Scarsdale went swimmingly.
Your humble tab team included myself, Father Michael, Kaz
and Catholic Charlie. We were working out of the library, which was either
hotter than Hades or freezing, depending on the time of day. Friday night they
were vacuuming the place for hours on end; my ears are still buzzing. On the other hand, I am pretty dust-free.
It turns out that, if you have a judge named Shipoopi, the
song is going to take ear worm residence in your brain, and you will sooner or
later listen to the entire Music Man
soundtrack, which seams like the perfect sort of music for this group. Fr M
offered for our possible entertainment some sort of Irish folk music, which would, I guess, fill a much needed
gap on my iPod. I was also roundly chastised for actually having an iPod—until
we were all harmonizing on “Good Night Ladies.” It was that kind of tab room.
Mostly everything ran smoothly. The only issue I had with
tabroom was my own fault, but it was buried deep. I’d created a pool of judges
and assigned some rounds, then replaced that pool with another and assigned the
same rounds. Confusion ensued, but CC managed to uncover the discrepancy. Some
problems are buried deeper than others. The lesson: Delete pools that you’re
not using. I also had some issues drawing from multiple groups into my pools,
but it must have been sunspots because I thought I had done it before, and CP
told me he was able to do it so shut up, and then I could do it again, so there
you are. Gotta love the tabroom help desk! (Actually, we didn’t curse CP much
at all this weekend. I did curse Fr Michael though, which didn’t exactly
produce the hoped-for results.)
One thing about this year, the number of debating judges was
minimal. Whether this was just happenstance, or if people really don’t want
their debaters to judge at the same tournament remains to be determined. It does change the nature of the beast, obviously.
Of course, all the usual suspect were up to all their usual
shenanigans. I outlined them vaguely yesterday. Why judges believe that they
shouldn’t be judging, the job they are at the tournament to perform, is beyond
me. And when it’s single flights, which an extremely easy burden for any judge,
and they’re still whining about it, well, you just want to boot them in the
butt and get them out there doing their job. The number of no-e-ballot Luddites was
depressing, although now there’s a big L on the schematic in tabroom next to
the Luddite’s name. Loser, of course, is a better ascription of the initial. We
also need a letter for people who, A) press the Start button before they get to
the round, and B) never press the Start button until a runner goes in and hits
them over the head with a frying pan. Curiously, that latter group includes
mostly judges who do this every week. By the frying-pan-shaped dents in their
heads ye shall know them.
The judge lounge food, as Facebook had hoped, lived up to
its billing. And there was plenty of it. I noticed the Paginator in there a
couple of times. He had his valet handling his judge duties for him most of the
weekend, so he was free to tell tales of great adventure to the assembled hoi
and polloi while everyone else was working. (But he’s going to have his work
cut out for him at Ridge, where he does PF: they’re breaking down the doors for
that one!)
Through it all, JV, wearing taped Harry Potter glasses,
seemed to be way less stressed than usual. Not having to give a thought to
potential blizzards didn’t hurt. And who can be anything less than gleeful with
“Shipoopi” spinning around in their head all weekend?
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