itself when the onPause is fired.I would like my main activity to load a loading