By now, anybody that hasn't been living under a rock or in a cave for the last few months knows about the story of Vikings' defensive end Kenechi Udeze.  Shortly after the end of the Vikings' 2007 season, he was diagnosed with leukemia, and has been placed on the reserve/non-football illness list, which means we won't see him on the field for the Beloved Purple until at least 2009, if even then.  Naturally, BKU's health comes first and foremost, but I'd love to see him back on the field again.

I'm sure that many of you out there have had your lives touched by leukemia or some other form of cancer at some point. . .it's a disease that affects a lot of people.  Even though we're more familiar with Kenechi's case because of the fact that we watch him play football every Sunday during the fall, there are many other cases of leukemia affecting families throughout America right now.  Udeze will be getting a bone marrow transplant through his brother. . .a very fortunate circumstance for him, as less than 30% of all leukemia victims manage to find a matching donor.

Fortunately, we can start trying to tip the percentages a little more in the good guys favor by joining the National Marrow Donor Program (click on that spiffy little banner on the right there).  Donating marrow isn't a painful process, contrary to what some TV shows will lead you to believe.  All that will happen when you sign up for the program is you'll get a cheek swab in the mail.  You'll do the swab and send it back.  At that point, you'll be part of the registry, and able to be called to duty should the situation merit.

Now, usually there's a fee for joining the National Marrow Donor Program.  However, with the "Thanks, Mom" campaign they're running from now until 19 May, the signup fee will be waived for the first 10,000 online sign-ups.  As soon as hit the "Publish" button on this post, I'll be making my way over there to register myself, and I hope that many of you will do the same.

I'd like to give a shout out for bringing this to my attention to Stephanie Stradley from AOL Fanhouse's Vikings blog, who relates her own personal story about her sister's battle with leukemia and the folks at Vikings War Cry.  If you go ahead and sign up from here or from either of those sites, let us know about it by leaving a comment on one of the sites.  It will be great to see how many Viking fans out there step up in an effort to make a difference.

Thanks for your time, everyone.  I know I promised football talk today, but something like this has to take precedence, I would think.

You'll recall that, a week or two ago, I put a post up here about a football-based MMORPG (Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game) called Goal Line Blitz.  I know a lot of you signed up for it, but if you didn't, I've got a bit of an added twist now.

Our friend sully from Sports-Boards.net has managed to procure ownership of a team in one of the Goal Line Blitz leagues, and is putting a team of human players together, kicking all of the computer-controlled players to the curb in the process.  The team has played its first game, but sully tells me that the team is still looking for one starter (an outside linebacker) and depth at pretty much every position.  Many of the people that are on the team are Vikings fans or fans of other NFC North teams, and all in all it's pretty enjoyable.

So, if you'd like to sign up for the game, head on over and check it out.  It's free, it's fun, and it's FOOTBALL.  After you've created your players. . .or even if you signed up for the game when I put the link out the first time. . .shoot a Private Message to sully (which is his Goal Line Blitz user name) and tell them that Gonzo sent you.  He'll have a look at your player and, if everything checks out, will attempt to secure your services via trade or offer you a contract, depending on whether you're on a team or a free agent.  If you're already on a team, it helps to let your current owner know that you'd like to be traded to this team.  Most of the owners are relatively understanding about that sort of stuff.  Two of my three players were on other teams initially, and when I asked them for trades, they said no problem and worked with sully to get the deal done.

The Minnesota Lumberjacks need a few good men. . .or even women.  Hell, we're not picky.  Hope to see you on the gridiron!

Well, after some problems on the technical side of the house. . .I seem to remember someone mentioning something about checking the specs on the rotary girder or some such. . .The Daily Norseman is back and ready to go in time for tomorrow's draft.

Rest assured, this had nothing to do with the new Daily Norseman platform or anything relating to it.  It was a hardware problem back at the home office that caused all of this to take place.  Now that the problem appears to be solved, we don't anticipate anything happening again.  I'll say that in the 20 months that I've been running this site, the past couple of days have been the only significant downtime that we've experienced.  I'd have to say that that's pretty damn good.

As you can probably guess, with the Allen trade, I've scrapped the Mock Draft Database.  Why?  Well, because the Vikings only have one pick in the first three rounds and the vast majority of mocks don't project any farther out that.  So, at some point this evening or tomorrow morning, I'll just post a list of what various mocks think the Beloved Purple will be doing with their #47 selection.

There's a very good chance that I'll be here during the draft despite the Vikings not having the number of picks we'd originally anticipated.  Why?  Because it's the draft, that's why.  Hopefully we'll have a bunch of you coming by to discuss what's happening with the rest of the NFC North and the rest of the NFL in general tomorrow.  One of the new features of the new platform is comments that automatically refresh rather than having to hit the "refresh" button on your browser constantly.  Makes for an almost chat-like atmosphere.  I've seen it on a couple of other sites, and I think it really enhances interactivity during events and games and things of that nature.

Also, I wanted to say that it looks like we're looking at another record month for The Daily Norseman.  Despite the technical problems of Wednesday and Thursday, the site has had 13,044 hits in the past seven days.  Now, this site went online back in June of 2006.  The 13,044 hits we got this past week surpassed the number of hits the site received every month from June 2006 to October 2007.  With the draft coming up, we should hit another all-time monthly high for traffic, surpassing the mark we set. . .last month.  As always, my thanks to each and every one of you for making this possible and making this site what it is.

So, more draft stuff tonight and a lot more tomorrow morning leading up to 2 PM Central when everything starts at Radio City Music Hall.  Continue enjoying your Friday, everybody!

If you'll recall, I've mentioned that The Daily Norseman will be moving to a new platform in time for the 2008 NFL Draft.  I now have the official date for the transformation, and that date is Wednesday, 23 April.

I'm not sure of what the exact time of the transfer will be, but there's a good chance that the site will be inaccessible for at least a portion of the day that day while the tech folks put everything into place.  I don't know what part of the day that will be, but as soon as I know, I'll pass it along to you.

For an idea of what the new site will look like and how it will function, check out either Twinkie Town or Canis Hoopus, as they're already set up on the new SBNation 2.0 blogging platform.

Been away from the computer for most of the day, so I'm still trying to get caught up on any potential new happenings with the Jared Allen situation. . .or, at least, I will be after I get my lawn mowed here.  Keep enjoying your Friday, folks!

Sorry for the lack of movement the past couple of days, folks. . .had a couple consecutive crazy days at work, and that's kept me from getting too involved with anything here.

Tomorrow, there shall be blogging at some point.  Not sure when, but there will be.  The draft is less than three weeks away, so feel free to look through the Mock Draft Database and look at what the popular opinion of the Vikings' #17 overall pick is.

Enjoy what's left of your Tuesday, ladies and gentlemen, and we'll see you back here tomorrow.

Just for kicks and giggles, I started a little Daily Norseman-based community at My Mini City.  To have a visit, here's the link:

DN Valhalla at MyMiniCity.com.

Each click increases your population and allows you to do more things with the city.

If you or anyone you know also has a place set up at My Mini City, feel free to share them in the comments section so that we can help each other out.

Also, thanks to all of you out there, we've set a new milestone here at The Daily Norseman.  According to our stats, as provided by the good people at SiteMeter, March 2008 has already been the biggest traffic month in Daily Norseman history. . .and it's only 21 March!  Our previous biggest month was December, and that was with the Vikings in the thick of the playoff chase and having more excitement surrounding the team than there's been in a long time.  That month saw our humble little home here receive 16,985 total hits.  As of this very moment, 8:04 PM Central on 21 March, we've received 18,262 hits for the month.  I think that's pretty amazing, quite frankly.

Thanks to all of you out there for making this site what it is.  With the re-design coming soon (still no exact date, but it will be soon), the upcoming draft, and the Vikings impending 2008 NFC North Division championship (among other things), things only promise to get better for the Daily Norseman from this point on.  Keep spreading the word to the rest of Vikings Nation, folks. . .I appreciate it, and this site wouldn't exist without all of you coming to visit it.

Have a good one, ladies and gentlemen!  Tomorrow we'll have even more talk about the Beloved Purple, and maybe a few other things as well.

And the future, it is good.

In this case, however, I'm not necessarily talking about the future of the Minnesota Vikings. . .we KNOW that future is bright.  No, what I'm talking about is the future of the SBNation network as a whole and, more specifically, the future of this site.

Since this site came online on 10 July 2006, there have been 658 stories in various forms posted on this website. . .stuff that I've posted, diaries that you've posted, etc.  In that time, I'd like to think that this humble little site has become one of the best Vikings-related websites on the Interweb.  Hopefully some of you out there agree with that assessment.

However, the time in the evolution of SBNation is coming that we want to give you more.  Much more.  Way, way, way more.  And more is exactly what you're going to get.

Want a preview?  Check out one of SBNation's flagship sites, Athletics Nation, to see what the future is going to hold.  Go ahead, I'll wait.

waits

waits

Okay, good, you're back.  See all the stuff they've got over there?  It's all coming to DN in the near future.

Stats?  We'll have them.  News?  We'll have it.  Interaction?  It will be there.  In the not-so-distant future, this site will (hopefully) become your one-stop shop for news and information about the Beloved Purple.

So when is the change coming?  That's still sort of up in the air.  It will certainly be implemented prior to the NFL Draft and, rest assured, as soon as I know when DN is making the transition, you'll know as well.  You WILL have to re-register your user name, but this time your handle will get you into ANY SBNation website, not just The Daily Norseman.  The changes will be slowly rolling through the network, and eventually all of the SBNation sites will look the same as Athletics Nation.  The baseball sites will be getting the makeovers first, so you Twins fans be sure to keep your eyes on Jesse, Jon and the boys from Twinkie Town to see when their change is coming.

That's all for now.  Hopefully I'll be back later on tonight with news that damn near made me hurt myself when I first heard it.  Until then, have a good one, ladies and gentlemen!

No, I'm not sure if un-functional is a word.  It probably isn't.  Ah, well.

As you've probably noticed, the site hasn't been updated since Thursday, and I apologize for that.  I THOUGHT I had a functional computer on my hands when I picked it up after work on Thursday, and it started up okay.  Turns out that the guy from the computer shop replaced the cooling fan, and I thought everything was good.

However, I was wrong.  Apparently whatever happened with the motherboard managed to hose up the video card, too.  As a result, the computer still shuts down after a certain amount of time.  This, as you can imagine, ticks me off.  My current computer is the first one I built from parts with my own little hands, and after 4 1/2 years of faithful service, it appears as though it's gotten to the point of "not being worth fixing."

But fear not, good readers. . .for early next week, I should have a replacement in my hot little hands.  More details on that after I get it set up.

So hang in there, gang. . .DN isn't dead.  It's just resting.  Possibly pining for the fjords.  But I'll be back sooner as opposed to later.  Until then, keep up the diaries (since I see there's been a couple over the last few days) and I'll be back to you tomorrow with. . .well, something.  I'm not sure what, but it'll be something.

Apologies for the lack of content yesterday.  When I got home from work yesterday afternoon, my computer decided to crap the bed (to use technical jargon) when I fired it up.  And by "crap the bed," I mean "I heard a pop and when I opened up the case one of the fans was hanging off of the motherboard."  It's at a computer shop, and I should get a status report on it this afternoon sometime.  The guy said that I'm probably looking at a new motherboard, at the very least.  Of course, since I put this computer together myself from parts, a new motherboard would equal a new case and a new processor as well.  It's served me well for over 4 years, so it might just be time to start looking for a new system.

So, if there's not a heck of a lot of content from me in the next few days, that's the reason why.

Also, next Tuesday at 8 PM Central, you'll be able to hear an interview with yours truly on the SBNation Football Frenzy, our weekly podcast.  We'll be talking about the current situation with Kenechi Udeze, the greatness that is Purple Jesus, and what the Vikings' plans for the off-season might consist of.  When we get closer to the actual date, I'll be sure to have a link here for anyone that wants to check it out.

Lastly, at some point this weekend, I'll (hopefully) be updating the Mock Draft Database.  With testing and other stuff happening since I created it, I haven't gotten a chance to update it yet.  I'll see if I can't commandeer my wife's computer and/or stop playing Mass Effect long enough to get it updated.  If it doesn't get done, I apologize in advance.

That's all for now, folks.  I might get something up here later on today. . .hopefully I will.  Until then, have a good one!

The promotion test is officially out of the way. . .now I get to hang out and wait until June to find out whether or not I made it.  But, whether I made it or not, I'm glad it's over.  If I'm getting promoted, great. . .if not, just like football, there's always next year.

So, I'm in the process of banging out a post full of. . .get this. . .ACTUAL FOOTBALL CONTENT.  While I'm doing that, feel free to enjoy this in the meantime.

Japan well and truly knows how to bring the awesome, don't they?

Alrighty. . .real, actual football post coming here shortly.