I hope I never have to post another thing here.

So, I'm writing this two days before the Super Bowl, because sportscasters have decided to fill me with dread over the impending NBA and NFL lockouts. The NBA might reach a labor agreement, but the NFL almost certainly won't.

So, out of class and with no homework, I began to think of what I would do with my off time during sports season. At that point, I realized how enormous the sports season is. Football season stretches from August (preseason) to February (Super Bowl) and then takes a break for a month before free agency (which typically is exciting for masochistic Redskins fans, March), and then we all huddle around the tiny, lukewarm stove until draft day(s) on April 28-30. Then the whole thing starts over in three months. For those of you who care only about football (and I don't blame you), you can stop here, stretch your legs, and just skim the next part.

Basketball is nearly year round. Preseason is in October, followed by playoffs in April, Finals in June, draft a week after that, and then Summer League in July (pre-preseason), followed by a two month lull before everything starts back up. (Football fans may now stop skimming.)

Combined, there is virtually no gap in my sports entertainment. It works out almost perfectly. When the NFL is dead (May, June), the NBA is heating up. When the NBA is getting off to a slow start (November, December), the NFL's playoff race is just starting to get underway. When the NBA hits the fatigued stretch of its run (March) and the NFL is kind of dead (March)... Well, there's the NCAA Tournament.

But anyways, all of that is going away. It'll be like permanent July. Contract holdouts abound, but, you know, with a whole league. I'm oversimplifying, of course. The NFL (and NBA) have difficult, complex labor issues that are far beyond my ability to explain.

That said, I have to do SOMETHING with the hours of my life that I would otherwise dedicate to sports. Instead of doing something crazy like taking up an interest in hockey or refocusing myself towards school, which could have permanent and harmful effects on my life, I've decided to create a strike blog. I'll generally be bullshitting to take my mind off of the lockout, collecting links about the lockout, linking to blogs that go over the lockout, and other sporadic material. I'll also be hosting weekly liveblogs starting... at some point.... to help create a safe haven for other locked-out fans.

I don't have any particular agenda towards promoting my views on labor vs. management. I don't really care one way or another. I wanted to create a blog that would allow for discussion of mostly football (and some basketball, if the strike goes on long enough) without devolving into flame wars about collective bargaining agreements.

Of course, I hope that neither lockout happens. I hope that everything is worked out and both the NFL and the NBA have seasons that start in 2011, on time. I doubt that will happen, but I really hope that it will.