Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Au Revoir, Iran; au theatre; O'C's Herpes; oh cetera

I practically fell off my chair at the breakfast table this morning as I was reading the paper. Oh, Iran isn’t building nukes. New intelligence, sorry about that, please go about your business. Jeesh. Of course, NPR reported that Dick Cheney is still holding out some hope that this intelligence will be overturned at some future date, as he knows in his heart of hearts (okay, his gut of guts, given the unlikelihood of his having a heart) that those damned Iranian A-rabs need a good whacking to set them straight, just like we have with the damned A-rabs in Iraq. The only thing they understand is a good shot upside the head, confound it. Fortunately everybody in the universe other than Dick Cheney can sleep easier tonight knowing that at least one senseless war has been averted on George W. Bush’s watch. On the other hand, so much for the Iran evidence in Jan-Feb…

So what else is going on? Well, you probably surmised by now that I like the Stoppard “Rock ‘n’ Roll” play. Actually, make that blown away. I’ve seen most of Stoppard, and this was easily the best. Anyone with any interest in theater needs to see this; the performances of Rufus Sewell and Sinead Cusack are phenomenal. I don’t know where it will go after NYC, but it’s worth coming here! Curiously enough, it was playing in Prague last time I was there. That has to be a kick, to see a play about freedom and the end of Communism in a country in that very country. Anyhow, the play asks all sorts of questions, for instance do social systems determine character or vice versa, and where are we in the epistemological understanding of mind vs body or the ghost in the machine. And it tells a damned good story. God, I love good theater. We almost got shut out by the strike, and it would have been a shame. I never would have known what I was missing.

O’C and I have been musing over our tab job upcoming at Ridge. Judges are in short supply (if you can read this and are looking for a few extra simoleons, let me know), and then there’s the absolutely seamless relationship of the Goy of Tournaments and E-TRPC—

Let me try that again. “And then there’s the absolutely seamless relationship of the Goy of Tournaments and E-TRPC.” You know, the problem is, I’m not quite sure how to demonstrate the irony I am wishing to express. Let’s try it this way.

—And then there’s the absolutely random relationship of the Goy of Tournaments and uploaded E-TRPC data. One whole division of judges was lost, other judges were marked incorrectly, and that’s just the stuff I saw comparing the pool/field to my own entry. Oh, well. O’C is in charge of data entry, which he’s doing on Herpes, his new MacBook. Why he calls it Herpes is beyond me, because I warned him that wouldn’t be the best idea of the week, but you know how he is. When he isn’t fielding the real hardball questions that debaters inevitably ask when they’re under the influence of mind-altering drugs or emerging from a coma, he’s watching Howard the Duck and calling his new computer Herpes. What can I say?

Meanwhile I’m registered up for Lex and working on judging issues, and rounding up Sailors for the other winter tournaments, and reminding everybody about next week’s MHL at Newburgh and trying to pin down the location of the NYS District tournament (running with Goy software, I hesitate to remind myself), and lining up January buses and paying NFL bills and finally realizing that their homepage has to be the absolute worst since the invention of white type on black backgrounds with pirated Green Day mp3s playing in the background. And, of course, thanks to Herman for keeping us apprised of the activity at WTF. I don’t know what I’d do without that guy!

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