[jQuery] showing animated gif when redirecting to new a page

[misskittyt]

Hi all,
I'm having trouble showing an animated gif (to indicate that the page
is loading) when redirecting to a new page.  There are several tabs a
user can choose, each taking them to a different page in the site.  I
think this almost works, but I don't like how the screen goes entirely
blank.  I've tried using fadeTo but the gif will show up as being
unanimated.  The same seems to be true if I don't use use the fadeOut
and only use the fadeIn.

How can I just show the animated gif as a user is redirected to the
new page?

Thank you!
M-

$(document).ready(function()
{
  $(".tab").click(function()
  {
    $("body").fadeOut("fast");
    $("body").fadeIn("slow").append("<div class=\"progress\"><br /
><img src=\"Images/bigsnake.gif\" alt=\"\"/>Processing...please
wait.<br /><br /></div>");
  });
});