I may be the last person on the face of the earth to have been burned by Apple, but burned I finally was. Safari 3.2.1 is, in a word, unusable. Or at least it doesn’t agree with Little Elvis, who has been known to eat fluffernutters with no ill effects. The version came through over the weekend, and I downloaded it without a thought, as is my wont. Click on a link? Crash. Open a new tab? Crash. Send in a crash report? Crash again (that one was my favorite). I had hitherto been agnostic about Firefox v. Safari. Not anymore. And just try to find a version of 3.2 without the point one that is the kiss o’ death. I like having multiple browsers open for a variety of reasons, but so much for that, at least at home.
Sigh.
On the other hand, the new Touch/iPhone software allows you to eliminate the crappy guess-the-word feature when you type. That’s a serious improvement, as I never once got a correct guess. The upgrade also claims to do better getting onto firewalled systems; at some point I’ll try it again at the day job, previously a futile albeit unnecessary effort, as I do have internet access already, and having more of it does little or nothing to change my ubiquitous connectivity. And, I ordered a new Airport at Black Friday prices to hook to speakers so that I can use the Touch as a remote on my sun porch. Ah… Life can be good. Even without Safari on Little Elvis. Apple: you are such a puzzlement…
I registered this morning for Bigle X, always a favorite tournament of mine, and a lot of other people, for that matter. Hit a minor bump and notified CP, who’s been complaining in his blog that all work and then more work is not at all like play, but I say: Suck it up, bub! Seriously, he does make a good point in his latest post about his importance in the activity. As in, he’s pretty much an outsider, and he’s running everything he touches. I can appreciate that, except I’ve been in it for so long myself that I can hardly claim outsider status anymore, even if I do have a D.J. I think it may boil down to the fact that some people are good at organizing stuff and some people aren’t, and the people that are good at it keep acquiring more of it, until they don’t have any time for anything else anymore. People in debate, especially the really busy ones, need to take a weekend off once in a while. At the very least, limit things to a local one-dayer every few weeks to minimize wear and tear on the psyche. My psyche’s so shot it doesn’t matter, but CP is still young. He’s got weeks, nay, months of productive life ahead of him. Same with some other people I won’t bother to name. Keep up with life outside of this activity. Life in it is worthwhile, but life out of it keeps it in perspective. Seriously. (Same applies to students too, come to think of it.)
This upcoming weekend, meanwhile, is a visit to the land of the Tiggers for the first time in years. Things look under control, mostly. The biggest remaining deal will be sorting out and entering room names Thursday night, which is complicated because each day we’re in a different place, with different conflicts from the other divisions. I’m taking names off the waitlist, as we are in the final stretch, trying to keep things even. As originally registered, about 4 schools would have represented about a third of the tournament. Not good. Now, a few folks will have 8 entries, if they can cover the judging. Much more sane. Plus there’s a pool of solid A judges, which was one of my demands originally from the Tigs, some of which we have not sold as hireds but held as reserves. This, as I’ve said, simply makes a better tournament. Force registrants to find their own judges, and they will. Big programs need to draw on their alums; that’s the only way you get a broad base of decent judging. Programs that buy judging at every tournament, in my eyes often unnecessarily, are not as good citizens of the activity as they should be. Simple as that.
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