Their bottoms are not made out of springs, however

Things have been percolating on the Tigger front.

When CP passed the management of the event to the Traveling Tab Team he has assembled over the last couple of years, I won the job of divvying up the rooms, which is both easier and harder than it sounds. I managed to find some old material about which rooms were big and which were small so that the Sunday elims won’t be held in the same closet as the prize mop collection, and there needs to be elasticity as we’ve readjusted numbers to accommodate more Novices and fewer Veterans (not that it’s tiny, mind you, only that the balance has shifted slightly). JV got seconded over to Speech tab leaving me and O’C at the LD helm. O’C is also collecting judges (many more are still needed) while Steve S mans the waitlist and hires. Lots of backing and forthing, needless to say. The Tigs still haven’t posted an official schedule, which doesn’t bother me much because I just assume same as last year, but a lot of people can’t remember what they had for breakfast, so there have been a few annoying emails asking me about it, as if I were somehow to blame. Of course, the real pain is those people who didn’t get judge hires who are now imperiously demanding them, a claim warranted by their really really wanting them. When you wish upon a judge your dreams come true? What are these people thinking? It’s not as if they just got discovered under the proverbial forensic cabbage leaf. They’ve all been around the bend a few times already. The thing is, everybody wants a good tournament but not everyone wants to help make one, and the sense of entitlement some people have is rather astounding. Endless crappy judges drawn from the ranks of a college’s freshman class, none of whom ever did forensics in high school, period, much less the activity they’re judging, is one of the things CP and the TTT have worked strongest to eliminate at this sort of event. Bringing them back, and bringing back 50 novice LDers from one school? No thanks. Not happening. Deal with it.

Anyhow, most of the gory Ds should be settled today. We’re going to be using a Google Voice account for text results (rounds are scattered all over Princewegian creation), plus @DebateTab on Twitter for announcements. I’ll disseminate the speaker point parameters I sent out for Bump: maybe this time the coaches who receive this stuff will actually pass it along, but that might be asking too much. We’ll be busing down Friday morning with Scarsdale, which means a more pleasant jaunt than our usual school bus squeeze. All in all, it’s looking pretty good. Let the games begin.

And if you’re wondering, I had a very relaxing TG break. The Mark Twain exhibit at the Morgan Library was a high point. Went to Eataly near the Flatiron Building and had a lovely Italian lunch (at a restaurant not far from Eataly, which was packed to the gills). Slept. Read. Saw some movies. Ate turkey I didn’t cook. Overall, a nice batch of days.