Posts Tagged ‘Ramblings’

Well, after taking the better part of two weeks off here at the Gate, and enjoying a little vacation in my “real” life, I am back once more.  If anyone noticed that I was gone, that is.

At any rate, now that I am back I am hoping to get a few features back up and running while we wait for football season to finally get here.  Apparently the mainstream media is feeling the same pressure to find something … anything … to write about at present.  Hence the News Sentinel’s in-depth focus on some old Tennessee football photographs (which are pretty cool, I must say) and observations on Lane Kiffin’s meteoric rise to prominence in the world of college football.

Slim pickings…

Since my other team, the Carolina Hurricanes, lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the NHL Eastern Conference Playoffs (ouch) I can’t even talk about hockey anymore.  I guess we’re just going to have to depend on HSH for any real substance until the season rolls around (no pressure or anything).

The good news is that, as the little tell-tale countdown in the right sidebar ticker confirms, we now officially have less than 100 days until kickoff.  Furthermore, things are heating up in the race to win the Fulmer Cup.  Still, football season has a ways to go before it arrives.

Needless, to say I am counting the days…

So, you might ask, is there a point to this post?  Well, in short, no.  Then again, I have never been one to sweat the small stuff such as accurately and succinctly conveying a message.

Minor details, minor details...

Sometimes we all fail, no matter how hard we try.  I think this is one of those times, not that I tried all that hard.

Anyway, go check out the old Tennessee football photos I mentioned above.  Oh, and make sure you go to see the new Star Trek movie, it rocks!  Other than that, I’ve got nothing for you today.

Yeah, this off season thing is a killer…

– So it goes…

Image(s) Courtesy of: The Fail Blog

Well, here it is, Friday, and I’ve got very little to show for the week…

I have been tied up the latter half of the week, and have been unable to get anything of consequence posted.  Even now, I am writing during a break in the action at a deposition.  Sad though it may be, I think Orson over at EDSBS may have gotten things right in his “football reads” assessment of the path most lawyers take in finding their career—especially the whole lack of math skills part.

This is all very simple once you've lived it...

Anyway, since I’ve pretty much been absent lately, at a minimum, I wanted to pass a long a great video I stumbled upon. This is a pre-game pep-talk from the chaplain at Georgia Tech.  Great line in there about “We gonna fight, till we cant fight no more, gonna lie down, bleed a while, gonna get up, fight some more!!!”

Video: Gonna Fight Some More!!!

• HT to: Her Loyal Sons

Bring it!  I’m ready to bleed a while…

– So it goes…

Image(s) Courtesy of: EDSBS

Yeah, I admit it, I’m having a hard time getting inspired to write lately …

I have never looked forward to the off-season following the end of football and basketball season (especially when it’s “Spring” but still cold as whizz in the mornings) but now it has taken on a whole new dimension. This is my first off-season as a blogger, and it pretty much stinks. I have always tried to offer up posts with at least a little bit of substance, or — at a minimum — some poorly done graphics. Now, I find myself struggling to come up with articles worth writing. Part of this, I suppose stems from my general lack of interest in the fortunes of Major League Baseball. It’s not as if I dislike the sport — after all, I do coach Little League — it’s just not the sort of thing I have ever been very interested in writing about.

Furthermore, I can write all I want to about spring football practice, but considering I live over 6 1/2 hours from Knoxville, anything I could possibly say has already been said since my thoughts would be based upon what I read on other blogs.

I suppose I could write about politics, but that would require me to take a position on issues which are likely to alienate at least half of the 4 people who regularly read my blog — in short, I ain’t going there (at least not while my little creation is so very new…).

Thus, while I am working on a few new ideas, and creating graphics for a few other sites (my most recent being Uncoached), I am not doing a very good job of delivering much in the way of real content.

I was actually getting a bit discouraged until today when the Knoxville Snooze Slantinel made me feel a lot better by running a story on a lawsuit between the owners of a company trying to sell orange blazers like those worn by Bruce Pearl. The KNS felt this was important sports news.

You know that was awfully nice of John Adams — after all the ugly things I’ve said about him — to try and make me feel better about my ineptitude, by showing that the KNS is as clueless as I am.

Thus, I want to openly decry the ugliness of the off-season. It is a hideous thing which should be abolished.

Oh yeah, I also want to thank the Snooze Slantinel for making me feel better about my inability to say anything meaningful as of late.

So, I guess, now that I have complained about not having anything to complain about and I still can’t think of any “real” stories to write I’ll just have to return to fabricating stories out of the thinnest and most unreliable rumors (many of which are only rumors among the community of voices living in my head).

In the meantime, if you liked my article on the Voice of College Sports back in February (which is unlikely) then you are likely to enjoy Spencer Hall’s article on Larry Munson over at the Sporting News (HT to Joel at RTT for the find). Otherwise, I guess you’ll just have to wait for my 8-part investigative piece on how Tennessee is facing allegations of misconduct over the use of doughnuts as a human growth hormone.

Ugh…

– Go Figure …

UPDATE:

• See, I’m not the only one – Fulmer’s Belly and Pigskin Pathos hate the offesason too.

Yes, my students, Professor Lawvol is sad to say that these are the times that try our souls…

Now that basketball season is officially over — at least for the college players — we have reached the terrible sports lull that precedes the beauty of football season.

Sucks, don’t it?

Yeah, yeah, I know — there’s baseball. Baseball, however, is my least favorite of the major sports (despite the fact it was the only one for which I ever had any degree of skill), and — unless someone wants to come on board as a writer here at Gate 21 and help to cover it — it is not my intention to try and give any semblance of legitimate treatment to baseball, aside from the occasional side note or observation. I will continue to post regularly throughout the summer. That said, unless something important is going on, weekends are out until the fall gets closer.

Still, we must persevere and press forward with our studies of all there is to learn. Thus, this “off season” period of the year is the time during which I really plan on delving into that “Life, the Universe … ” part of this trash rag blog’s byline. I am going to try and roll out a few new features here in the coming month, and may try a few “off-message” postings. So, be prepared for some seemingly absurd and inane things around here for a while — such as this:

Intelligent Design?

** Note the completely inappropriate and inexplicably off-topic use of scurrilous images to improve readership, and (perhaps) distract readers from the lack of substance in this post

I am hoping to get the old stream-of consciousness brain-barf (see informative graphic for example) going here shortly and start pontificating on subjects so ridiculously above my pay grade that it would make Larry Flynt blush (well, maybe that’s a bit of an overstatement, but you get the idea …).

Either way, I will do my best to find things to help bide the time, until football season gets close. I can’t promise any of them will be worthwhile, but they are a useful substitute for the usual drivel I pour out during Football and Basketball season for the sole purpose of occupying myself when I really should be doing something more productive.

So, there, I have spent several paragraphs writing a rather pointless introduction for the rather pointless things I am going to write later, but which I haven’t yet thought up. This off-season thing is off to a wonderful start!

15 minutes down, 4 months to go, that wasn’t so hard…

– Go Figure …

Image Courtesy of: The Fail Blog

Well, I really don’t have much to say about Tennessee’s football recruiting class …  It was — on the whole about what many people expected.  I suppose that is what happens when you lose all your coaches during recruiting season, and then have 5 run-ins with the law over a period of about 3 weeks.  All I will say is that I am glad for the recruits that now get a chance to play for the Big Orange.  To you recruits, you now have a great opportunity — make the most of it.  Give your all for Tennessee, and the rewards are great.  Welcome to the family.

Given my lack of ability to really offer anything of substance at the present, I will simply use this lull as an opportunity to announce that the Tennessee Home for the Visually Offensive is now fully up and running.  I want to continue to add more farked photos to the collection, so if you have any that you think should be included, email me and send it in.  You can click the buttons on the sidebar or my signature to get a link, or you can email it directly at lawvol at gate21 dot net.

Bearing all of that in mind, there are now several hundred farks in my little museum, so if you haven’t seen it lately, feel free to give it another look.  As always, it is accessible via the tab bar at the top of the Gate 21 home page, or by click the THFVO links in this post.

Hopefully tomorrow I will have something a bit more meaningful to add to the conversation…

– Go Figure …

Just under a month ago, on 14 November, I started this blog not knowing if anyone would ever even look at my ramblings and rants. I just wanted to give it a whirl. Now, 26 days later Gate21.net has reached a milestone: 1000 hits!

Thanks to everyone who has given the site a look. I hope you like what you see, and will continue to come back. I promise, Gate21 is going to be here for a long time!

— Go Figure … lawvol

Technorati Tags: 1000 Hits, Gate21.net, Gate 21, Milestones

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Well, here goes nothing…

After trying several other types of blogs—most of which actually required me to think and filter my inner monologue—I’ve decided to try a different type of blog, one which touches topics which are a little more basic, and definitely more fun.

To anyone out there reading (which is probably no one) welcome to “Gate 21“! This is going to be a little stream of consciousness, rambling and pointless, irreverent and unfiltered look at things through my eyes. The topics of this blog are pretty much set out in the byline at the top. While I doubt I will ever achieve the success of blogs like Loser With Socks, Your Mother Slept with Wilt Chamberlain, Everyday Should be Saturday, The Third Saturday in Blogtober, and Fulmer’s Belly, to name a few, I will try and add a few things along the way which maybe some poor deranged son of a bitch will read and think: “Damn, this ‘lawvol’ is pretty messed-up. I think I need to send him some hate mail, maybe hack his computer, figure out where he sits in Neyland Stadium and punch him in the face, go set fire to his house…”

Anyway, this is to be the start of something silly and pointless, but at least it gives me something to do when I should be doing something else…

                 — Go Figure… lawvol