Because you asked for it, and because the summer doldrums extend to the creativity levels of sportswriters, it's time for another edition of "Ask Fearless," the recurring feature of your Blue Ribbon Daily in which readers ask insightful questions of your humble scribe, and hopefully receive equally insightful responses in return.

All questions appearing below are 100 percent guaranteed to be products of my overactive imagination, gleaned from more than 30 years of actual letters, phone calls, e-mails and bricks with notes attached that have been thrown through the office window. Only the names have been changed to protect me from losing plausible deniability.

Without further ado:

Dear Fearless: Why are you being so negative about the plan to expand the football playoffs? Aren't you supposed to be in the business of helping kids? This plan would get 64 teams into the playoffs instead of 28 now. I don't see anything wrong with pushing back the other seasons so we can increase the opportunity to athletes who get the short end of the stick.

-Football coach It could be argued just how short the end of that stick really is, given that football generally needs a lot more of the funding in an athletic budget to operate than the other sports.

In a nutshell, as I've stated before, it's not fair of one sport to force the alteration of any other sports' seasonal calendars. The football coaches who are pushing this thing often fail to understand that it's not just boys' basketball that would be affected negatively by a push-back of a week, it's also girls' basketball (the seasons have to be run concurrently), hockey and all the other boys' sports where athletes may be taken out of the practice mix while football is still playing deep into December.

The biggest issue involves the venues for the basketball championships. The TD Banknorth Garden and DCU Center are apparently not available at any other time in March than the present window, and later playoffs could result in the forfeiture of those venues. Ironic it is that now that football has a lovely place to play in Gillette Stadium, it would want to force the basketball teams to settle for high school gyms for their championships.

One of the members of the state football coaches committee said to me, "there are other venues." But as I said to him, I've been on this story for more than 30 years, and the so-called "other venues" have never lifted a finger to participate in the MIAA playoffs.

It's regrettable that the football playoffs offer fewer opportunities than others for playoff competition, but the logistic obstacles are overwhelming - which is why I believe the ADs and principals will eventually shoot down the proposal, before it gets to the MIAA Tournament Management Committee.

Of course, there's one way to get around all this, as the next reader's comment suggests.

Dear Fearless: Why not just eliminate Thanksgiving Day as a playing date, and the football coaches can have all the expanded playoffs they want? The kids care more about playoffs than Thanksgiving, anyway. Just look at Brockton. They never play hard against Waltham because they don't care about that "rivalry" and they're saving themselves for the playoffs. Kids would rather crown real champions than make the old folks happy on the holiday.

-Younger fan

Those gasps you just heard were from local athletic directors, who would see their only profitable football playing date of the year disappear if Thanksgiving games were eliminated, and from Brockton fans that get mad at me in Internet chat rooms if they think I've said anything at all negative about the "City of Champions." Funny thing is, the original comment I received about the relative importance of the playoffs came from a Brocktonian.

I have to admit, I wonder sometimes if Thanksgiving football is an anachronism that has outlived its usefulness at a lot of schools. Foxboro-Mansfield is still as vital and as hotly contested as they come, but elsewhere, after a few years, they probably wouldn't miss the holiday games at schools where the rivalries are either new or not that competitive. Still, the ADs tell me that they make most of their fall-season money on Turkey Day, so it will continue. My personal preference is also to continue the holiday games. But it's not unreasonable to consider a future without Thanksgiving football if more playoff games are as important as the football coaches say they are.

Dear Fearless: Seriously, I've been reading your blog. What is this "Soap on a Dope" business? And that "Blog Show?" You have a face for radio, my man. Anyway, nice effort, but you've got a long way to go to catch up with me and now that I'm not pitching, I'll have a lot more time to make my blog the No. 1 destination on the Internet.

- "38 Pitches"

Always good to hear from a fellow blogger.

I'm proud to announce that for the second month in a row, "Blogging Fearlessly" was the most visited blog among all of those offered on the Blue Ribbon Daily's blog site, almost by a 3-to-1 margin - and that's despite the fact that we've made it next-to-impossible to find the blogs in the first place.

I appreciate the support, and I do believe we have plans in the works to make the blogs easier to find. The next step is for you people who are reading the blogs to start responding. There's nothing wrong with a little healthy by-play, and you don't really have to sign your life away to participate in it.

The address to "Blogging Fearlessly" appears at the end of this column. Things may be a little slow in July because of vacation time, but I guarantee I'll be blogging my backside off once the Patriots open training camp. And if you don't check it out, you'll miss gems like the one mentioned in the next entry

Dear Fearless: I have a question about your blog. What was the point of running that photo of me at the Celtics-Lakers game where you could see that I missed a loop with my belt? I'm not sure I liked the inference.

- Bill B., the bunker

I just thought that it was funny that one of the few people that could pass for a "celebrity" on the sidelines at the Garden, an iconic coach and a former selection to Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential individuals on the planet, can't dress himself for a night out on the town with his girlfriend. Any other inferences were left to the fertile imaginations of the beholders.

One thing's for sure: You've got a long way to go to catch up to Jack Nicholson.

Dear Fearless: Getting fired up for the Olympics in Beijing? You know, we almost played a game over these. And don't forget to visit Patriot Place to watch them on the big screens at the CBS Scene oh, wait, the games aren't on CBS. Well, then, you'll just love those "I Love Lucy" episodes in HD.

- Bob K., the Ivory Tower

Honestly, I give these Olympics three or four days before something happens to shut them down. Political unrest is my No. 1 reason, followed by natural causes (one of the new venues was recently damaged by heavy rain), and the fact that the country just doubled the cost of entrance visas doesn't help matters much.

I get the feeling that a lot of people in the Patriots organization are really happy that the team never had to go over there -- all except the fellow at the top whose paper-products concern is doing a lot of business in that emerging market economy, of course.

Dear Fearless: I still think the Patriots cheated. But nobody's listening to me any more, so I guess I'll have to let "Spygate" go. Can someone please send me a cookie and some warm milk? I'm sad.

- Arlen S., Washington

Sounds like I'm not the only one who needs a vacation.

MARK FARINELLA may be reached at 508-236-0315 or via e-mail at mfarinel@thesunchronicle.com. Read Farinella's blog, "Blogging Fearlessly," at thesunchronicle.ning.com.