Houdini, Speaks and Debuts (plus, The Tournament is Over, Let the Tournament Begin!)

The torch is passed. We have hired a new speech coach. Last night I said the magic word at the meeting of the Speechonauts and then, hey presto! I disappeared. I went home and watched an episode of Star Trek. Life is good. Of course, I will be doing the workshop and helping our new person get settled with the millions of little details, so I haven’t gone away completely, but overall, this is a real load off my mind.

We also TVFTed last night. The microphone cum headphone set that I bought at J&R during the Bronx RR makes me sound as if I’m on a respirator, or maybe like a sort of wimpy Darth Vader. It’s okay for basic Skype calls, but falls down on the higher recording-level standard. The hunt continues. Anyhow, we mostly talked about speaker points and I made a commitment to publish (really publish) a speaker point scale at Bump to help normalize the event. We’ll see how that goes. Offline Bietz and I exchanged lustful thoughts about the new MacAirs. I need one like I need a hole in the head, but that doesn’t make it any less sexy. Bietz figures he’ll have one by Glenbrooks. No surprise there.

This weekend we have the MHL First-Timers’ Event. Last year we made it the Sort of First-Timers’ Event, which really undermined the point, and which got a lot of bad reactions. The point of first-timing is to get your feet wet, to learn to stand in the front of the room, to get your cases written on time, all the sort of stuff that goes with overcoming the internal butterflies and not much about actual debating. Leveling the playing field helps; unleveling it makes it more of a competitive (and losing) proposition when that’s really not what it’s all about. Once again I will quote Soddie addressing his team about first-timing. “Did you have fun, and did you enjoy yourself?” Answer yes to both, and you’re a debater for life. Keeping it first-time helps insure the fun part. We have roughly a bazillion and a half people signed up in all the divisions, but we’re used to that. The only problem is that we’re at Byram Hills, which eats the bars on your phone the way [insert your hungry beast metaphor here]. That also means no 3G, hence no MiFi, hence no Sporcle. No Sporcle? What kind of party is this?

And if you were wondering, O’C has begun hiring judges for next year’s Jake. I think he’s also started delivering the food. Thousand year old eggs that are really a thousand years old. There’s a taste of the world for you.