It's always Scarsdale. First, old JC gets me in as Chairman because of all the alleged hankus pankus occurring in the districts tab room. Then, old JV actually votes in the recent election, casting the only ballots for anyone, and tag, I'm it again.
It's always Scarsdale.
But I'm not complaining. Okay, I am complaining, but I actually don't mind at all, I just like to complain. It is curious how few people actually vote for anything NFLish. I mean, I would vote but I'm never at the school to pick up the ballot after the beginning of April. I know that Rose J-T used to vote, but Rose is God and that's to be expected. What's worse is how few people vote for the resolutions. I forget the exact number I saw quoted, but it was frighteningly small. Which leads one to believe the the upcoming NFL LD committee could pass a motion that henceforth all LDers have to debate in French wearing tricorns, culottes and Disneyland Paris t-shirts, and no one would care in the least. For that matter, few people would hardly notice a difference, but that's another thing altogether.
Nostrum fans (is there such a thing?) will rejoice (or decry) the posting of not one, not two, but three count 'em three new episodes (although I haven't seen them on iTunes yet, curse you, XML!). This will cover the weeks I'm away. If I were you, I'd save the whole shooting match for the trip to Texas, starting with episode one. They'll take up less room on your iPod than a couple of White Castle hamburgers, so why not?
Last night Sister Emily came by for Felinic Briefing, as she will be tending to Pip the Wondercat and Tik prounounced teek while we're away (with the occasional surprise visit from the Spawn). Curiously enough, the first thing she asked me was how to pronounce the name Tik. Obviously a young woman who remains unpoisoned by any membership in the VCA! Anyhow, on the positive side, Tik prounounced teek didn't bite her (although he did try to climb her) and she insulinated PTW without a hitch, so I feel that the chez will be in good hands in our absence. I did forget to tell her not to conduct any wild crack parties, but since she's going to Dartmouth next year, that probably won't be an issue.
HoraceMan TSWAS was asking whatever happened to Herman Melville, the ace cub reporter over at DVM, and I had been wondering that myself, so I emailed him, and got this reply:
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Dear Mr. Menick:
How are you? I am fine.
It is good of you to inquire after my well-being; so few people ever do.
I am no longer cub reporting for DVM. My work the first year was deemed so successful that I have been promoted, and I am now running their "The Dream Never Dies" summer program for people who have graduated high school but are still pissed off that they never got to TOCs. This program is open to any college or graduate school student, with special emphasis on students who got only one TOC bid in their four-year careers. We offer many workshops, including a very popular one on how to turn obscure college lecture material into cash by writing cases based on your professors' footnotes and selling them to unsuspecting high school students as mainstream modern philosophy. Daily lectures are given on ways to creatively murder the judges who dropped you in that all-important 2-1 decision before the bid rounds. There is also a lab on how to write winning essays on the backs of at-large bids, including such popular themes as grandparent-dying-the-night-before-Emory and over-involved-in-community-service and the tricky but important student-debates-better-than-his-results approach. At the end of the season we make a field trip to JWP-Land, a theme park in Kentucky not far from the University. Students are able to ride, among other attractions: the new FlexPrep inverted coaster that features no safety harnesses; the Legion of Doom wooden coaster that seems so shaky that it will fall apart any second; the Carousel of Progressives where clever audioanimatronic characters from different periods of debate demonstrate how the only people who know anything are the students of today; and, of course, It's a Forensic World, a boat ride through all the forensic events, populated by colorful singing and dancing adolescent dolls, starting with Declamation and moving on through all the speech events and then into debate, with Pffft and then LD and finally Policy. In each land the speed of the singing gets faster and faster, until by the time you reach PolicyLand, it is completely unintelligible and sounds like chipmunks on methamphetamines. You probably know the tune, as it is one of the most notorious ear worms of all time. "It's forensics after all, it's forensics after all, it's forensics after all, it is for-en-sics./It's a world of Dec, it's a world of Pffft, it's a world of speaking as fast as Sffft. / It's the kids versus coots / While the camps bank the loot / It is for-en-sics."
I know that you will appreciate the value of this program, and I hope you will convince your students to sign up after they graduate. We still have plenty of openings this summer, and even if we didn't, for you, I could move mountains.
Thank you for writing.
Your friend,
Herman Melville, Camp Counselor
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One might think, from all of this, that we are in the off season here at CL. But no, we never sleep in our resolve to do whatever it takes to take whatever we do and sleep on it. Which may, in fact, be our new slogan. Then again, maybe not...
(If you are wondering, Robert Sherman's doorbell is, indeed, the music from the particular ear worm noted above. It's amazing what one picks up by listening to random podcasts!)
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