The Index and other festivities will be somewhat delayed today due to our speaking gig at CoSIDA, the convention of sports information directors in Tampa. They want to know what blogs are, who writes them, and if hot blog groupies exist. They do, by the way–I have seen exactly six of them.

In the meantime, we have footage of the reception to my opening remarks.

May God have mercy on our soul.

9:04 a.m. We’re underway. If lanyards were feral pigs, this place would smell–they must be good for free lap dances at Mons, or free smoked mullet from Ted Peters’. Our professorial type is joining us from speakerphone from Denmark, and is booming like the voice of of the dead in the discussion. Remind self to make appearances like this from now on.

9:22 a.m. Bill Smith of Arkansas quotes Houston Nutt’s “those darn internets.” Nutt just got mentioned in the same sentence with Marshall McLuhan. We love the SEC.

9:29 a.m. “Bloggers amplify opinion.” We go to 11!

9:45 a.m. “What bloggers do we trust?” Um, me, of course.

9:56 a.m. Another watershed moment: just said the words “reality will win out in the end on the internet.” New mission statement is living to regret ever saying that.

10:08 a.m. The other guy in this discussion talking from the ceiling is awesome. It’s like having God in the room, but without having your face melted off like a Nazi.

10:13 a.m. “At the saturation point, will bloggers duke it out like in Thunderdome?” Oh, we can only hope this comes true.

10:24 a.m. Of course we’re blogging this. It’s not sneaky. We have the laptop open on the desk. It’s an intelligent, well-spoken conversation, and I’m very impressed by the discourse.

11:16 a.m. Okay, post-talk socializing concluded. No punches thrown, no Buzz Bissinger moment, and all the questions were fair, well-put, and thoughtful. But a legitimate question from the SID at a very, very large school: if we are going to have a civil relationship, what happens when you say something like “To Florida fans, [NAME REDACTED] was a liar”? Good question, and we’re not sure. The short answer is that for schools, handling blogs is probably best done with a long, well-padded stick. It’s what we would advice to anyone handling a blogger, ourselves included.