In which we find ourselves endlessly amusing

I was wrong. Lakeland is using 9 tiers rather than ordinals in its policy MJP. I have no idea why they've changed from last year, but as I think I reported after Lexington, 9 tiers is fine mathematically, once you wrap your mind around the likelihood of lots of one-off rounds. Since those one-offs are theoretically closer than some mutuals in a 6 tier system, 9 tiers can make sense, especially with a lot of judges. My main objection against using them at the tournaments I’ve been handling has mostly been the overloading of new stuff on people. Change management is a complicated business, but let’s face it. The users I’ve been dealing with have been LDers and PFers, with their attendant teams, fields and pools. Policy is much more mature in all those areas, and they have different expectations. So the 9 makes sense this weekend.

Next weekend, the one after this one, is our qualifier for CatNats. Registration closes soon, and it looks as if the numbers will be small. As it turns out, the Sailors are tossing their annual musical that weekend, which will no doubt thin down our personal numbers substantially. I know I’ve already lost my senior PF team to the gods of theater, and no doubt a few Speecho-Americans will also be swept up into the tide as well. I’m curious to know our final number. I won’t be able to go to CatNats myself, so I’ve made it clear that if you qual, send me a postcard. I’ll be away on vacation the couple of weeks prior, and way too bogged down at the DJ to head out immediately for another weekend after that. Life just doesn’t work that way. (Too bad work isn’t confined to working hours, but if it were, I probably wouldn’t enjoy it as much.)

And last night, while editing Nostrum, I actually had forgotten one scene that actually had me laughing out loud. Needless to say, one shouldn’t laugh at one’s own jokes, but I wrote it over a decade ago and I’d forgotten it completely, so I think I can be forgiven. It’s a scene based on what they used to do at Villiger (and maybe they still do it), the pullback of the curtain to reveal a dazzling display of trophies. Except this year, among the trophies, is a coffin displaying the corpse of a fallen debate god. And, well—eh, go read it yourself. 

I become more and more convinced that Nostrum needs to be more than just collected. There's just too much stuff there worth re-sharing, old though it may be. I'm looking at something mid-week. After all, "If this is Wednesday, it must be Nostrum," was the standard introduction pretty much from the getgo.

If this is Wednesday, must it still be Nostrum?