Greener CatNat grass; 6 Rounds of Spring RR lead to all the news that isn't fit to print

CP finds the CatNat Pffft topic sadly wanting, while when I first saw it I was envious, at least in light of its LD cousin. I guess it is a bit one-sided, but then again, at least it’s not a statement of obvious fact, so there’s some leeway. Given that the LD topic is a statement of oblivious fact, I’m still inclined to prefer his over mine. Of course, at this point I’m only helping “Good Old Alli” prep, and don’t have to actually listen to any rounds, so the harm to myself will be minimal at worst.

Saturday was the Columbia Spring RR under the auspices of They Who Fill Up Every Inch of the Ballot, and it was a nicely run little event on a beautiful spring Saturday. Given that I haven’t judged anything except the odd round hither and yon lately, I was a little apprehensive, but I remembered what I was doing quickly enough. That the first person I heard was running Derrida (I kid you not) and almost had me screaming for the door, but things settled down quickly after that. Lots of good debaters doing a good job, essentially. You can’t complain about having to judge something like that.

The high point of the event was schmoozing with O’C, who updated me on all the latest gossip. Although I’ve been sworn to secrecy, that probably doesn’t include writing it up here, so let me share it now with you. So-and-so, of all people, is randier than some really random thing, which amazes me no end because I can’t imagine how So-and-so even gets standing room at the back of the bleachers, much less batting cleanup and hitting a home run. Whoda thunkit. Meanwhile, You-know-who has a history of naughtiness that would make even Hillary Clinton blanch, and I had thought You-know-who was a pillar of the community; shows you how observant I am. O’C refused to go into too much detail on Whatshername or Thingamabob in front of [Insert Varying First Name Here] Chernick, or maybe it was the other way around and the truth of the matter was that he refused to go into too much detail in front of me, but what I heard was enough to get me through the rest of the day with my ears having turned bright red. We did establish that, at least so far, not a hint of shame has ever been connected with the Menick name in the forensics community, however. I’m thinking of changing my slogan to “Scandal-free since 1996.” That should appeal to the parents, at least.

We did have to leave the RR early, since at some point Robbie realized that he was Jewish and that there was a seder to attend. Craig had popped up and rode back with us, so we shared opinions on every movie ever made, all of which Craig has seen in the last six months. Aside from having to deal with the runoff traffic from the Pope’s visit (he was on the highway that intersected with ours for a while), a pleasant time was had by all. Follow this up with a nice dinner and an episode of ST:TNG (in honor of spending time with O’C that day), and you have pretty much the perfect way to spend a spring day (especially if you throw in that ice cream cone dipped in chocolate at lunch time, the quintessential sushi dessert).

And so, aside from another bit of brain power on CatNats, the debate year is a done deal.