This will be the only actual content regarding a horrible day in Blacksburg, Virginia from us. Then, tomorrow, back to regular scheduled programming of sodomy jokes and Steve Spurrier quotes.

It’s impossible to write something adequate about evil–which this undoubtedly was. What we can do is this:

As bystanders, contribute to the memorial fund, whenever it’s set up through the university. We’ll link to it throughout the upcoming days and weeks. As a community of readers and bloggers, we’ll do what we can to help Virginia Tech readers cope–very little, in reality, we know.

As individuals, tell the ones you love that you love them. Every single day. There’s no irony here, and no royal we. I don’t believe in any certainty in life besides its end. If you love someone, tell them sooner rather than later. Not being able to once they’re gone is more painful than any embarrassment you might feel telling them in the first place.

And yes, it’s a tragedy in a world replete with them. But it’s one I can comprehend, because it took place somewhere much like the places I slowly learned the rudiments of becoming an adult, someplace I assumed was safe, and someplace I met a lot of the people I love and consider my family in this world.

For a sanctum like that to be the scene of something so horrifying makes the crime so much more perverse to me…even if I say I understand how unsafe every square foot of this planet truly is. I evidently don’t really understand that.

I’m not qualified or able to say anything else. Back tomorrow as usual.

Burruss Hall, Virginia Tech.

First, let me say that we’re providing these updates because it involves a significant member of the college football community. To pretend it doesn’t exist or isn’t relevant would be foolish. It’s not the normal focus of this blog, but we’ll try to find every imaginable angle we can.

Second, we’re thinking of setting up a paypal fund for bloggers and readers to contribute funds to, but would like to test out the idea first. Leave comments regarding your feelings on this.

Updates:

–The first speculation on the gunman’s identity we’ve seen. Again, just speculation from a blog, but it’s there.

–ABC has at least 29 dead. The AP has at least 30 dead.

Either way, the Virginia Tech shooting is now likely the worst mass shooting in the history of the United States.

Chilling details emerge from the AP report linked through the Guardian, the most thorough we’ve read yet. The shooting occurred in two stages, perhaps hours apart. Communication seemed to break down as the campus struggled to take account of what was happening.

Aimee Kanode, a freshman from Martinsville, said the shooting happened on the fourth floor of West Ambler Johnston dormitory, one floor above her room. Kanode’s resident assistant knocked on her door about 8 a.m. to notify students to stay put.

“We’re all locked in our dorms surfing the Internet trying to figure out what’s going on,” Kanode said.

College Media has a map showing the location of the two incidents.

–Frank Beamer to ESPN’s Joe Schad: “How could one person cause so many senseless deaths? I’m in shock,” Beamer told ESPN’s Joe Schad. “This is such a caring, friendly place. This is a college town. And now one person has an impact like this?” He sounds understandably heartbroken.

–Greg Auman of the St. Pete Times has his thoughts.

Again, we’ll keep updating. Let us know about the memorial fund from the blogosphere idea.

A gunman killed 22 students in a shooting today at Virginia Tech. Breaking, but we’ll keep posting updates:

–NYT: “A few details emerged from the news conference. At 7:15 a.m., an emergency 911 call came in to University police department about a shooting at a campus building, West Ambler Johnston, a dormitory for about 900 freshman students. About three hours later it was followed by a second shooting at a classroom in a science and engineering building on the opposite end of campus, Norris Hall. The shooter died there, the police said.”

–BBC has eyewitness accounts: “We are stuck on lockdown in the library on campus right now and everyone just seems to be in shock. Cops are everywhere. We just heard that 17 people have been shot. It’s been hard to determine what’s true and what’s just a rumour. We can only hope that the shooters are caught soon.”

–VT’s President has a statement: The shooter in Norris Hall is deceased. There are multiple fatalities. The number of fatalities has not been confirmed. Victims have been transported to various hospitals in the immediate area in the region to receive emergency treatment. And we will proceed to contact the next of kin as the victims’ identities are available. All classes are canceled and the university is closed for the remainder of the day.

Will post as available. Horrid.

Trojan Haters’ Club–a site deserving praise for its clear mission statement, at least–has photos of USC’s swimming pool football fundraiser event thing, including salacious pictures of the Song Girls in swimsuits and the ubiquitous Will Ferrell in a Speedo. One should only give special mention when Ferrell has on pants, so long has he been reclaiming the male form in public. In fact, we’re pretty sure that most of the American public considers his hairy, lumpen paunch a close family friend now. He should consider selling ad space on it.

We’ll make you click through for the cheesecake since we didn’t find it. However, we’d like to point out that Pete Carroll is fucking ripped like a latter day Jack Lalanne. Someone’s been hitting the field greens and Pilates classes hard. Perhaps, though, those are the kind of abs one can only get from leaning out of helicopters on relief missions to Darfur, since Pete Carroll is a great humanitarian.

Either way, he looks better without a shirt off than we’ve ever looked with a shirt on. We salute you, Pete, and your Southern Californian Spartanity. You could be an extra in 300. On that note, we’re off to lunch. Mmm…fries with mayo.

Barbecue doesn’t build those cobblestones, sir: Pete Carroll gets ripped.

HT: Bill.

We went to a spring game and have the red, red neck and knees to prove it.

–Beautiful, sun blasted Gainesville this weekend, a place redolent with the smell of rotting vegetation, cheap beer, and burritos, and the smell of people actually tailgating for the spring’s Orange and Blue game: that was our weekend, combined with ten hours in the car and a hefty dose of Guitar Hero 2 on Saturday night. (”Beast and the Harlot” is hrrrrrrd, d00d.)

Ahhh…sun-blasted Gainesville. That’s not us in the foreground, incidentally.

As with any spring game, any bit of good news might potentially be bad news, since any amazing block, nifty catch, or clean sack might as a result of poor play on the other side, a side that happens to be the other half of your favorite team. This explains the odd reactions to any good play made at the Orange and Blue game, where an initial WOOOOO usually had a trailing grumble grumble grumble or OHHHHHHhhh accompanying it.

So 40,000 plus at Florida Field turned out to test out their inner Janus on Saturday, (more…)

Still more in the ongoing saga of…

Today, an EDSBS exclusive: we have Boss Hawg’s secret text messages, courtesy of EDSBS Labs and the Freedom of Information Act.

Click here to view the unexpurgated message log from Boss Hawg’s Blackberry. Warning: messages will repeat randomly, so click multiple times for the full effect.

(For a refresher as to why anyone would want to see Boss Hawg’s Blackberry to begin with, click here.)

Thanks to readers…who noticed that we didn’t include the link. Apologies. It’s fixed now. We’d like to say it will never happen again, but fast cheap and out of control is the MO here, meaning that it will happen again, and again, and again.