Wow, that title sounds a little too much like a "Ben Roethlisberger in a bar bathroom with a drunk girl" situation. Oh well, too late to fix it now. Anywho, we've hired some new (and old) writers. I thought it was about time for some introductions, or re-introductions.
Editors/Ban Hammers/Overlords
creanium - There was a time when I was forcing everyone to use their real name if they wanted to write for BFTB. creanium was hired during that time, and introduced a flaw in my system.....his name is also John. In this blogging community, there is only room for one John! During the offseason, creanium manages the (semi-)daily links posts, will occasionally fire up the trollwagon to bring out the AJ Smith haters and generally makes the site look pretty by fixing typos and spacing errors. Once the season starts back up, so will his weekly Power Rankings posts. Those are always fun.
Richard Wade - Richard has been around these parts as long as I have. He's been an Assistant Editor at least since I took over as well. He's better known as "The Ban Hammer". He lurks around comments, picks his spots to make side-splitting jokes or to take pot shots, and looks for opportunities to ban people into oblivion for a wayward comment......which often leads to me finding some sniveling mess of a user e-mailing me, begging for forgiveness. Usually, it's granted, but only because I want to give Richard more chances to strike down with unrelenting rage upon thee. It amuses me. Also, it doesn't matter what Richard used to write because he never does any more. For the upcoming season he will be writing a post recapping games via Twitter (and Game Threads), as well as a special unknown treat that will be titled "Two Minutes of Hate". I can't wait.
John Gennaro - I decided it'd be unfair for me to write this about myself. I asked creanium to sum up me and my BFTB responsibilities in a single paragraph and he must have decided to do in a single word because all I got back was "Dickbag." When I asked for clarification, perhaps several words instead of one, I got back "John Gennaro is a fan of creanium's meat." I don't think (other) John was having a very good day today.
Column-less Columnists (in the arbitrary order SB Nation puts them in at the bottom of the page)
Wonko - One day, when "SB Nation San Diego" exists and said site has a Hall of Fame or Ring of Champions....Wonko's name will be there. I am not joking when I say that every time I've met a BFTBer in person with Wonko in the area, they are ten times more excited to meet him than they are me. He's a rock star and our GM, BFTB's very own A.J. Smith. He knows more about college football than anyone else I've ever met, and seems to watch every minute of NFL action that's televised in his local area. He used to be referred to as a robot, but then he started back-handing people across the face. Whether or not a robot could do that, nobody is sure....and nobody wants to ask. Wonko does GM-type stuff whenever he feels like it, which usually turns out to be 3-5 times a week regardless of the time of year.
Zach (maestro876) - Zach was part of the group that I made add their first names to their username if they wanted to be a BFTB writer. Also, like most of the rest of that group, he wrote for a few weeks and then became too busy to continue. He has subsequently been fired and re-hired about 12 times since. Zach never liked Ron Rivera, not for a second, and believes that effort and motivation are myths. Infuriating right? This is the type of stuff that makes me fire him. However, he's a lawyer and understands stuff like the CBA negotiations and Football Outsiders...so he's back around to talk about that stuff when he's not twiddling his thumbs or taking pictures of his adorable dog doing things far-less-cute than sit on a computer and read BFTB.
Orz - Orz has endeared himself to me in two ways. First, about halfway through the season he starts taking clips of important moments in Chargers games and loading them onto YouTube for our viewing. That was awesome. He's like BFTB's DVR. Secondly, he tracked down Ryan Mathews on World of Warcraft and reported back all sorts of nerdy information about his WOW character. Those remain his two responsibilities, although the video thing seems hard to do in the offseason....so we'll have to think of something else because he's just been hired as an official writer to make an actual contribution to the offseason posts (n00b!). Your ideas in the comments are always welcome.
Jeff (sliderockmpc) - Our resident "San Diego/Los Angeles stadium situation" expert, Jeff was hired when he randomly showed up one day and started writing great FanPosts. It's that easy, kids.
Superduperboltman - An obsessive-compulsive defensive nutjob, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. SDBM watches a ridiculous amount of video of the Chargers defense, and probably shed a tear when Ron Rivera left the Chargers. During the season he breaks down the defense on a weekly basis. During the offseason, I am hoping he'll tackle the job of looking at tape of defensive free agents (Bob Sanders, Marcus Spears, etc.) and seeing if the guy is a) worth the money and b) a good fit for the Chargers system. OH! And it would probably make sense for him to look at the 49ers defense over the last few seasons to find out what Greg Manusky's system is even like.
jkvandal - You all must know him by now. Author of fantastic FanPosts on a monthly basis (at least), jkvandal once showed up next to me at a Chargers practice session at Qualcomm Stadium. I'm sure I probably offended him by being socially awkward, but he still stuck around the site and continued to produce. Now, instead of his FPs sitting buried for a day before I spot them and move them to the front page...jkvandal can go straight to the front page! Give yourself a round of applause, buddy. You've made it to the big time. Now keep doing what you've been doing, but....more.
Graphic Designer
QuesaDiaz - See that logo in the upper-left hand corner of every BFTB page? QD made that, for no real reason other than boredom. Then he tried to hold me up for all the money that BFTB makes, to which I turned my pockets inside-out and laughed as the moths flew away. He then laughed too, realizing that I had not screwed him but instead that he had invested time in a blog, and all was good. QD is the only guy I know of that owns a Philip Rivers Pro Bowl jersey....from a Pro Bowl that Rivers didn't even attend or play in. He's also one of the nicest guys that you could ever want to almost meet a bunch of times but never actually see in person.
Don't worry QD, one of those days we'll get those BFTB t-shirts out and then you'll be swimming in pools of gold coins. Promise.
There. Now everyone knows everyone. Throw welcomes at the new guys, as well as ideas for stuff they should write about. It's going to be a long offseason, it always is, and these are the guys that are going to make it fun for all of us.