Some of you, no doubt, are wondering: Where in the heck did your brilliant Mike Gundy columns go?

The rest of you supplanted the superlative "brilliant" with "terrible" or "crappy," I'm sure. However, the one thing this blog has been over the years is a hobby, a means of Web experimentation, a cathartic release from a workday spent in a newsroom and fun.

When I first started at KOCO.com two years ago, I was pretty much resigned to the notion that I would have to quit blogging. The possibility for a conflict of interest, professionally, was too much, I thought.

But, then I realized that, heck, nobody visits my site.

Relatively, that is. I got about 1,000 page views on Tuesday, and my best month has been around 10,000. So, friends, acquaintances, perhaps some co-workers and a few loyal, intelligent, beautiful and sexy RSS-feed subscribers visit each day, or at least a couple times per week.

At first, I spent most of my time writing about sports -- the big game, the NCAA tourney, predictions, etc. However, the internal reflection that came of that made me understand that I just don't love sports like I used to.

I love the Sooners and all Dallas pro teams. That's it.

I merely follow a few other teams and sports, and I do it passively. However, I have grown growingly weary of what I'd call our "Friday Night Lights" mentality.

If I could ever recommend a sports drama to you, one that realistically and accurately portrays the sociology of sports in America, this should would be it. It's brilliantly written, and even listening to the Bob Stoops call-in show on the way home tonight, I was struck by how much it matched a plausible "Friday Night Lights" episode.

Even for a sports fan, it might make one cringe.

Well, then I decided to blog about politics -- elections, issues, activists, etc. However, the internal reflection that came of that made me understand that I am not a political animal compared to those writers who really know their stuff.

Besides, I'm all over the place on issues, meaning I could never galvanize a consistent readership. I'm definitely not a xenophobic conservative, and I'm not an across-the-board bleeding-heart. On the other hand, I will talk issues over a beer or two, the problem being that in this forum, there is no beer.

Hmm. At one point, I decided to focus on promoting my music -- songwriting, smooth jazz, etc. However, the part of this process that I use to figure out what works and what doesn't online made me realize that YouTube is a much better place to promote my craft.

For awhile earlier this year, I spent most of my time writing about television, pop culture and current events as if I were the literate, straight second-coming of Perez Hilton. The practical problems here were that I was neither consistently passionate about most television or pop culture nor was I very good with gossip, relative to better sites.

Most recently, I wrote about reality television -- shows like American Idol and America's Got Talent and Big Brother. However, thanks to an online acquaintance, I mustered a modestly profitable gig writing about Big Brother this summer, still for me the guiltiest of all pop culture pleasures.

However, my personal passion for Idol waned big time this season, and while I'll always watch it, my intuition (which is never wrong) tells me that without some twists and turns, the show is already on its downward spiral. We'll see.

Another component of keeping a blog is in trying to separate work from pleasure. For me, in my opinion, keeping this blog has to be fun -- and my past three columns, one about the Jena 6 and the other two about the Gundy situation, were much more aligned with how I would have maintained my blog two years ago.

Frankly, I can't quite get passionate about the Jena 6 because those kids still beat the hell out of another human being, which doesn't exact a ton of sympathy in me. In the case of Mike Gundy's tirade, while I was passionate about the subject matter, I felt a tad uncomfortable about espousing such strong opinions about the OSU coach's behavior given that my daytime work has centered so much on it.

It is imperative that I'm able to separate personal opinions from professional thoughts. Nobody asked me to remove it, and if you really want to read my thoughts on the matter, e-mail me, and I'll send you a copy. However, by nature, I am a very moral creature, not that I end up on the right side of the equation each time.

However, I constantly deliberate personal right and wrong.

Furthermore, I am in constant flux about the nature of this blog, this Web site in general. Its purpose. How to grow its readership. What I want from it. So, I'll spell it out.

Beyond anything else, I want to identify subject matter about which I am truly passionate and truly knowledgeable and write about it regularly. This is the most certain way for this medium to be a fun release from a long day at work.

Plus, savvy Web visitors will be able to spot dispassion, ignorance, etc., quite quickly. If we follow this to its logical conclusion, the most certain way for me to garner tangible success (views, dollars, etc.), is to focus, focus, focus on those aforementioned topics.

What are those you might ask?

Primarily pornography.

Kidding. Totally kidding. I might be passionate, but I'm just not that knowledgeable. Again, I leave it to the savvy Web reader to be able to infer sarcasm.

No, I'm an expert on pop culture of the 1980s, period, particularly music. Because of the era in which I grew up, I also have a pretty strong background in the 1970s and 1990s, and the beauty about writing about yesteryear is that it will never conflict with today.

And I don't use the term "expert" lightly although I wouldn't say "top expert" or "the best." There's always somebody better or smarter.

Alas, writing strictly about these things won't draw me too many readers, too quickly, so I plan to dabble in some pop culture topics when appropriate. Where they don't present a conflict with what I do during the day. And if I can tie them to the theme of the site in general. For example, come Idol season, I'll definitely be able to tie some performances to the theme of the site.

Relative to my day to day life in a newsroom, though, focusing on something like this means less stress, no possibility of a conflict of interest, and if I'm able to demonstrate my passion and knowledge for the subject matter, I should be able to grow a large audience.

Plus, by utilizing the latest pop culture tools online, like YouTube, I'm able to experiment with devices that help to grow Web audiences, which could benefit me both professionally and personally.

Anyhoo.

So, I guess this is like a mission statement for the blog. Something to keep me focused. And, even if I were to get all worked up about a news topic down the road, I might have to refer back to this in order to center myself -- meaning it might not be the last time I pull something down from the site.

But, it was gratifying to get phone calls and e-mails from people wondering whether I was forced to remove the posts or why I did it or whether I thought people would firebomb my house, etc. It's good to have readers, but -- nope -- it was just me being overly introspective, anal and controlling.

On the other hand, the long-term potential for this site, measured by growing a consistent readership while maintaining my interest and passion, requires that I stick with the plan. That I pay attention. That I focus.

And that means those last three "brilliant" columns had to go.

However, if you had plans to frame them, we can make that happen, too.