I don't give a fig about dates, etc.

It is proving to be radically difficult to schedule the end-of-season tournaments for next year. I did send out a notice about the MHL, including a tentative schedule for 2009-10, although I did manage to forget that there has been some under-the-table talk about a March edition. But then again, where to put it? Where to put anything in March, for that matter?

The usual March is CFL qualifier, SATs, Districts. This year we tossed the Bobcat on weekend 2 and added the Northeast Chumps the weekend after districts. There was universal enervation as a result: it was just too many tournaments too bunched together too late in the season with, in most cases, too much riding on them. I only managed to scare up one Bobcatter, for instance, although I was able to roust a goodly number of Sailors for the Chumps. As for Districts, since I’m no longer running it, and there are few nautical students who would actually attend even if they qualified (I probably hold the record for non-attending qualifiers in the region), I’m not particularly enthused about paying money to fill up slots just to bolster attendance, and this year I managed only one lone lorn creetur. So my hearty Tars aren’t exactly exempt from too-pooped-to-debate pop any more than anyone else. Throw into the mix Easter, Spring holidays, and the (at the moment) unknown date of NY States, plus the dates of the various NJ and Ma tournaments, and you’ve got quite a jumble. I, for one, am at sixes and sevens. (I would prefer elevenses.) And into this hopeless jumble we want to add another MHL?

Oy.

I think I may put this whole thing aside for a few days and concentrate instead on the Modest Novice. I swore that I would spend Tax Day coming to a decision. I wish there were more universal acceptance of any one wording. Just when I think I’m close, some yabbo comes up with some really good reason that I’m not even in the right church, much less the right pew. But I am beginning to believe that maybe we’re all evaluating it too much as if we were setting varsity on it rather than the rawest novices. No one will debate this topic after their third or fourth tournament, most of the rounds of which will have been spent learning how not to drool on yourself and where to look while you’re talking and things like that, while the underlying framework of the topic is good old-fashioned social contract and morality and stuff like that, that can be organized quite neatly for newbies’ introduction to the business. I mean, if novices can argue throwing the fat guy gentleman of the extra-avoirdupois persuasion off the bridge, they can argue civil disobedience heads-up, I think. Anyhow, rumblings will emanate from this source very soon. Decisions must be made. Nails must be hammered. Dies must be cast.

Oy again.

Anyhow, don’t forget to sign up on Twitter to follow @tabroom for the nonstop action from the Chetan and Kathryn Round Robin this weekend. The big question everybody is asking is if all the ballots put together will have as many words on them as any one ballot from CH himself. Only time will tell.