A new direction for my blog

So, I'm leaving SportingNews.com -- and then again, I'm not.

I really like it here, I do. I like the community, especially the great Minnesota Vikings fans I've had the chance to meet (in the virtual sense). I like the games. I like my four (hopefully soon to be five) stars. I won't be leaving any of that behind. I'll still post here, and you'll still see my name on your friends list (I hope) with new content on a regular basis, and I'll keep looking for new friends and keep making comments on other people's blogs on a regular basis.

Rather, it's the core of the SportingNews.com blogs that I have issue with -- the blogs themselves. Not any user's particular blog, but the blogging process here on SN.com and the simple, inadequate tools SN provides to us. For people just beginning in blogging and web writing, they're enough, to be sure, but I need more. I first touched html in 1994 and have maintained several web sites and blogs and find the blogging process here sometimes infuriating. I dislike that I can't make a proper table for displaying statistical info. I dislike that I can't have a list of favorite links outside of SN.com blogs. I dislike that every time I bold or italicize something, I'm kicked to the top of my window. And I dislike the itty-bitty window in the first place.

Then there's the damn smiley-face bug. Try entering an 8 followed by a parentheses (like if I refer to the Vikings of 1998), and you'll see how annoying that is.

So, what's a man to do? Well, this.

Hi! And welcome to the "new" Displaced. It's essentially the same as the old one, except that I'll be able to do much more here from both a presentation and functionality standpoint. I have complete control over the html and can easily add modules for links, surveys, news feeds (I particularly like the customizable Vikings feed at the bottom of the page) at will, all in lovely html, which allows me to craft things such as this:

Team	Run Comp	Pass Comp	Total
San Diego Chargers	38.60	38.28	76.88
Washington Redskins	46.49	29.15	75.64
Jacksonville Jaguars	36.84	38.60	75.44
New York Giants	41.23	33.89	75.12
Philadelphia Eagles	38.60	34.56	73.16

Neat, huh? Looks a hell of a lot better than the list on this page, doesn't it?

As I said, I'm not actually leaving SN.com. Every one of my posts here will be simulposted, for a paragraph or two, on SN.com, just like this post was. You'll still see the titles in your friend's lists, you'll still be able to read the start of my posts, and then you'll be able to come here to see them in all their glory. On the surface, nothing's change. Leave your comments here or leave them on SN.com -- I'll read both. I hope you'll keep giving me thumbs ups (or, if you must, thumbs downs) on my SN.com blog. And, if you're finding this page for the first time on Blogger, I do recommend you sign up for a SportingNews.com account, if only to join the community and play the games.

I hope you'll enjoy my "new" old blog and take the time to check out everything else this humble page has to offer to the right. Of course, if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to let me know. As long as this experiment turns out better than Troy Williamson has in purple, I'll consider it a success. (Yes, I know that's aiming mighty low.)