It’s probably just me, but I never did figure out, after my one visit there, why the Kansas City airport was so filled with Oz knickknacks. The whole point of Oz, originally, is that it wasn’t Kansas; even the movie got that part right (not that I have anything against the movie—far from it—but it isn’t what we’d call canonical). It’s sort of like the Pilgrims landing in America and opening a gift shop on Plymouth rock to sell England knickknacks. Whatever. I am not in KC myself, of course, although the Panivore is, because I couldn’t possibly take a week off from the DJ for one tournament. I probably take a week off in the aggregate for all the other tournaments I go to, and in the cosmic forensical balance, I don’t think this one is the equal of all the others combined. But, I guess, that’s just me. As religions go, the VCA is well aware that I do not worship at the altar of the NFL. I don’t hate it or anything; it’s not as if I’m marching in front of their doors with a sign saying death to the infidels or whatever. But in our region we’ve got other organizations that do a better, or at least more apt, job of promoting forensics, and I’ll stick with them for the foreseeable future.
Speaking of the DJ, we are moving to new offices next week, and our present offices look like a war zone. Boxes everywhere, books placed on tables in the hopes that rather than letting them be turned them into pizza boxes someone will take them home and read them. I’ve already skimmed the cream of the crop of the crappy ones for future awards, but even a bonanza like this yields only so many stinkers. It’s the good ones that I’m sad about. But I’m already looking forward personally to not buying too many more books in the future, unless they’re lavishly illustrated. Buying them on paper, that is. I’m very happy reading on my iPad, which is a much more satisfying experience than reading on the Touch. As the trope goes, when the iPad came out it I dismissed it as a big Touch, but one learns quickly that a big Touch is quite a joy. I’ve now got all my photographs on it, for instance (some of which need more weeding, I’ve discovered). Once upon a time we put our pictures into shoeboxes and never looked at them again, or albums, and never looked at them again there. It’s a shame. I love looking at photos of places I’ve been. Now I can do it more easily (at least as far back as the purchase of my first digital camera a decade or so ago). And those activities—reading and picture viewing—are just two things of the many that the Pad can do. I carry it with me everywhere, at work and at home. Ah, young love…
By the way, I’m listening to “Right Ho, Jeeves” on my commute these days. Any writer who can create a character named Gussie Fink-Nottle is a writer you just have to love. Performed beautifully on audio by Jonathan Cecil, who’s done a number of Bertie stories, this is heaven on four wheels. Makes me want to get in the car and go to work.
As we navigate our way into summer, we here at CL HQ will probably find ourselves with less to say of interest to the VCA, and we may even occasionally take the odd breather. This means nothing except that we are husbanding our resources for the season to come, so don’t take it askance. Of course, if you’re spending your summer at one of these debate factories like Camp WTF, debate will not end for you, ever, but for most of us, the warm weather is welcome relief. By the time the next school year rolls around, I’ll be ready, but meanwhile it’s summertime, summertime, sum sum summertime…
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