And so to bed. In New Jersey. With Tiggers.

[Bracketly speaking, I love when debaters complain about the judges. A good debater adjusts to any judge. The idea that the judge is “illegitimate,” if one is willing to subscribe to such an idea, applies to both sides of the round. Both debaters have that same judge. You’re both in the same situation. And your opponent managed to pick up that illegitimate judge! Instead of whining that the judge didn’t understand you, make yourself understandable to the judge. One of the most basic rules of public speaking is to adjust to your audience. The arrogance of speakers who refuse to adjust is, as a rule, suitably rewarded. Amongst the Sailors, judge adaptation was, for the longest time, the number one of our twelve or so Top Ten for winning rounds. Lately it has been supplanted by knowing what you’re talking about. Which isn’t bad either.

The more studious members of the VCA might find this somehow contradictory to our stand lately that the relativism of LD judging is a bad thing, vis-à-vis paradigms and the like. But that’s not what I’m saying. Even if there were only one platonic judging paradigm, some people would achieve more of it than others, the way some things partake of more of the platonic form of beauty than others, and are therefore perceived as more beautiful. To know how much of the paradigmatic perfect judge your actual judge matches is your guide to picking up the ballot at hand. It is more profitable to play a better game than to blame the ref for bad calls. And if the ref always calls balls hit to the left a foul, try hitting the ball to the right.]

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Tabbing at Whig Hall in Princeton is like fighting the line for whitefish at a popular deli with your averagely vicious Sunday morning brunch crowd: People are often knocked down in the stampede and come out with nothing but a crust of bagel and a half-chewed scallion. LD, PF, IEs and Congress are all fighting it out, reading results, diving for the pizza, telling ribald tales of the great debate coaches of long ago, begging for some judge to cover a Declamation round over at Peter Singer’s euthanasia lab, etc., etc., etc. JV and I trying to do our thing and occasionally listen to a Sondheim album or two just wasn’t happening. Under the best of circumstances tabbing in a crowd is hard; tabbing with the Tigger crowd was somehow even harder. Plus the traffic jam of judges upstairs in the vomitorium wasn’t exactly pretty, and students are banned from the building, and I gather the ceiling fell on a few heads in the judges’ lounge (although, with any luck, they were the illegitimate judges' heads). Next year we’ll hold out for private quarters in a central location. The success of the texted results makes that a real possibility. And not having the ceiling fall on our heads, among other enticements, makes it sound like a really good idea.

There was, apparently, quite a computer crash on the speech side of things, making the award ceremony a wonder to behold. The Tigs kept trying to stretch it out, while everyone in the cheap seats was itching to get home. I’m a strong advocate of all people suffering through the entire award ceremony as a point of respect (with demurrals at the usually national ceremonies where the first hour or two is a self-thankathon). I felt sorry for the Tigs trying to vamp while the tab staff shuffled whatever it was they had to shuffle. I finally gave up and slipped the Head Tig a hot tip that he could email the rest of the results later, which he accepted, thus putting everyone out of their misery. But all of this was a minor blemish on the weekend. We did, still, get out earlier than any other Tig Tournament in history.

The Sailors did fine, by the way, thanks for asking. The Panivore ate her way through to finals, while the varsity performed with good levels of success, especially considering the sophomoric shade of a couple of them. Our Hardware Engineer engineered familial housing with one of his parents’ old kindergarten buddies, which saved a few bucks but did add a few minutes of driving-around-and-getting-lost time to the proceedings. I never did get my own shot at Halo’s Pub, but given the freezing weather, it wasn’t that much of a loss. I did manage to input about 50 shots of expresso over the three-day spread, so that was something. And I figured the Saturday puzzle (the two letters OR, so Panama = Panorama) at some point. And I did text O’C every now and then to remind him that we were talking about him behind his back.

And this week, we’re back in Jersey again at Ridge. We’re practically becoming New Jerseyites. Which cannot at all be a good thing.