Posts Tagged ‘Laziness’

Due to some pestilential plague I contracted in the last 48 hours, I am not on top of my game at the moment.  Hence, I never managed to get this week’s “Marching Orders” post up yesterday.  Hopefully, my medicine will kick in in the near future, and I will be able to get back on track with everything.  I also know that HSH will shortly be posting this week’s On Remote rundown of the games for the week.

In the meantime, there are a few items  of note out there worth giving a look, which I thought I’d pass along:

A great piece by the Ghost on Why he Isn’t Giving up on the Vols — 3SIB

Joel celebrates funerals in this week’s wild and crazy Hot Giggity Animated BlogPoll — RockyTopTalk

The Right Honorable Senator Blutarsky weighs in with some early thoughts on the Tennessee v. Georgia matchup from a Dawg perspective — Get the Picture

A Few of Will’s thoughts on hearing of Travis Henry’s arrest on cocaine charges — SESB

RBK continues his stupendous countdown of the Top Moments in the Bruce Pearl Era, as we get ready for Basketball Time in Tennessee — The BruceBall Blog

And a new Vlogger (a/k/a Video Blogger) has hit the net pumping the Tennessee Vols, with his new series the Orange Blazer Chronicles:

Now, if I can just get my sinuses to play along, I might be able to actually offer a few thoughts later today…

– Go Figure …

I opened the Gate back in mid-November of 2007 with no real idea of what I was getting myself into…

Even now — looking back — I’m still not sure what my goal was.  Due to poor planning and a complete lack of forethought, my first post did not go up until a few days before the Vanderbilt game — the second-to-last game of the 2007 season.  Gate 21 didn’t really develop it’s “persona” until early 2008, but since then things have really expanded and — assuming all the stats counters are correct — a few people have actually read some of the things I’ve had to say along the way.

But this “blogging thing” takes a lot of work…

Thus, seeing that football season is right around the corner, my “real” life job has eaten up almost every second of my life since May, and the fact that I lack any real ability as a sportswriter, it is my distinct pleasure to announce the addition of “Home Sweet Home” as a new writer here at the Gate.

For those of you out there who have been following the Big Orange Roundtable, you will recognize “Home Sweet Home” as the Patrick — the lead voice from The View From the Hill.  Why he wants to leave his highly respectable blog — built on quality and substance — to join-up with yours truly is, I’m sure, troubling to many of you out there.  It may have had something to do with me promising him fame, fortune, and a handful of stick-on tattoos.

Either way, here he will be — at least until he realizes what a blowhard I am.  To start out Home Sweet Home (as in “Rocky Top will always be, Home Sweet Home to me …”) will be taking charge of a few new features here at the Gate, the first of which will be entitled (ta-da!) “The View From the Hill.“

At any rate, I know that those of you out there in webworld will appreciate the addition to the staff here in that he actually knows how to write an article which is rational, informative, and substantive — which, I suppose, will also be a new feature here at Gate 21.  Needless to say, I am thrilled to have him in the show.

So be sure to welcome him on board when his posts start appearing in the near future.

Oh yeah, and try not to hold it against him that he’s affiliated with me…

– Go Figure …

After goofing off for the last few weeks with a construction fence across the header here at Gate 21, the fences are finally down.  What should have been a 2-3 day minor renovation has turned into a multi-week exercise in my dragging my feet which has finally come to lackluster fruition.

Thus — although I am still working on updating a few things — Gate 21 is now back open for business without fear of having a virtual crane drop anything on your head.

The primary changes may not immediately be apparent, unless you look closely.  The high points are a wider post area (HT to MoonDog for that idea), wider sidebars, re-schemed colors, improved load times (hopefully), a nametag for Gus, and a completely re-organized blogroll which now lives in both sidebars.

There are still a few more things to be adjusted, but — for the most part — the remodel of the actual site is done and things should be returning to my normal level of questionable quality and poor taste.

Hopefully, Gus will begin the 10-day countdown to kickoff with daily changes to the header here leading up to gameday.  I assure you that each day will be suitable for framing (if you consider a faded bamboo calendar for 1968 hawking Esso gasoline to be fine art, that is).

And to think you all thought I was actually going to change something meaningful…

– Go Figure …

As I indicated last week, Gate 21 has been given the chance this year to participate in the College Football BlogPoll — a clear sign of the lack of good judgment on the part of the BlogPoll brain trust.

I posted my preliminary ballot late last week with my meager attempt to quantify the merits of the various teams from across the country as we sit at the brink of a new season.

Since then, however, Joel at RTT has taken the BlogPoll to a whole new level through the creation of an algorithm-based analytical computer model which quantifies the ranking of the teams based upon a list of indicators.

Owing to the fact that I can hardly add or subtract (which guided my choice of professions) I am not entirely sure that I understand his new ranking model completely.  Still, it is truly impressive and is really worth giving a look if you are a fan of stats.  Needless to say, it makes my method of assigning rankings — based largely on the clever use of chalk, a tape measure, and a set of lawn darts — look … well … very “quaint.”

Man, and I remember the days when I used to just be able to say “That team looks good…”

– Go Figure …

Image Courtesy of: Just Jay It!

In case you haven’t noticed by the temporary header…

As I mentioned a few weeks back, I am in the midst of remodeling here at Gate 21 in preparation for football season.  Bearing that in mind, I am currently adjusting the color scheme here at the Gate, changing from the brownish “off-dirt” family of hues to more of a “light-black” (as if there were such an oxymoronicly named color — oh yeah, there is: “gray”) direction.  I’ve also added a few minor touches: such as the “shinier” checkerboard pattern, and the little “21” logos down the page a bit.  On the whole, my goal is to make things a bit darker near the top to improve visibility and make it more likely that some one might read my drivel.  If things look exactly the same, just hit refresh in your browser to see my coloring project.

Once again I have my coloring book out…

A Coloring Book for Lawyers ( PDF)

Anyway, let me know any thoughts either of you two folks out there who read this rag might have about this — including any complaints about how brown is your favorite color, how you hate my mascot “Gus,” how you can’t understand why I insist on having that infernal checkerboard across the middle of the screen, and how  you liked it better before I started screwing with it.

Seriously, if you hate it, just tell me…

– Go Figure …

Coloring Book Courtesy of: Office Spam

Actually, I suppose this is more like screaming madly as you run around in circles…

Well, in case you haven’t noticed (and you probably haven’t) it’s been pretty quiet here at Gate 21 lately — brisk as the tomb. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I am in the midst of a breakneck stretch here in which other obligations have forced me to step back briefly from this my temple of wasted time.

Anyway, given the fact that I will be moving tomorrow, I anticipate that there will be nothing new here on Gate 21 until next week (unless I get really lucky and find that I have inadvertently packed my clone in a box which the movers thoughtlessly carted off). Not that any of you actually care, but I am hoping to be back open for business full time at some point during the first week of June July.

Be that as it may — if you would be interested in contributing here at Gate 21, please feel free to email me at any time. Much as I am loathe to finally admit it, I suppose that I am now actively seeking more writers for the site, regardless of your stripes (yes, I might even let Florida fans contribute … sigh).

In the meantime, if you are looking for a little sports-blog action, you might try checking out a few of my personal favorites (a/k/a blogs that I regularly read):

(in no particular order)

• The World According to MoonDog
• 3rd Saturday in Blogtober
• Rocky Top Talk
• Fulmer’s Belly
• Your Mother Slept With Wilt Chamberlain
• Pigskin Pathos
• The BruceBall Blog

And just to show that I’m not completely fixated on Tennessee (which everyone knows is a damn lie) here are a few non-Tennessee affiliated blogs I read

• Get the Picture (Georgia)
• Hugging Harold Reynolds (Sports in General)

All of these blogs actually have some idea of what they are about, and occasionally get around to actually posting an article or two.

Anyway, hope to return to my typical level of low-quality and poor taste in the near future…

– Go Figure …

Not that anyone out there is actually reading…

Lawvol’s Planner

As you can see from my schedule, my life has been a bit busy of late. Between work, life, buying and selling my house, coaching Little League, beating up old ladies on the side of the road, and thinking up new and interesting ways to contemplate my navel I’ve been a bit crunched for time. Thus, I want to formally make excuses in advance for my hit-or-miss posting which will occur over the next few weeks.

With any luck, I’ll be back up and running as usual in July. Until then, my posts may be a bit sporadic, and of more dubious (a/k/a “crappy”) quality than my usual level of mindless and meaningless drivel.

I promise that, once things are a bit more settled, I’ll return to my current schedule of daily posting with the same poor writing and lack of intelligent thought that you have come to expect from the temple of wasted time that is Gate 21.

In the meantime, feel free to send me nasty comments and emails about how lazy I am and how I lack character…

Should any brave soul feel compelled, I welcome guest writers who would like to submit posts for publication. If you are interested (and I seriously doubt any of you are) simply email me by clicking my signature at the bottom of the post and we’ll get you set up (I’ll even do you up a fancy-schmancy avatar if you like).

– Go Figure …

Images Courtesy of: Photo of the Day Blog