I slept about 7 minutes last night, and the rest of the time
I tossed and turned with febrile thoughts of Twitter going through my brain.
I’ve been through some terrible presidents in my day, but they don’t even come
close to this clown. I don’t really think that Trump was actually keeping me
from falling asleep; I think I have a little touch of something. But still, if
anything will keep you up nights is the PEOTUS. The best thing he can do for
the country is maintain that Twitter account. Yeah, his supporters all buy it,
or most of it, because they apparently believe that he is somehow going to make
positive change and stop all this worrying about people we don’t care about
(i.e., anyone not like us), but from an objective standpoint as a debate
citizen, the one thing that we see is one after another straw man argument or
ad hominem argument or falsified piece of evidence and all that other good
stuff that even fourteen-year-olds learn to stay away from. We will never have
to wonder what he is thinking, because he’s always telling us. And he is so
embedded in his narcissistic psychology, with a healthy topping of snake oil
salesman, that he will always be exactly what he is. At the point where his
Twitter account starts sounding nice and reasoned, we’ll know that they finally
wrested the phone from his hot, tiny little hands.
Then again, this blog is not about him. You can follow me on
Twitter if you want more of the above. You’re interested in debate stuff, God
love ya.
Last weekend was Newark, and although it ran well as far as
scheduling was concerned, I know there were some who wondered about the prefs.
Having not seen them, I can only pass along my own experience. As the VCA
knows, my regular colleagues believe that there has never been a pairing that can’t
be improved, and we demonstrate this with pairing after pairing. If nothing
else, tabroom doesn’t prioritize 2-3s over 1-2s (what I call the Alston
addendum), and that always has to be done by hand. The thing is, no one ever
sees how the pairings looked vis-à-vis prefs. People tend to believe that if
they got a 3, their opponent got a 3. And they also tend to believe this is as
good as it could get. It ain’t necessarily so. Tabroom does a great job with
prefs, don’t get me wrong, and we only have to address a handful of problems in
each pairing. But we inevitably see improvements, and we make them. The
computer system is, like every other computer system, not perfect. People
following GPS instructions onto the railroad tracks would, I am sure, be happy
to explain the problem, if they weren’t dead. I love using tabroom, don’t get
me wrong, but I use it, it doesn’t use me. It goes back to my presentation last
year at NDCA, where I made the assertion that tournament attendees are your
customers, and should be treated as such. To me, that includes the best
possible judge assignments. Anything less is bad customer service.
I stand behind every pairing I put out. My tab team has
looked at all the numbers, and these are the best possible. Don’t believe it? Come
into tab and take a look. I guarantee that you, or the unaided computer,
couldn’t do it better.
On the other hand, I can’t say I missed not going to the
tournament. It was one of those that ended in snow, and at least one school was
called back before it ended. I went to the movies and then drove carefully back
home in the middle of the day, happy that the trip was only a couple of miles.
Winter can suck, there’s no question of that. Who doesn’t love being called
home early, or getting stuck unexpected for days in a hotel? Or worse still,
running a tournament that you have to cancel because of the miserable forecast.
Been there, done that, to all of them, except the getting stuck one. But I came
close more than once. Coming close is bad enough.
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