Little Elvis to the Rescue!

Final word on Yale: I learned that some of our brave Hen Hud legion didn't get rounds started till after midnight last Saturday. 'Nuff said.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I've begun sending out Bump invitations. I guess I could jigger the invite around for the next 50 years, but nobody ever reads it all that closely, so why bother? Of course, with the Peekskill Motor Inn being renovated, things won't be easy. But somehow we'll muddle through. I'm recommending the Holiday Inn Express over the goat path as the nearest. Not much we can do about it...

Monticello is the order of the day, blogwise. Much to the dismay of all and sundry, they were using the new version of TRPC. In fact, so new that it had a 2005 date on it. Great googly-moogly. The first thing that happened to me was that all the policy folk migrated into varsity LD. So I elimated all the policy folk, 2 divisions of them, polician by polician. After that, it refused to acknowledge some of the byes (but not all), forgot who the judges were on a given round, and generally forced you to keep an eye on it every minute. As for policy, they had the same problems, but worse. Every time Kaz turned around, all the policians had become LDers. Not once but regularly.

It was a nightmare. I installed Good TRPC on Sabrina's machine for the future and clearly labeled it as such, and labeled Bad TRPC as "If You Run This You Will Go To Hell (I'll see to it personally)" or something like that. And I warned Dario, who runs East Side and the new Ridge, and Kurt, who's running the policy side of Montclair. If you want hell in a handbasket, it's your handbasket! Meanwhile, the old TRPC, missing some of the nice features of the new, has the virtue of never giving us the least bit of problem. Do not be fooled by newness!

Meanwhile, in one of those great displays of oversight, one of the computers (new) couldn't connect to the single printer (old). One of them had no serial port, the other no USB (I'll let you figure out which was which). Fortunately I had thrown my printer into the car just for the hell of it as a backup, and I found myself running down to the trunk about five minutes after I arrived. Then the computer didn't have Epson drivers, and I didn't have my disk (which I have now copied and stuck in the bag with the printer-semper paratis, baby!) so I had no alternative but to pull out untried, untested little Elvis, AKA the Hunk o' Hunk 'o Burnin' Love (you don't have to be an Elvis fan to understand what I'm talking about, but it helps). The little squirt ran like a champ! Awe was inspired far and wide. No, says I, it's not magic, it's Little Elvis. Oh yeah, and Virtual PC. But it does work. Go, Little E!

After that, the tabroom was abuzz with tabroomian gossip, much of which you can imagine for yourself, since I won't tell you. Losing NFA was discussed at length. When I was at Hen Hud Friday I put in for our school for Nov 12; we would run an MHL at least, which will help ease the pain a bit. I should know in a couple of days where we stand. For those of you who know the tab room personnel, you know that there is always much comparing of symptoms in the race for who's the most decrepit. "I'm allergic to chocolate." "That's nothing; I'm allergic to wheat." "Oh yeah? I'm allergic to any food derived from either plants or animals!" "Oh yeah? Well I'm allergic to air! And vacuums! So there!" I can't keep up. They make me feel like such a medical also-ran. But it was fun to be back, getting the scoop(s) from everyone, figuring out how we're doing what when. We all seem to share one thing: a strong belief in developing the younger students. Not that we don't highly regard older students, for whom we wish all the best. But if you want solid varsity debaters, you need to plant solid novice debaters. It's as simple as that. Which is why we're so gung-ho on the MHL. Which is why we're so depressed about NFA. But with Hen Hud doing an MHL that weekend, and Manchester doing a comparable (which they volunteered to conduct) on the other end of the geographic spectrum, at least we'll save some of that experience for the newbies. Who, presumably, will be next year's oldies.

On the debate floor, Nicole and Craig had outstanding tournaments, the team as a whole looked none the worse for wear when it was over, and we had a nice batch of Chinese food at the Beach to wind it up. It's not great there, but it is open, which is unusual for local restaurants after, say, eight o'clock when they roll up the sidewalks (except, of course, we don't have any sidewalks around here, which I guess means that they're permanently rolled up). Driving through that storm was wet murder: trees down, flooded roads. But all's well that ends well.

Which is enough for now.

Good news, bad news

Good news: Odelie is pregnant. Great googly-moogly! The Nostrumite is going to be a father. If that doesn't disprove intelligent design, nothing does. (As a prenatal favor to the Mite, I'm giving him some space at me.com. I'm moving things over there slowly but surely. If a link is dead on the team site, that means I'm futzing with it. It'll be live again in a day or two.)

Bad news: 3 parents showed up for judge training last night. That does not bode well for the future. In essence, it means that I may have to pick and choose who gets to go where by random draw, which is never entertaining for any of us. If you're a novice reading this, just because they didn't come to the meeting doesn't mean they can't still learn. I've got documentation up the wazoo. Talk to me, people.

I'm just about to pack Little Elvis for the trip to Monticello. It's practically balmy out (it's certainly barmy in), very unusual for the Monti trip. Should be fun.

Ciao!

There is a great disturbance in the Force

I love consistency. As in, guess who won't be showing up for Monticello... Right the first time! Thank God we didn't nickname the guy ShowUp.

CLG is doing a fund-raising walk. If you're interested in sponsoring, go to walk.diabetes.org where you can find her name (Le Goues) in the Boston walk. I'm all in favor of curing just about everything. If there were no diabetes, we wouldn't have spent four years leaving needles behind in every restaurant we visited. That would have been nice.

I was pointed to a thread about BB somehow co-opting NFA's TOC bids on the lddebate.org site (if you think I don't look at DOA much, then I REALLY don't look at this one anymore). There seems to be some sense among debaters that the northeast should have some specific apportionment of biddage, and that the cosmic balance needs to be redressed before life on earth as we know it ends in catastrophe. I don't really think it works that way. First of all, while I would love to see Bronx regain its bids, the issue we are facing at the moment is that there is simply a gap in the schedule on the weekend of Nov 11. This is a gap of Policy/LD in two divisions, novice and varsity, plus PF. In other words, at least half the people usually attending NFA have absolutely no interest in the TOC. Every tournament in the world should not be evaluated as how well it gets you into some other tournament. NFA is a spectacular opportunity to introduce a large number of novices to two-day events. I miss that a lot more than I miss four TOC bids. The number of people in the northeast who are seriously in contention for TOC bids is rather small. The number of people who mistakenly think they are seriously in contention for TOC bids is about the same. The number of people in the northeast who are seriously interested in debate for other reasons is everyone else, and that's the big number that I'm interested in.

In my wish list for that weekend, first and foremost is a place for the greatest number of my entire team to get debate rounds. This includes novices and varsity. At the absolute bottom of my wish list that weekend, although it would still indeed be on my list, is that whatever opportunity presents itself include a TOC bid of some sort. Some of us are working to do something in that direction; there will be much talk among coaches over the next couple of weeks when we congregate at Monti and Bronx. I do hope to see some solution that does the best it can to serve the complex constituency of area debate teams.

I have no idea what's happening when

There seems to be no way I can coordinate the Coachean calendar with the Teamean calendar. These people simply never seem to go to school. I had this whole thing worked out for topic meetings and judge meetings and novice meetings, and it all went to hand in a hellbasket when Liz reminded me about Columbus Day. So I've sent out an update. Again. And updated the Yahoo Group calendar (which sends out automated reminders). Thank God there's only a couple hundred Jewish holidays to keep track of... I left next Wednesday open for upperclassmen who might be interested in visiting with the school board. I don't want to promote mutiny or anything, but if we can't go to the city, we're in a little trouble. Bronx can't host on 10/29, and substitutes Regis or Stuy are both in Manhattan, last time I looked. The effective place for the team to air its voice is at the board meeting. I'm sure they'll get a sympathetic hearing.

If I get a chance I'll launch Bump this pm. Depends on if I get involved reading a good book. I just need to move half a dozen addresses to my mailbox and we're golden.

I feel quite ready for the parent judge training. Last year I scaled it down a bit and eliminated the demo, which had a tendency to leave most parents in a state of nostrumian depression. Let them have the shock when they actually show up at a tournament.

Other than that, odds and ends: updating the student address list (I'll do that during Monti downtime), meditating on JA, counting the money from Yale (I never actually figured who paid and who didn't, which I will do, I assure you, before next week), entering the first MHL names (Yaa'aay!), talking to various random people on the phone who the NFL send to me for info (more than you'd expect, but I usually set them straight pretty quickly and convince them that starting ping pong teams ia a much better idea than forensics), that sort of thing. Oh, yeah, and I'm just about to register for the Home of the Albino Bagel.

Reasonable satisfaction

I am now reasonably satisfied with jimmenick.com, at least as a spaceholder. If you wish to be wowed by my computer skills, don't check it out. If you wish to think I can make html sing like one-legged goose, be my guest. Yeah, yeah, it's just the Hen Hud site shell. But I'm not competing with anybody here, just getting the info organized. Now the boring part of moving every page with every link begins. But at least I'll update as I go along, so the info will all be fresh when that freebooter (yeah, you again) steals it all from us and runs it against us at Bump.

Wait a minute. We don't debate at Bump. Nyaah, nyaah, as they say in France.

And Bump is ready to go. I'm this close to telling O'C to let fly the dogs of ADD. Mostly I just want to torture him in my evil way by holding off. I know he loves posting actual news, as compared to pictures of all the kids he's coached trying to look like they want their pictures taken. Of course, I'm still waiting for those surreptitious crib pix he took back at districts...

Fans of Legal Affairs might want to check out their website (legalaffairs.org). It's gotten much more dynamic than it used to be. But then again, haven't we all?

Still hoping for news regarding the NFA date. Some HHers are rallying around Pffft for November, so I'll have to talk a look at the topic and do a topic session. I'm thinking of watching a round or two at BxSci, just to get a feel for it. I mean, if it's going to replace LD, I should know what it is. Anyhow, if you are thinking of pffting, don't forget you'll need parent judges.

The Bronx CFL is now off. As in, about to be relocated, most likely in NYC. As soon as I know something I will run it past the parental units. This is one of the biggest CFLs of the year; if we don't go, we are really knocking the legs out from under the speecho-Americans, and not doing much for the LDers either. I hate going to tournaments alone...

A fairly big day, as my days go

First of all, the Newburgh tournament is cancelled. Cancelled, you say? Yes indeedy. Mostly due to budget and admin issues. They haven't been able to get their novices started yet, and they're just not up to it. In the long view of things, I doubt if it will affect their TOC bid, but this year that leaves one awfully big hold in the schedule. I'm going to see what I can do to patch it. With what, I don't know. But I've got an awfully lot of hungry brains to feed here, folks.

jimmenick.com is now up and running. Of course, if you go to the site, you see the IX Webhosting info at the moment. I'll move it in a day or two, as soon as I remember who they are and have log-ins bookmarked on all my machinery. So far I've moved on the sked and Bump.

Yale has come and gone. I don't know how well it came and went, but I'll find out soon enough. At least HoraceMan, the s sans s, and Nicole, my Liaisester (try to parse THAT one), both broke. I haven't heard yet about the speecho-Americans, but I haven't checked my mail since I asked about them.

As I type this I'm updating the Bump mailing list. As soon as that is done, the bloody thing is in the mail. Good riddance. Next step, trophies (I think). I'll check my instructions once the invite has gone out.

The MHL invite for Bronx and Montclair went out without too many bounces. I can't wait for the MHL to get going. For that matter, I can't wait for everything to get going. There are no meetings this week because of the holidays, so tonight it's Bump, tomorrow it's judge training, into which I will have to throw Pffft.

Meet (some of) the parents

Last night's turnout was okay, but not spectacular. Given that it's the only sit-down with the parents I get in a given year (unless they travel with us, which for obvious reasons is unlikely if they weren't at the meet-and-greet), I like to get as much info across to as many as possible. Dave wasn't there either; I guess he didn't realize that he should be. Wait'll next year! Anyhow, I trust that we'll pull in a seriously decent number for the judge training next week. After that, we're in the game.

Speaking of the judge training, I'm not sure if I mentioned throwing in Pffft (as if I know anything about it), but I will, since we'll have it at MHLs and parents are the likely candidates. I just invited Greeley to come too; they didn't last year because they claimed it was too soon in the year. Well, yes and no, given that the first op to judge is a week later!

I'm going to start using my new cell phone. That's my new resolution. It's even on now! I realized last night that the rules pdf has the old number, but then it's on AOL... So I decided the time has come to get off that old nag and find me a real host. I'm looking at IX Webhosting. Seems fine, highly rated, fairly cheap. Why not? If anyone has a better choice, let me know.

Meanwhile, the Nostrumite is in a state of permanent depression over his latest battle with his Assistant Principal. Apparently his school has some network filtering software and the policy team has been surfing "too many sites of dubious provenance." When the Mite agreed that naughty bits stuff was off-limits and that the offending spalpeens would be tarred and feathered, the AP said that it wasn't naughty bits, it was material deemed "politically undesirable." Well, you can imagine what happened then. In the shuffle in-school access to the TWHS blog was pulled, but I gather it will be coming back on line shortly. Although I can't imagine the AP & co would be all that happy with the blog if they actually read it. But I'm sure they don't. For that matter, I'm pretty sure *nobody* does, just like nobody reads this one. Except for that one kid who should be doing his bio homework (yeah, I mean you again, you blatherskite).

Cry havoc!

The Jewish holidays will wreak havoc on the novices. There's no way we can meet next week. They'll never learn about the social contract! They'll be spouting Baudrillard and Foucault before they've even heard of Locke and Hobbes! They'll go over the cliff of postmodernism, never once stopping for a breath at the fount of orthodox ethics.

Aaaaarrrgh!

I guess I'll have 2 meetings on the following week, one of them on the new topic. Plus the judging chez. That makes 3 meetings. Lordy lordy, I wish we could just get together after school...

I didn't get anything done last night aside from juggling around some mp3 files. One must organize Nano and Grandpod correctly, after all. I think I've figured it all out; it keeps me off the streets, anyhow. And tonight it's the parents meeting. And tomorrow is the beginning of the weekend and I won't have any debate time really. So maybe I'll just eliminate Bump completely from the sked.

If wishes were horses, I'd bet across the board on Nostrum in the 9th.

All right, I'll use the Jewish holidays to organize the mailing lists. And then I've got to think trophies. Housing. Food (although Mrs. W has volunteered to pass along her wisdom to the next poor soul, for which I am eternally grateful). Then again, I could just ask Chef Round-the-World-Tastes-o'-Forensics O'C to help out. Give him an apron, a hairnet and a tray of ziti over Sterno, and Bump would be the hit of the year. I wonder if he's got his blog back up. He's pretty erratic. Then again, you probably wish I were more erratic. Hey, it's not my fault you're reading this (especially you, you-know-who-you-are. Do your bio homework. Leave me alone.)

If you haven't noticed, by the way, I've got a nice little list of podcasts over there on the right these days. Lopate rules, but the rest ain't shabby, and there will be more on the way. I've got to stay up late nights just to keep up.

Manhattan. Keep Out!

Well, we're on the Do Not Travel list again. According to Dave, if it's yellow, we won't be mellow. And we won't be able to go to Manhattan. We'd already addressed this at NYCFL with NFA, which is in even worse straits, not being able to go to any boroughs period. All we'll be hit with is Regis now, because of the schedule adjustments the league made. Still, Regis is a big tournament for us, both LD and Congress. I can't do much, of course. It's really between the school board and the parents. I'll let them duke it out, or not, as the case may be.

Ms. Friedman spoke to us about immigration last night, and it was a big hit. She gave us lots of info, and really knew her stuff. We should have an expert talk on every topic.

As far as the name game is concerned, I now know who Tom is, because he got injured shadow boxing. So he's wearing a little brace on his wrist, and he's the guy with the really tough shadow. (Maybe it wasn't shadow boxing. Whatever.) The Doomed Prophet signed up for the listserver finally, so all's aboard who's coming aboard. I now know who Emcee's sister is. I also got to throw tennis balls at Emcee, which is not something I've been longing to do necessarily, but any excuse to throw things at the team is fine by me. Next week it's newbies only, and I'll drill down further into their identities. Probably without throwing things at them.

I did give out concepts plus V/Cs for novice cases. As I told them, this is a one-time offer. In the future they can come up with their own ideas. But over time we've found that giving them a leg up on the first topic for a couple of weeks is better than not.

Passed all the Yale info to Alan, who I trust will be a tough taskmaster. It's great to have dedicated parents; our team is mostly blest. Which means the kids are mostly blest. No wonder I want to throw things at them.

Today I start sending them bulletins of what they missed by not reading the Times. I always get a kick out of that, because there's always something. I enjoy explaining how to read the paper, I like making the crossword puzzle challenge (I had almost forgotten that, probably because no one's come close to taking me up on it in years). I don't exactly know if any of this works, that is, if I ever get non-Timesians and turn them into Timesians, but it can't hurt. Eventually I'll tire of it till next year.

Tonight I sort out the last of Bump and go public. Maybe. Then I need to update my judge training to include a soupcon of Pffft. Then there's updating the MHL mailing list and synching it with the Bump list and creating an invite for Le Petit Bronx.

And some odds and ends... You know: tending to Little Elvis, keeping Nano warm and snug, collapsing from exhaustion. The usual stuff.

Another ziti joke lost to the ages

There seems to be just too much to do in the small amount of time allotted to meetings. So last night I tried to organize them a little. Ms. Friedman tonight (the former Mrs A) then some tutti then some V/C and rights with the young 'uns. Maybe I'll learn another name or two. Then a slight chance of a chez tomorrow if people are desperate. Newbie parent night Thursday. Then next week rights in depth with the newbies and probably no oldies, then a student judging chez, then parent judging. Then, the week after that, the new topic tutti frutti.

Whew.

I straightened up the Cur a little bit too last night. The rights stuff was all spread out, and I put it back in one place. I talk so much about US that it's a nice fit with Sept-Oct. The novs will be in good shape. I always hope for the best of all possible Sept-Octs, one that allows us to get the newbies grounded well. Occasionally we get a real stinker that sets them back a couple of years, but at least not this time.

I sent Jason my Rostrum article. Had to cut about 500 words, mostly the jokes. Even JB was sorry to see the ziti line eliminated. He's a pretty good editor, and I just followed his lead. (Rule One if you're writing with an editor: Do what the editor tells you to do.) I'll post it here in a couple of weeks; that way, to paraphrase Casablanca, we'll always have Norway.

Not much else on other fronts. Organized all the paperwork for Yale last night (that's one expensive sucker). Started thinking about November tournaments. Planned my trip to London in February (actually, a very big deal, on which more later). And I'm beginning to think about deep-sixing the AOL account. Yeah, there's an oodle and a half of web stuff, but accessing AOL on my PC is like ----- (fill in the metaphor here yourself for some really slow thing). And since lips that touch AOL will never touch Little Elvis's...

Department of Amplification

My first question is why anyone other than an HHHS person is reading this blog. I mean, don't you people have bio homework or something more useful to do? I can understand O'C, because he's in it more than I am, or the graduates, because I may harangue any one of them at any time without warning. But random people elsewhere? You might bring me to believe that I should blog more responsibly.

That'll be the day.

Anyhow, some freebooter passed along my comments about Yale to the Yalefolk, and I guess now Yale is reading the blog too. (Well, maybe not the football team and the law school; I don't want to inflate my importance too much, after all.) They took umbrage at my cheap shot about parli bar bills, and it was a cheap shot, but I have to admit that Cheap Shots was going to be the original name of this blog until I discovered that all my fellow Wild Turkey drinking old coaching sots who sit around moaning about the good old days might think that the drinks were on me, and I wouldn't want that, so I went to Plan B. Meanwhile, I thought that a slight elaboration might be in order about my feelings about college tournaments, or more to the point, Yale in particular.

First of all, Yale has, in my opinion, been consistently the best of the Ivy Tournaments over the last decade. I've had issues at times, but everybody always has issues with everything in this activity, and realistically, they ran efficiently with a solid tab room and had the best attitude and were the most fun. They drew a good field, and their own judges, even those not of the former-LD persuasion, were in the main reasonable adjudicators. I have supported their incremental increases in TOC bids when they have arisen.

That said, my main objection to their new increased size is simply that it's too clanken big. Its very size threatens its viability. I do, after all, sit in tab rooms almost every week and by now I have seen just about everything, so I know what the problems are that are endemic to the activity that are out of the control of the tournament directors. Those problems will be only exacerbated by increasing the opportunities for those problems to arise. I don't care if my team wins or loses—as you well know—but I do care that their bubble-round judges are awake, their rooms are unlocked, their schedules are adhered to, they have breathable oxygen in the staging area, they can find a bathroom that doesn't look like Katrina just came through. But if one is interested in succeeding at the tournament, let's face it: they are breaking only about 15% if they hit their proposed figures. This is pretty small. When I compare it to the other tournaments I know, it's about half as many as the norm. So even if they do manage to successfully control the physical plant, no matter how you slice it, we're paying $55 per head (plus hotels and food) for one of the toughest breaks in the country.

I want them to succeed. As I say, they have been my favorite Ivy tournament. I hope they can control all those tough variables resulting from the increased numbers. Do I think their hearts are in the right place? Yeah, I do, notwithstanding my brief against colleges in general in this activity, which is another thing altogether. So I trust this will set the record straight, as least as far as I feel personally. I really don't write this blog to make people feel bad, so I'm sorry about that; it's meant as a parochial tool to communicate with my own team and a few others on mostly an entertainment level, but nonetheless as a real diary of coaching. I do air my opinions on controversial issues. I encourage people who disagree to post comments explaining their disagreements. As you probably know, I really don't follow any other discussion area (I don't closely read VBD, for instance; I only check it to see if there's new tournament announcements or some reason to poke fun at O'C). All I know is what I see for myself. If you want to engage, feel free to do so.

Cranky is as cranky does

Well, I'm always cranky, so we won't bother talking about me.

CLG is cranky because we'll have judge strikes at Bump. I *think* I polished up the invite for the last time last night, and I'll check it one more time (the pdf does have a known typo, but I'm ignoring it, since it's correct on the website, and it's something for the archeologists to search for) and then I'm just plain done with it. Mostly I'm neutral on strikes, but if your goal is to run a TOC-bid tournament then it should be run efficiently for people seeking TOC bids. I will have no truck with MJP, which I consider grossly unjust, but a strike is a strike is a strike, and unless you've just crawled out of the cabbage patch, you probably have some judges you'd rather not see in the back of the room if you can avoid them. In my judging heyday I was struck a time or two, usually for the wrong reasons, and it usually meant I got to go home early or take a nap, so from that perspective it was fine. CLG thinks you ought to be able to pick up ANY ballot, and she's right, but the whole judge thing is such a can o' worms. At the point at which all judging becomes objective, we won't have to worry anymore. Till then, if all judging is sympathetic to all people in a fair fashion, there's worse things in the world.

At four a.m. last night I outlined in my mind a V/C structure for novices for Sept-Oct. Emcee is cranky that the newbies may have progressively less idea about V/Cs as every day passes by. I'll be doing V/Cs Tuesday, plus Rights 101. Plus Mrs. A. Plus Thursday is new parent night. I probably need a chez in there somewhere for Yale folk to have one last gabfest about the topic. And I need to find out if there's any pffters in Oct if we need to discuss that rez. Lots of stuff happening early in the year, as always.

Yale is obviously cranky, having now opened their doors so wide that it's staggering. I have the pyramid in Excel, if anyone wants it. You plug in the number of kids and it shows you the likely numbers for each round. With 7 rounds and 230, they'll break about half the 5-2s. Better than none, but not great. I received a cranky email from them saying that they weren't greedy parli people (not, I assume, because I had accused them here of same but because they had been so widely accused in general that they didn't need my specific instance) and they had debate in their blood and all that, and I'm sure they're wonderful human beings and all, but they're creating Harvard South no matter how you slice it, and the result will be the same. On the plus side, it will be a good warmup for Manchester, where people can get down and serious about trying to get some tin and bids!

The Nostrumite is cranky because he's not sure how his new TWHS site is working out. He's got three kids posting on there so far, sort of willy nilly, and his great fear is that they'll start swiping at each other and he'll end up getting sued by their parents. Talk about cause for permanent depression! "The school doesn't know about it yet," he writes. Yeah, right. As if anything happens in a high school that everyone doesn't know about immediately. And when you've got the AP from hell, as he has, well... The lad may be heading for trouble. We'll see.

But wait! There's more! NFA is cranky because they can't travel to NY (including the Bronx) because of terrorists. Been there, done that, know the feeling.

The Rocking Chair Killer is cranky because I guess I gave him license to rattle the novices because they're not all on the listserver. So he's cranking at them royally. Catharsis cranking, I guess. Giving a rattle to the RCK is like giving a Jodie Foster scrapbook to John Hinckley.

Actually, come to think of it, compared to all these people, I'm hardly cranky at all. I went to the Frick for the first time last weekend and still haven't gotten over it (think of it as the anti-Dia). I'm planning a week in London for February. I got my Odd Couple tix in the mail. I've been building up my list of recommended podcasts over on the right there (there's more to come). I'm car-pooling to the office theses days so my car expenses are cut in half. I've been clearing out all the leftovers in the freezer (getting rid of last year's turkey to make room for this year's). Kate sends exotic messages about Vientiane and maybe coming home in time for Bump. Little Nano bookmarks all the podcasts individually if you switch among them after listening to parts. I don't live on the Gulf Coast.

Sweet!

The Magnificent Eight

8 new people have signed up for the listserver. I have sent my crack team of Novice Director Assassins to deal with the rest of them.

I spent last night updating the team list with debaters. Tonight, with speechifiers. I want a really solid list for Mrs C, who is already champing at the bit to get housing organized. That's what I like, a housing maven who's as neurotic about Bump as I am.

Little Elvis did give me some trouble last night. I simply seemed to have too many files that could have been, but weren't, the team db, while the one that should have been not only didn't open, but wasn't. Got that? Anyhow, Spotlight to the rescue. Thank you, Masked Man. How did I ever live without a Macintosh?

Yeah. I want the lanyard with the built-in speakers for Little Nano. Who wouldn't?

Bronx Grande registration is now closed, and we have 2. I will past that info to O'C, which is probably unnecessary since he is no doubt standing behind me looking over my shoulder as I type. (Yes, Jon, I'll eliminate the rest of the Supes before the sun sets in, say, Hawaii.)

I'm a little taken aback by the engorgement of the Yale tournament to 230 LDers in the varsity pool. The math on that is frightening; I would recommend being undefeated, since 4-2s simply will not break. 6 rounds breaking to doubles, ladies and germs. Aaarrrgghhh! I've gone so far as to send them a message expressing my dismay. Since the money comes from team member pockets, the idea that you have virtually no chance of breaking unless you're a superstar on steroids makes this way less attractive than it ought to be. If they stick with this approach, they will become, for us, a speech tournament, which is too bad because I like having a relatively accessible debate tournament that weekend.

Then again, this fits in with my general philosophy of college tournaments. By and large, they are not in it for us. They are in it for them. I have yet to hear of a college hosting an event in support of the debate community, at which they expect to earn no profit. Meanwhile, I have yet to hear of a high school hosting an event where they expected anything better than breaking even and maybe getting enough money for hot dogs next week on the road to the next high school. We used to take twenty or thirty kids to Harvard. Last year we took four. Yale seems to be going that same route. The Ivy League capitalizes on its name to attract poor suckers to pay the bar bills for their Parli teams (or in some cases, the bar bills of their debate teams). Any wonder why I don't go to any of them much anymore?

FLASH: They have apparently added a 7th Round. Well hoop-de-doo. I'll do the math on it when I get home. Apparently they got enough people pissed off at them that they actually used their Eli noodles to a bit. My guess is that it still sucks, but it sucks marginally less. This does nothing to improve my opinion of college tournaments (nor my opinions of the students who run them).

The Army of Faceless Gray Men

(My guess is that they haven't found the blog yet, so I can speak freely.)

Oh. Hi, there.

We seem to have at least 10 newbies this year (plus God knows how many came in on the speech side.) Since I am about as good with names as I am with cabinetry, this is a challenge for me. After all, I only see them once a week, and they are, as the title says, an army of faceless gray men. Their names are all huddled in roughly the same part of the alphabet. They're all average height, average weight. Each one has a face-like face. What I want is the classic 40s-movie bomber crew: the white guy, the black guy, the Jewish guy, the Kid, the fast-talker, the Indian, the old-timer and Steve McQueen. Where are the casting gods when you need them?

I've managed to get this far: Liza is the girl I won't recognize next week because she wasn't there this week. Emily and Katie are simple enough because I asked one of them who she was when she came in a minute late and she said she was Katie. Having had the odd daughter with that name, it'll stick. Emily is the one who isn't Katie and isn't that other one who was new this week. As for the A of FGMs, there's AF who will never have to fill in past the initials because, sorry, I'm done. There's Paul Unspellable, but that's because Phil Unspellable made such an impression when he used to come to meetings and pore over his math texts, presumably seeking the number of the beast (it's 18, but you didn't hear it here). The younger Unspellable seems to have inherited the verbal gene. There's some guy who would have been Dynamite but he said he won't be wearing the same t-shirt for the next few years, so that's no help. And then...there's...uh... Oh, I don't know. Others. Next week I'll have them keep saying their names; that should help. I know I'll get it before they graduate. I almost always do. But nicknames are SOOOOO much easier than real names, especially when they're descriptive. Red; that's a good clear descriptive nickname, except we don't have any red people. Curly would be good too, but I'm saving it for the next bald guy. NoShow works (descriptive, although he came in last night looking like it was 1968 and Jerry Garcia has got to be around here somewhere). Wheatgerm (descriptive and linguistic). Schlub. (All right, we've never had a specific Schlub, but we've had schlubs up the wazoo). Nostrumite (also descriptive and linguistic). Hey, How Ya Doin'? which is what I call 98% of the people I run into whom I've known for at least eleven years but I still don't really know who they are, like have the people at debate tournaments. Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?

Anyhow, half of these schlubs are on the listserver, we'll get the other half in a day or so, and we'll browbeat the third half before next week's meeting. The meeting itself last night was the traditional parts-of-LD explanation for newbies only, followed by pretty much the last tutti session on Sept-Oct. My poor sick voice was weak by the end, but everyone was either paying attention or asleep, either one of which is acceptable.

Meanwhile, Kurt and I are in need of having a bank account for the MHL, which sounds bloody complicated, but at least we've got the trophies all sorted out. We're hoping to give one to each member of a team; I like it, if we can afford it, and we probably can.

Other than that, it's quiet around here. Too quiet...

Manfully carrying on

I've got a cold. Somehow, the world still goes on. Of course, if you're going to get a cold, get it when you're not doing much else so that you've paid your dues when it counts.

The NFL seems to want to add yet another debate activity. My opinions of that were solicited as Distract [sic] Chair, and I somehow managed not to use any phrases regarding places with less than optimal sunshine. I mean, isn't Pffft new enough for them?

The rabble (aka team) seems to be roused over optional tournaments like Glenbrooks and Apple Valley. (Meanwhile, HoraceMan, the superhero without any superpowers, has decided that every tournament in the country does not require his attendance and that, just maybe, school might, so there is less banging on that particular door.) It all devolves on the myth of the national circuit, this idea of elite and greener grass just outside our grasp. We have, within easy access, enough bid tournaments to nuke Nairobi, but they're not good enough. I mean, yeah, if you really are a superstar, it might be worth the aggro to go toddling around the country because you're tired of tromping the same old people week after week, but aside from getting seriously out of the house (which you could have done anyhow simply by going to Monticello), I don't get it. I certainly don't encourage it. I mean, maybe I'm not the world's greatest natcirc enabler, but I don't chain anyone to the desks. And I do enforce certain rules for official participation, as in, the principal has to sign off on it. At least I'm consistent. I do nothing to restrict my team from going elsewhere that I don't enforce on teams coming to the old Bumperoo.

Speaking of which... I may be done. I haven't double-checked yet, but I'm running out of diddling steam. The latest wrinkles were adding strikes to LD (with the gleeful totalitarianism that I like to think is my chief charm) and straightening out the fees (it will cost more to do 6 rounds of LD than 5 rounds of Policy—duh). I should be ready to post it and be done with it by the end of the week. No doubt GIB will be the first (last and only) to announce it to the world.

The Monticello registration is in. Last call is up on the Bronx registration. Okay, now: Picture a penthouse/Way up in the sky... Whatdya got? O'C living the high life in NYC. He's become the Porfirio Rubirosa of the forensic universe. (Yeah, I know. That's why there's a search function, Bub.) I know; I haven't picked on him in weeks, but as I said, I've had a cold.

Next week Morgan Aye's mom, an immigration lawyer, will address the troops at our meeting. I like that. Maybe we'll actually end up knowing what we're talking about. And I sent my Rostrum article to Jason, who did some editing and told me it's a little long and maybe I could cut it. Maybe I could cut it? Melville, I can cut. Shakespeare. The Bible. No problemo. But cut me? ME???? Oh, well, I'll give it a shot.

Little Elvis and his new friend

Yeah, it's a nano. Cute little devil. I'm planning on making it my podcast machine. I set it up last night, although apparently not completely, because it tells me the time in Cupertino. I'm deciding still whether to link it to the Mac calendar and contacts and whatnot, those Little Elvis body parts I haven't explored yet (I just bought general manuals last weekend, thank you very much—I do miss having people who sell you expensive stuff giving you a hint on how to use it). But mostly it will talk to me. "Hello, Nano." "Hello, Jim."

I must be on a technology kick. I haven't had a chance to use the Mighty Mouse (I was too busy with little Nano) but I did install it this morning on my way out the door. I've also bought a new cell; I'll post the number on the home page as soon as I connect back to (aarrgghh) AOL on the (aarrgghh) PC. It didn't seem possible to port the old number over from the pay-as-you-go service it was in. Now I have a new pay-as-you-go service, but at least this phone isn't, well, too 90s. I can take pictures, email, play Snood and generally waste time and money like nobody's business. After three days I'll no doubt turn it off and go back to my usual cellular incog, but I harbor dreams of walking down the Via Veneto in my fancy shoes chatting with my cara mia about tonight's saltimbocca and bellinis, but then again, maybe I'm dreaming of someone else. Probably.

I sent out the first NFL District message last night. I am, in other words, chairman again. It wasn't exactly a news-filled document. I still wait for the axe to fall on our district. Or more aptly, for the glue to fall on our district and some other district. No news yet from Ripon on that.

Finally, I have had an update from the Nostrumite, who is in a state of permanent depression over his Assistant Principal hassling him about Wake. He wrote me last night: "The sun was shining, the grass was green, and he was on my case like dust on Melville." (The Mite and I disagree about Moby Dick, but that's neither here nor there.) But on the bright side, the lad has thrown over his team website to his actual team. "Let the little buggers do it themselves," he told me. I checked it out, and sure enough, the little buggers are doing it themselves. If you ask me, that's a recipe for disaster with a pinch of salt and a sprig of parsley and a soupcon of law suit, but you try talking to the Mite when he's in a bad mood! Anyhow, according to TWHS, he did manage to get off this morning along with some policians for the trip to Wake. Say hello to him if you run into him. He needs the cheering up.

Strangers in the site

I get these strange comments to my posts here. Some of them were what has to be spam, so I installed a spam filter, but that just means that now the strange comments aren't spam. I can't imagine who reads this who might feel compelled to either write anonymously or pseudonymously. Whoever you are, isn't there anything to watch on TV?

Little Elvis will be happy tonight. He's already purring thanks to my giving in to widgets. I now love widgets. I don't know how I ever lived without widgets. I've even installed Konfabulator on my office machine (Jaguar) just to share the joy. But tonight there's more: Little E gets his own brand new mouse. Yes, a Mighty Mouse. I mean, I played with it in the store for about 2 seconds (while I was grappling over another purchase), and fell in love. I hope Little E will feel the same way about it. Actually, I'm sure he will. He and I definitely think alike.

I'm embarrassed to mention the other purchase. I succumbed. It's small. Black. Too sexy for my shirt—whatever. As soon as I arrive at a justification for this lapse of fiduciary responsibility, I'll let you know all about it.

The ticker at the Yahoo Hen Hud group has now marked 4 new members. I signed up a slew last night, but not everyone makes it from invitation to participation. Obtaining a Yahoo i.d. has sent more than one prospective Hen Hud forensician into the great abyss. But so far, so good. The Rocking Chair Killer was organizing a novice meeting today to get them off the schneid. Things are moving.

Last night I woke up screaming over the fact that the US is not a democracy and that democratic ideals are a bad thing. Pffft, here I come.

We are met

So last night was the first meeting. As usual there seemed to be more speech newbies than debate newbies, but we did pull in our usual 8 or so. It's always 8 or so. I don't understand that. Is there a special underground meeting where the entire school gathers to conspire which 8 or so it's going to be? Couldn't they once make it 10 or so? 12 or so? My guess is that NoShow runs that meeting.

Any questions on whether NoShow showed last night? What would I do without him...

Anyhow, first there's the tutti informational meeting in the library, where we tell people what we do and tell them to follow their hearts. This is a holdover from past days when certain upperclassmen would, in a very serious way, try to get people to their side of the team by making untrue claims that one side was better than the other. Now it's all well and good to play around with the difference between speech and debate, but the bottom line is that a person should do what's right for that person. Any idea that doing one or the other is better is not only misleading, but dangerous. A poor freshman schmegeggie could come in and get pushed around into the wrong side of the activity and quickly give up because it's not for them, and no one has gained anything. So we want to paint everything in nice bright colors and let people make as informed a choice as possible. Let's face it: over the long term we have had pretty much equal success in speech and debate on all counts. Pretending otherwise gets us nowhere. Certainly as a coach I love speech; I just happen to do debate. I certainly have the credentials to do speech (I am a bloody BA in English, for pete's sake), but maybe not the right talents. I think ultimately I like to argue more than I like to perform. But I do like to perform. Obviously.

After the intro we break into separate sections, where I count up to 8 or so and explain things further. Of course, the job announcements were made. AP, the Rocking Chair Killer and Twin M are the Novice Directors, Nicole is the Communications Liaison, and Robbie is the Hardware Engineer. I was tempted to keep Ewok on as HE until graduation, but even I am not all that evil. His last official act was bringing me the bus request forms. Ad astra per aspera, Endorian! And crappy prizes were tossed out in abundance, to set the stage (and to empty the overflowing CP closet a bit).

The first night is, essentially, me talking for 90 minutes. Liz assumes that this puts people into a state of pure catatonia, but I like to think that it's simple verbal dazzlement. In truth, it's mostly my throat getting scratchier until it gives out and then everybody leaves the room screaming. Next week we'll begin training the newbies on what LD is all about, followed halfway into the meeting by a tutti session to go over business and introduce the team at large to Sept-Oct, beyond the briefest mention we made last night. I think there's good solid positions for the newbies to consider for their October sessions; after that, they're on their own, the little suckers.

What would Sister do?

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One interesting moment at the CFL meeting was a discussion of content. Sister R went off on a merry rant about inappropriate material, which I have to admit I agreed with. There was a letter not that long ago that the league circulated, explaining in general terms what was and wasn't appropriate, and the point was that the CFL wished to train people for leadership (it might even have been specifically moral leadership), and the content of pieces should be congruent with that breeding of leadership. There was more to it than that, but that's the gist, and it was very well put, and we're going to try to dig it up and post it because it was a very good guideline.

Anyhow, Sister said that one annoyance was that, whenever someone performed a piece of dubious content, when it was over, everyone in the room looked at her! She gets to be the bad guy, or the barometer, or the litmus paper. WWSD? I'd never thought of that, but when you do something potentially offensive, you look around in the room to find the person most likely to be offended by it. For Sister R, it's always her. Not a great position to be in.

Dave E met me down there, now almost fully installed as our speech coach. The board still has to meet to give him the official approval, but there's no doubt that they'll rubber-stamp him in. Until that magic moment, though, he can only meet with the team when I'm around. WWMD? Dave is teaching at East Ramapo. East Ramapo is one of those places you hear the name of on WHUD when schools are closing and you have no idea what continent it's on. Well, it's on this one. Dave is there. Follow him in one morning if you want to know more.

As for bulletins from the front—and I quote—I don't know "the hell of hardwaring." Hang in there, Rocking Chair Killer. New assignments will be announced tonight. (Of course, nothing is written that says that Hardware Engineers can't hardware for more than one year.) For that matter, much will happen tonight, the inaugural meeting. Twin E was saying it's at 7:00; I hope that the announcement at school says 7:30, or there's going to be blood on the tracks before we even get started. If there is a real mixup, someone call me at home and warn me (739-1585). 7:30, folks!!!

HoraceMan, the superhero without any superpowers, gave a nice report from Vassar. Surprise of surprise: some people were running the topic in a normal, predictable way. Then again, some yabo was arguing that the US isn't a democracy. Is it just me, or is this sort of idiotic stuff not only dumb but morally offensive? Of course, mostly it's just dumb. My judge training going forward will STRONGLY urge judges to drop these clowns on their rumps the minute they utter this nonsense. For someone like me, a pretty decent scholar of the FFs, it's just bloody annoying.

Aaaaarrrghhh!

It was a busy weekend.

This Saturday was the CFL coaches' meeting at Iona. Pretty much everybody from the Diocese was there, and much of interest ensued. Numero Uno is putting together the schedule, not just of the CFLs but of the other events. The HHHS sked now includes all the correct CFL info, some of which is different than expected. On this subject, the most interesting item was the fact that States is now planned for same weekend as TOCs. This is scheduling by people who simply do not understand the uneasy position of debate at States. At least you could assume that some of your NY coaches would show up in the past, but if anyone quals a TOC entrant, will they choose instead the spotty judging and second-class treatment of States? Pishtosh! Will TOC take the best kids in the state away from States? Of course. The States organization is doing a disservice to its debate kids. Proposals for change have been made and shot down. I have progressively less interest in fixing things, and I am not alone. When a serious proportion of your most prolific debate schools are disinterested in your organization, you either accept that you will operate without your most prolific debate schools, or you change. NYSFL chooses to do the former. So it goes.

Tidbits: We will continue to have LD at the spring CFL event. We may get Stuy for the December MHL. Scarsdale looks solid for Districts. Much discussion of how to handle Halloween weekend (CFL, Albino Bagel and Lakeland), and I've got a plan. We talked about Bump (which is once again in invite limbo; more to come on that shortly). All the CFL officers (including me) were reelected, with Julie S taking over the retired Agliardo Speech position and Kaz taking over the retired RJT's Policy position. NFA is in the position HHHS was in, not being able to travel to NYC; Kaz hopes that sanity will settle shortly.

I've got a lot more on my mind but Little Elvis is feeling a little febrile. Manana.

Rebellion in the ranks!!!!

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The natives are getting restless. I expect an attack any minute. No doubt the attack will take place via rocking chair, the known weapon of choice of our Hardware Engineer. He has balked at a final act of his long and storied HE tenure (I refer to the Endorian, not DebateismylifeandsomedayImactuallygoingtodosome).

Jeesh.

So I made the final decision re Bump, and have updated things accordingly. Once again I'll sit on it for a little while (maybe JWP will come up with yet another thing we have to do), but I should have it out officially in a couple of weeks. I did decide to throw in the sixth round. I do agree with the need for the round to select the best prelim contestants; five rounds is a little dicey with 100+ people. With a TOC bid involved, one really has to do it. And that's the question. How badly should Hen Hud want to be a quarters tournament? Well, at the moment, we're the only quarters tournament in New York. My bottom line is that we owe it to the debate community. We may, to some extent, also owe it to ourselves. In my tenure, we have certainly been seekers after TOC bids, and we've sent plenty of folks to Kentucky to compete. Since Bump isn't really a "national circuit" tournament, it does in a way represent everything I think a tournament should be--for high schools, by high schools, fun, enjoyable, fed, housed and knee-deep in crappy prizes. And since it's a tournament I get to control, I get to set my personal paradigm, which I trust is also the team's paradigm, of a solid tournament. To be honest, I am pretty much enamoured of all high school run tournaments; my bad experiences have for the most part been at colleges. The high school people know the score, they know what's what, they care about each other. We're all us. So, for the moment, we will be us with six rounds.

Aaarrrgghhhh!!!

Canada is now safe from paganism

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In other words, the Nostrumite has returned.

Odelie's missionary trip north has concluded, and the Mite and mate are back in Cambridge. "But wait!" the lad exclaims. "There's more."

There's always more.

He has apparently posted one last episode to TWHS, an action that sent him into a state of permanent depression because, as he says, "Phase One is over." What does that mean, I ask. Silly me. "Wait. Watch and learn," says he. End of message.

I hate when he does that. Usually the new Mite is much the same as the old Mite, but maybe he's gotten a haircut or found the Porky Pig necktie he had thought he had lost on his last trip to Malta to look up his colleagues among the Knights Templar. Whatever. Me, I'm much too busy to pay too much attention, so what happens, happens. We'll see.

And I do mean that I am busy. I can't believe the number of things I am now caught up on. The Cur is ready, at least for the first meeting. I've been meditating on Bump, The Neverending Story, and concluding that, oh well, if it's six prelims, it's six prelims, and probably tomorrow I'll finalize the invite. I did another draft of the Rostrum article. This is the one I'll probably post here early (but maybe not too early because it has a little proprietary Immigrant rez info on it). I've got tons of Intro to LD handouts for Tuesday. I've been reading an endless stream of Endorian cases: he's nothing if not prolific. I've had the best Japanese food EVER (in Nyack, though, which is so out of the way for us). Dario is definitely doing Ridge, and hosting the MHL, so that's updated. Whew. There's hardly time for my afternoon naps.

Morgan Aye's mother is, apparently, an immigration lawyer, and she's volunteered to help us out by coming to a meeting. I was thinking toward the end of September, but I'll have to figure out where we are in Cur and when it makes sense. We've done this in the past, most memorably with Kritter's dad (does anyone remember Kritter) who was a juvenile lawyer, when we were talking juvenile justice. You can learn a lot by talking to someone who actually knows something.

Moment of truth

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According to what I just read, a quarters qualifier for TOCs must have 6 rounds. Otherwise, it will drop to semis ranking.

For me, this is a big deal. It's not just add a round, it's make the tournament into something I don't like much, an endless churn just for a TOC bid. Of course, I could break to octos... Na'ah! But then again, why not?

Anyhow, I'll be meditating on this greatly in the coming days. Any thoughts will be much appreciated. (I'm happy I didn't officially issue the invitation yet.) Should the TOC dictate the way we run our tournament? Does our team identity require a high profile event? Are my personal feelings about the TOC getting in the way? Is it all about TOC bids or something else?

Oy.

I'm going to have to start driving safely

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Why? Because school starts this week. Usually I drive dangerously, but when school's in session... Actually, I've always felt this is backwards. When kids are in school, they're pretty safe from my bad driving. It's summer, when they're out on the street playing kickball and dealing meth and generally goofing around when my driving is more likely to run them down. Oh well.

I roughed up the piece for Rostrum this morning. I'll polish it before posting it here.

I was just looking at the calendar and the signups. Stuff is beginning to loom, and I don't think people are all that aware how on top of us the season is. We'll have our inaugural meeting on Tuesday. I want to see some serious noviceage! Anyone going to Yale had better think about joining us at Tuesday's chez, since we won't discuss topic at the inaugural meeting, and they the Elis are practically upon us.

I've heard from a couple of folks who are interested in team positions. I've almost made up my mind, but I'm still open to any suggestions. If anyone really wants something, silence will not do them much good at this point.

I keep getting emails from O'C harping about the Vascar Races. I think I'm going to buy him a Rubik's cube to give him something to keep his hands and mind busy. He needs to work off the excess energy.

And speaking of the Vascar races, I've heard from Speedy, whose second year at Tulane will be spent, at least for the foreseeable future, at Vascar. The difference in how Po'keepsie and New Orleans have traditionally celebrated Mardi Gras is reason enough for him to plotz. Anyhow, he is available to judge for us, and I don't doubt that we will be able to take him up on the offer. Iko iko, and all that.

AOL? You've got to be kidding.

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As in, I'd rather hold Little Elvis underwater until the bubbles stop rising before I'd subject him to the abuse known as AOL. Do you have any idea what that program does to your operating system? It's like TCP/IP heroin. It replaces all the good functions with ersatz functions dependent on it calling all the shots. Do you think I'd be the one to put a monkey on Little E's back? You know me better than that.

Still, there's the problem that most of my web stuff is at AOL. Mostly it doesn't matter much, because it's pretty static, but some things do update regularly, most noticeably the schedule. So last night I ported the sked over to geocities, which is annoying because of its advertising, but then again, what do you expect for free? By having it there, I can edit it from any of my machines, and I don't need to load AOL to ftp it through their system. Which means no monkey on Little E's back. To make this even sweeter, oh you Mac people, I finally discovered TextWrangler. Now I'm an old BBEdit jock from way back, having been weaned on BBE Lite. And TextWrangler is BBE Lite in Tiger's clothing. And free. Huzzah! (If one wonders about the sanity of giving away freebies, I eventually ended up buying quite a number of full BBEs for the office at full price, so they won in the long run.) This means that I have my favorite text editor for working on the html, the cleanest, most straightforward text editor known to man. Free. What more could I ask for? Little E is sooooo happy.

On the human front, I've solicited bids for the various team functions (hardware engineering, novice coordinating, public relating). I have some ideas, but I want people to have a shot at them. They may come up with something that hadn't occurred to me. I don't want to screw people inadvertently; I prefer to screw them deliberately. And I've set up one last chez at home for Tuesday, and posted it in the team calendar, which sends out reminders.

I heard from Dario yesterday, and they're thinking of doing a tournament on the now open first weekend of January. I'm wildly in favor of this, as it would both be a prep for Lex plus an MHL! Lovely. I hate to have an open weekend anywhere in the schedule, and I like seeing Ridge and Dario in there swinging. I hope this works out for everybody involved.

Chez 1

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So we met in the family room, and aside from the fact that it was hot and humid (which it would have been anywhere in the house) it worked out fine. People got to say hello to Little Elvis, Pip came down for a snooze, there were plenty of chairs. It could be a size problem if we were going full tilt, but with a smaller group, it works fine.

The meeting was not without its high points, not least among them being that many of us got to see Emcee's ears for the first time. HoraceMan, the superhero without any superpowers, brought a nifty statue of me that says Socrates on it (pronounce, of course, So-Kraytes ever since B&T). The Endorian's chair went on the attack. There were vicious character assassinations of those who didn't show up. In short, the perfect start to the season.

We also discussed the topic. Curiously enough, it was an absolute piece of cake to get people to agree intuitively with the aff. The problem is, getting it to tie in with Democratic Ideals. We're soliciting everyone's DIs from last year's Nov-Dec. If we have a good idea what DIs are, then maybe we'll know which ones to toss out the window. No doubt all this attention to the seemingly more difficult aff will result in the neg becoming the actual more difficult side, but that remains to be seen. It's remarkable that the season really is here. The Vascar race is only a week away. The nice thing about that is that even if we come up with nothing, the Endorian will bring back oodles of flows for everyone else. The problem is, will they all be Ks? HoraceMan opined about some case that will argue on the neg that we are creating "the other" on the aff. Well, yeah. That's where the Non followed by the hyphen comes in.

My private was on France will be commencing soon.

Coaches begin annual fasting period

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That might explain it. I have no other explanation. Last night's gala coaches dinner was cancelled. I don't really know why, so I won't hypothesize. (Far be it from me to make stuff up.) It's too bad, though. It is nice to get together with folks socially to talk about what's going on in our little world. I'm sure it will happen at some point. It's a good idea and everyone benefits from it.

I am now rooked into writing the piece for Rostrum. I'm going to talk about resolution brainstorming. I do believe that one of our strengths as a team is our knowledge of resolutions, and God knows, the more people arguing the resolution, the better for all of us. I'll no doubt work it out here, or at least post it here (I mean, who among us reads Rostrum other than me). It's due 10/1, but I'll probably write it next week, since I'm off from work. I know what to say, mostly. It's just a matter of saying it.

For anyone thinking as far ahead as the end of October, the Manchester invitation is out. I, for one, AM thinking as far ahead as October. As a matter of fact, I've put in for all the necessary vacation days for the rest of this calendar year. As always, I'll go to Monticello, Bronx, Newburgh and Little Lex. And Bump. Pretty much all of the other weekends are Saturday Ls of the MH or CF persuasion. As far as Manchester is concerned, it's a possibility, the first, for some of us to try a little Pffft, given that there's a 5-LDer limit. The only thing is, there are so many debate alternatives that weekend that the need to go Manching may not be all that strong, or not so strong that some of the team pair up and pffft just to visit the home of the albino bagel. We'll see. In any case, I will devote a little time to prepping on the Oct Pffft topic, just for the hell of it. We've got nothing to lose, assuming that it's an interesting enough topic.

Which reminds me, I need to note the possibility of Pffft in the Cur. Tomorrow. Tonight, the first chez, which for all I know will be attended only by the Endorian, who believes so strongly in unmitigated rights for all that he may just teleport himself into Nov-Dec. (Hmmm. Pffft. The Cur. Chez. Endorian. I'll bet the readership of this blog, if any, wishes that more of it were in English.)

For Caveman fans:

Camille Paglia interview—check it out.

Help for parents

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I'm sitting here looking at an advertisement for a book entitled "Protecting Your Teen from Today's Witchcraft." Finally, an aid for parents in rescuing their children from me.

Tonight is the coaches' dinner, about which more after it has been consumed. I have no idea who's coming other than O'C, and he may be going to the wrong restaurant, so I can't even vouch for him.

There's this software called OpenOffice (from openoffice.org) which I was seriously considering stuffing down Little Elvis's throat last night, but I changed my mind halfway through the download. Little E has Word in his PC mode and Appleworks in his OS mode, and if the latter doesn't suffice, then we're probably overdoing it. Of the 9,327 features of Microsoft Word (I use the OS version 11.1 in the office), I use 6, and really need only 3. My assumption is that keeping Little E thin will keep him swift, so I will resist the temptation to check out every piece of software that isn't nailed down. At least for now. Hell, I haven't even looked at half the software that came with the thing, and I swore up and down that I would do that before anything else. Which may keep me from EVER doing anything else, but that may not be a bad thing. Anyhow, I ported the Cur over last night to Little E's desktop and converted it to cwk. The new year has almost begun for real!

O'C tells me he's got my Voices Bump entry lined up. 1 down, 119 to go in LD. Speaking of which, I am seriously considering adding Pffft next year, if enough rooms open up after the construction settles down. Has it settled down? God only knows. I'll pop over there next week maybe and pick up some bus request forms and sniff around for signs of sawdust.

"Meet the Fockers" sucks

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I include the information above in the title because: 1) it has no business being in the body of one of these entries; 2) it does need to be noted somewhere.

Okay. Back to the main event.

I have a note to myself to send the Yale rooming list to the hotel today. So it shall be written, so it shall be done.

There's a comment from O'C that the Vascar Races will be more fun this year than when I went. Figures. I was up in that neck of the woods yesterday golfing at McCann. There were street decorations throughout Po'keepsie celebrating the RR. They're promising all sorts of things. Parades. Fireworks. Three-legged races. Human sacrifice. Sounds great.

Meanwhile, back in the Inbox, Jason Baldwin is soliciting articles for Rostrum, and I think I just volunteered. I have no idea what I'd write about, but there is always, "How to Avoid Fast Food on the Debate Circuit," and "YDKJ Tips for Teens," and "Why You Should Never Rummage Through the Teacher's Desk When the Teacher is Actually in the Room" (a particular favorite of mine).

Beta Bump

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Not to be confused with Bada Bing. There are now two little jpgs over there on the right (on the left, if you're looking at your computer in a mirror). I'll make another last run-through of Beta Bump in a couple of days, at which point, bada bing, bada boom.

Speaking of the MHL, we did come up with an LD-only venue for 10/22. At which point I discovered I could edit the html code directly in Geocities, thus circumventing my need to find a barebones HTML editor for Little Elvis, a voyage on which I was just about to embark. Sorry, Little E. At least for the moment, you can rest easy. (I don't want it to know I'm about to sneak up on it and try to install Classic. That's why I'm typing this on my PC. Ssssssshhhhhh!)

The Day the Earth Stood Still is hardly obscure

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Jeesh! Doesn't anybody see movies made before last Wednesday? (This is in response to a comment, below. Comments get mailed to my Yahoo account, so they float like dynamited herring on a sea of Nigerian spam, if you can follow the metaphor.)

Updates:

Finished a rough draft of the Bump invite. We're almost there. When I have it, I'll update the site and link to it out of here, but I won't bother annoying the world at large until maybe the end of September. It's not as if everyone doesn't know it's the same weekend as always, the same food, the same jokes, the same crappy prizes. Come to think of it, I didn't mention CPs in the invite. But I probably won't. Not that the CP closet isn't now totally filled to capacity. I couldn't fit another book on Portuguese fly fishing no matter how hard I tried. That special O'C prize has sunk to the back somewhere. Oh, well. It should turn up before December.

Barnes seems to be shaking his head in despair over all my LDEP comments. He must be wishing he'd never asked my opinion, since whatever it is, I'm against it, and I'm about as consistent as some really inconsistent thing that I'm too dull to think of since I'm all worn out after that herring analogy.

The Vascar RR (i.e., O'C) sent out its participant list, which needs to be ranked. I passed it to Ewok. I haven't heard of any of these people (including Ewok and O'C). But Vascar was fun the one time I went, and I'm sure our Endorian will enjoy it.

I had lunch with CLG yesterday, and we argued about the topic. My mind is now clear. Her objection to the aff is that people should not be treated differently: We shouldn't treat immigrants differently than citizens if there's a suspicion of evil-doing. To which, I think, the answer is obvious. Although, of course, I must point out that she is right. So we may be on the road to an aff here, folks. Thank God for ex-debaters. We also talked about the one reason she continues to judge for us: YDKJ. I do have one old iteration I've never launched, but it will require loading Classic OS onto Little Elvis. I understand Classic is on one of the disks in the packing box; if you want it, you've got to load it yourself. I used to have to use Classic in the office, and it was pretty sturdy, although word on the street is that it's not very stable. Well, we'll see. I have until, oh, Lexington, to make it work.

My short career as an IMer

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Once, long ago, when computers were young, I said to myself sez I, Let's try out this newfangled Instant Messaging thing here from good old AOL. This was a time when AOL was cool. (There was that three week period back in 1997.) So I fired up the software and logged on, and lo and behold, as that Haze woman might say, I'm IMing. I mean, I can't log on and there's this debate person who shall remain nameless (because he's still in the activity) blathering on and on about absolutely nothing and I just can't shake him. He's knows when I'm sleeping. He knows when I'm awake. He knows when I've been bad or good.

I said to myself sez I, I need this like a woman needs a bicycle, and I ripped it out of my hard drive and I've never missed it since.

Now Google has IMing (how revolutionary!) and Noah, Mr. Why Don't You Come Up and Videocam Me Sometime, wants us all to sign up and chat with him. Of course, it's PC only, and the one thing I haven't bothered to do with Little Elvis is network Virtual PC to Little E's internet connection, and the last thing my clunky real PC needs is another reason to go slow. So, Noah and I will be forced to communicate the old-fashioned way. Email.

That is soooo 1998.

Meanwhile, the Speech contingent seems to want to organize itself. They want to do all sorts of wonderful things like recruit and raise money. Live long and prosper, I always say, but I'm sort of imagining that we'll recruit the way we always do (we usually get the odd boatload of folks on opening night and spend the rest of the year trying to get rid of them—the day we actually assign work is always pretty effective) and fundraise the way we always do (lots of talk, not much funds, although I would like to get the Family Night back on the books, not for the fundraising so much as for the socializing). I think they're also concerned with organizing a meeting plan. Not easy. It's taken me years to organize my plan (yes, I do have an organized plan, you lout).

And O'C wants to sign up for Bump housing. For 2006. This planning ahead is admirable. So is saving the whales. Personally I think he should spend these last few weeks of summer doing the latter while he still can. They'll be plenty of time for counting when the deal is done.

Today's quiz: how many stupid references can you find in this entry? My banality sometimes amazes even me.

Sdrawkcab

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All right. I got the resolution backwards in my mind. I really like that I was wrong. If the neg has to uphold democratic values, the neg can't critique democratic values. I think of it as a (probably unpremeditated) preemptive strike on the part of the wording committee. They should make it the law going forward. In all resolutions, if the affirmative must uphold a literally negative statement, then negatives must actually run a case (to wit, an affirmation) and "all I have to do is prove the resolution is not true" goes down the proverbials. Of course, affs must also run a case, because they can't respond to what hasn't been said yet.

It might end up being a lot like debate.

Last night I added a (rather punk) graphic to the MHL site, and linked the HH site to the MHL site through the graphic. This took a bit of time for some reason. Maybe because I work on both the PC and Little Elvis simultaneously these days. The PC mostly chugs along upgrading podcast subscriptions through iTunes. Anyone running the old original PC iPod understands the complexities of that. How slow can your computer go? Try it and find out. Meanwhile Little E and I groove along doing everything else.

Kurt has the MHL invoices going out. Everybody owes money; it's just a question of how much. I am so happy that I have nothing to do with that side of things.

I sent a bunch of research leads out yesterday on the listserver. One debater who will remain nameless complained that they didn't write the case for him. Jeesh. And I thought we would have been able to eliminate all the thinking on our end by visiting just the right websites. I was so wrong. (And no doubt he'll complain about this comment.)

And HoraceMan, the superhero with no superpowers, is apparently the only one going to Wake. I'm not surprised. It's a lot of energy and investment early in the year, especially with the energy and investment of Yale following so quickly on its heels. So I signed him up, anyhow. And I put signup deadlines for Monti and BB into the group calendar. I'm assuming that we will send oodle-loads to both, even if O'C is doing all the cooking himself (at both of them—he's pretending to be a parent at Monti just to practice his chops). Speaking of which, I wonder if it's safe to go back to the MI5 website. Last time I looked there were so many mocassins I was tempted to throw Little Elvis out the window, but I'd only do that it O'C were walking by at the opportune moment. Baudrillard was SOOOOOOO right about commerce and reality!

LDEP, and Wines of the World Unite!

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The Lincoln-Douglas Education Project Their goal seems to be making LD safe for the ages. Barnes, an old Hen Hudder, has grabbed the problem and is actually trying to organize folks to do something about it. The problem, of course, is the tendency to argue anything but the resolution, to argue in such a way that the debate is inaccessible to any but a specialized audience, to use materials that are inappropriate to high school, etc. I've been looking at their proposed ballot. I have some reservations about their speaker-point system. It's not a bad idea, necessarily, but a hard one to get across because of embedded practices. That'll be interesting. The ballot also stated: The affirmative must persuade the judge that the resolution is true, and the negative must persuade the judge that the resolution is false. This I don't buy as a paradigm. Not that it's necessarily untrue sometimes, but it's a license for weasely negs that have no offensive thrust. As I've said about a bazillion times, the neg is not just the absence of the aff. So, we'll see how that pans out.

I do like the idea of a general speaking point system adapted by one and all. It's really ridiculous that at a given tournament every judge has a unique idea of what points are for and how they should be rewarded, especially when we're attempting to give speaker awards based on these unique ideas. Throw in those non-English-speaking judges, and Whoa, Nellie. That's why I've posted judging materials on the MHL site, and why I'll distribute those materials at tournaments.

Meanwhile, O'C is up in arms over our team calendar—why is he on our team calendar—which pointed out that the food at Big Bronx, when they had any (there was a year or two when the best you could hope for was Hobo Stew over an open fire at the subway yards), wasn't exactly up to Iron Chef standards. Iron Stomach standards, maybe. If you've read his invitation, you'll notice that this year they're doing a Wines of the World tasting or something like that. Beers of the World? Diet Cokes of the World? God only knows, because aside from promising it, there's no explanation of what it is. Not that we need a menu down to the last peanut and coriander leaf, but this Buffets of the Bronx thing isn't exactly clear. Sips of Science? Feasts of Forensics? Lucullian LD? Pastry Puffs of Policy? (That one's got a ring to it.) Whiffs of Pffft? Whatever. Well, I'm reserving judgment until the event. (Oh, yeah. I've been communicating with BA Gregg who's doing Pffft tab, and he sounds open to torturing O'C as much as I am. We might have to install a take-a-number system, the way things are going.)

MHL is live

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I sent out a bazoogle of messages today pointing people to the MHL site. I'm surprised how few of the messages bounced, and how few people wrote back and told me I should fold it seven times and stuff it.

I did cancel the first chez. The thing is, the meeting is specifically to give early prep to Ewok and HoraceMan, and neither could attend. Poor Ewok has to go on vacation with his parents. That'll bum you out... I mean, if he doesn't want to go, they can always take me. I could use a few days off. And HoraceMan (with God knows what strange superpower) is still out there making mocassins from birch bark.

Anyhow, all the mailing lists for MHL are up and running, and the next big job, after some calendar management (don't ask, cause I ain't a' gonna tell), is the Bump invite.

Little Elvis update: My portable mouse (a two-click jobbie) works like the proverbial charm. It Apple-mouses for the Apple, and PC-mouses for Virtual PC. Go, Little Elvis. Go!

Good news, bad news

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But I'm not sure which is which.

According to Erin, I am banned in China. I am used to being banned in small venues. It's nice to know I've reached the big time.

According to O'C, there was a joke pic of me on DMZ. Of course I missed it, because the site is mostly pix of people on the premises making mocassins out of birch bark. Parochial, shall we say? Of course, you know I love the site. With great abandon. (Which means I've sort of abandoned the site at least until the mocassin-making is over.) Will I rot in hell for not consulting it every two seconds? I wonder if it's banned in China...

According to Burgers, there is a blog devoted entirely to burgers. (Okay, there were only two categories and this is a third thing, but can't you be a little flexible?) Figures. And it figures he would know about it.

I wonder if people in China are eating hamburgers, wondering where I am while they read about mocassin-making at DMZ?

Who are these people?

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I'm putting together a mailing list for the MHL. My starting point was my mailing list for Bump. Good gravy! There's a couple of hundred names, and I can identify maybe 3, and 2 of those are Lynne C's. I asked Kurt to add his names, and we'll send it out, I hope, the beginning of next week. After the delivery failures and the don't-darken-my-electronic-door-ever-again responses, we should whittle it down to a reasonable number.

The season slowly creeps toward us. I'm looking forward to a small chez next week, although no one has really confirmed. Ewok will just be getting off the gunboat from his camp, and Horace is still at his camp sewing moccasins, so who knows? Worst case scenario, I'll do some research. Although this new topic makes it pretty obvious what we can expect. Certain gonifs will drag out their democracy Ks, other gonifs will miss the whole point, and nine people on the entire east coast will actually debate the topic. Claire, who has strong feelings that all immigrants should be run into the ocean, was worried that her personal opinions might cloud her judgment. As if she'd actually get to hear people debating the topic! I'm seeing her next week, probably, so we can sort that out in person.

My next big chore is the Bump invite update, followed by organizing the meeting plan for the year, followed by meditating over the team appointments. Aside from putting NoShow in charge of Attendance, I really haven't figured any of it out yet. Speaking of which: Has NoShow moved out of the District? Would we know if he had?

"I survived the Bump tournament"

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Kate, who is literally on her way to Thailand at the moment, i.e., somewhere over the Pacific Ocean reading Harry Potter VI, made a remarkable discovery in the attic before she left. Somehow she managed to uncover about half a dozen old "I survived the Bump tournament" tee shirts. These amazing pieces of couture are black with white writing, and there is the suggestion of a bump at the word Bump. I've already got one, of course. I wear it often, but always under another shirt so no one can see it. The reason I still have mine is that I haven't thrown away a wearable item of clothing since the Carter Administration. But that's just me.

I wonder what I should do with these things. They are beyond crappy prizes. They apotheosize the concept of crappy prizes. Any suggestions gratefully accepted.

Speaking of Bump, some schmegeggie just e-mailed me that he wants to judge. His credentials look fine, aside from my suspicion that he's part of the O'C posse. I like people who plan ahead, but I'm not quite ready to open the Bump books just yet. I thought I'd get the invitation written first.

And last night I finished the MHL website. It is to websites as Wonder Bread is to the Napoleon. That is, it is of the vanilla persuasion. I'm hoping that eventually I can pass management and design of the site to someone with the time and skills to make it sing. Or even hum. I've managed, at most, to put it on life support and feed it through a tube. But, it should get the job done. http://www.geocities.com/mhldebate/index.html if you want to take a look.

The return of the chez

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I've just scheduled the first chez. With Ewok and Horace emigrating to various early events, we'll need to get cracking. Assuming at least one of them can show up—they are of the "I will camp till I get married or maybe even later" persuasion—we'll have it. Yale folk can wait, maybe, but then again, school starts so late this year, and then there's novices to contend with (with any luck), so an early start may be beneficial to one and all. Yeah. As long as there's a marginal quorum of anyone, we'll have it.

Maybe NoShow will show up. What are the odds?

I'm going to move this year's chezzes to the basement. There's chairs there now, and there's a certain debatey feel to the place. Fewer comfy chairs, to make things clear right off the bat, but that will keep down the fist fights. There's also enough computers to run NASA, but then again, I think they run NASA on a wing, a prayer and an Apple IIe, so that might not be saying much.

If there were any question that debate season has started, the offers have started pouring in to sell me things like topic briefs. These are, of course, written by experts. Curiously enough, these experts tend to be college freshman and sophomores who struck me as pretty idiotic not all that long ago. Apparently they mature quickly. To tell you the truth, I think they're missing a bet. They're willing to research for you, and write your cases for you, but why aren't they willing to debate for you too? If I ever go into the briefs business, I'm going to go all the way. Why should you have to do any work at all? Want to sleep in on Saturdays? Want to skip that hellish bus ride? Buy "Jim's Debaters." We do it all for you!

Bleeccchhh!

Debate season officially begins

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Resolved: In matters of U.S. immigration policy, restrictions on the rights of non-citizens are consistent with democratic ideals.

Thus reads the Sept-Oct resolution. Which, as it turns out, we did not vote for. We hardly ever vote for the winning resolutions. So far we've gotten two out of four, and one of them was the Nationals topic, which we didn't debate, and which everybody probably voted for, which is why it was the Nat's topic in the first place. I guess you can say that we Hen Hudders are blue state debaters in a red state debate world.

Not that it strikes me as a particularly bad resolution, at least insofar as the subject is new and interesting (immigration, that is, not democracy). The reason it's not a stunner is that it's so narrow (if argued well). Narrow topics can be good in some respects, as they force you to argue well because there's not much case variation from round to round after a topic gets established. But the rub is, there's not much variation from round to round. Oh, sure, the CT brigade will tell us that we're exluding aliens from our democracy or some other obvious point, let's say along colonialism lines, but that's obviously the point. So this boils down to relatively straightforward policy issues, but in aid of achieving those wonderful "democratic ideals." Of course, that parenthetical "argued well" means that I can envision without too much difficulty all sorts of bizarre interpretations of "the rights of non-citizens" that will ask judges to do everything but consider the real world issue that this topic is asking about.

That said, I suggest that the idea of "real world issue" inform anyone who wants to start researching. There's plenty of real and good stuff on this. It's a big issue today (and not just because of terrorism).

Little Elvis update: I've loaded Windows versions of Word and Excel. I own those fair and square, and now if I need 'em , I've got 'em. I also loaded my good old AOLPress program for HTML editing. Pretty bare-bones WYSIWYG, which I've been using for years. My websites aren't cute, but they do the job.

The Little Elvis that Could

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I guess it's no surprise. Or at least it's no surprise to Claire. Buy yourself a serial to USB connector, plug one end into your HP 4P and the other into Little Elvis, try out a driver or two (there was none specifically for the 4P, so I ended up with a generic 4), and voila! The word "Test" comes out on a nice little piece of paper. And here's the thing. I love my HP. It's a war horse. No silly photo printing, no changing the cartridge more than once a decade. Put paper in, printed pages come out. It's older than Pip, I think. And will outlast Pip VIII.

And from the OMG division, I report the following. I went to Dia in Beacon yesterday. Great Googly-Moogly! They actually did have the pile of dirt on the floor from Caveman! They have negative sculpture! They have a lot of formalistic stuff, where some schmegeggie arranges things in a lot of ways and the reason it's art is not because of the material (string or flourescent light bulbs or boxes) but because of the arrangement. Lots of Warhol. A collection of white paintings on different media. (Makes those decisions at the art store so easy. "What'll it be today, bub?" "Oh, why don't you give me some white this time.") A lot of people from the City had moseyed up to the joint, looking like they had moseyed up from the City, if you know what I mean. That is, a lot of people were there who don't occur in nature, or at least nature as it is practiced in the Hudson Valley. It's a short walk from the train station. I can imagine their joy, taking a two hour ride up on the hottest day of the year, walking a couple of blocks in Death Valley sun and paying $10 each to see a series of paintings where the guy paints the date of the painting according to the style/language of the country. That's all the paintings are. Years of them, marked with the date. Little rectangles, all done by hand (I'll give him that). There was even that remarkable day in February when he painted two of them. Oh frabjous day!

If anyone wants to see the future, take the field trip to the Dia. Send me a postcard. I did like that wall of automobile sculpture pieces, and they had a nice picture of that. Send it to me care of the Musee D'Orsay. I'll be there looking at the Monets.

Rebuttals

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Last night I started organizing the response stuff for what I will simply call unorthodox cases. You might call them krappy kritiks, but not me. I am genteel. I don't look at critical theory and say, oh look, a blight on the intellectual landscape, or, gosharooni, big new words to hide little old ideas. Oh no, not me. I am civilized. And for anyone in or going to college, facing professors who dish out that (I won't call it nonsense, so how about this:) material, I feel your pain. Needless to say, we can't preempt everything, but if we have a sense of what may come from people whose goal is not to engage in rational dialogue but to win rounds through obfuscation, we'll be better off than if we don't.

Of course, the crux of the strike against modern theory was in Caveman. Also in P: A Very Short Introduction. And that crux is its sterility. But you don't need me to tell you that—

Okay, I'll stop whining.

Heard from the Nostrumite, by the way, and found out why we haven't heard from him in a while. He and Odelie are on a missionary trip. All right, Odelie's on a missionary trip, and the Mite is on the expense account. Whatever. Thank God she's not a preacher of one of your poorer religions. Anyhow, they're working their way through heathen Canada, apparently. To be honest, I was not aware that this was one of your heathen hotbeds, but I'm just going by what the Mite told me. Those Canadians can be pretty hostile to proselytizers, he says, and more than one Episcopalian has found himself being boiled in one of those big pots with the carrots and onions floating around him while the local frostbacks twirl the bones in their noses. "The worst of them are in the Baby Seal Clubbing Clubs," he reports. "Most of them are either Lutherans or Baptists, with maybe the odd Zoroastrian riling up the fringe element." Beware of fringe element Canadians, I always say. The lad reports that he has been unable to even think about TWHS while he's up there, but he expects to be reporting from the front around when school starts up again. "Besides," he says, "who cares about debate in the middle of August, aside from the O'C?"

Personally, I fear that the Mite's removal of self from the front does not bode well for next year's debate season at TW. Hell, even I'm up to my eyeballs (all right, I'm up to my liver at best, but I'm up to something) in debate in the middle of August. If nothing else, I have to keep up with Burgers' blog. I can't wait till he gets back to school. It's time for him to stop surfing the internet. Maybe he can start going to banjo festivals with his father; jump into the old Deliverance wagon and head out to where the grass is blue and the necks are red... Hee-haw!

Dell to Little Elvis: Drop dead!

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Of course, if you weren't born when Gerald Ford was President, that headline won't be quite the piece of humor it's intended to be. But as McGrath always says, if you were smarter, I'd be funnier.

So Little Elvis will not power the Dell printer. When I looked at the Dell documentation, it quite clearly said that this baby would only run under Windows. Now it's not inconceivable that I could make it work through Virtual PC, but it doesn't seem worth the energy to try. And, oh, the HP 4P connects through those things called serial ports, which I don't seem to have on Little E. Now maybe I could find a connector of some sort, but I can probably buy a new printer for less money. And the Epson, as I reported earlier, works fine. So the printer experiment comes to a crashing halt. The fact that I can print TRPC stuff on the Epson with Little Elvis is all the comfort I really need.

I still haven't tried to sit Little E down at the Yamaha. Once I get over Caveman postpartum depression, I'll probably give it a try. My Garageband manual is almost bigger that Little Elvis and the box he rode in on! Not to mention the Yamaha software. An adventure waiting to happen...

I'm done

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http://www.geocities.com/jim_menick/caveman.pdf

(And added to the LD corner on the website.)

I've deleted the entry here; who needs it? The pdf is the whole kit and caboodle, nicely formatted, ready for printing. Make sure you have LOTS of paper, sports fans.

On to better things...

Awfully buggy

Caveman, which I just finished editing on paper, has an awful lot of typos. Be warned. I'll have it clean on the HHHS website within a few days (the whole thing), so clean you can eat off it...

Batten down the hatches, sports fans

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Caveman Part 5, first draft, is finished. I will run it through the spell checker (I was sorely tired of it last night when I wrapped it up, so there is that last step still) and post it here to prove that it does indeed exist, probably tomorrow. After that, a final polish of all 5 parts and I'll post it to the HH website, most likely as an addition to the Hillary Duff. (Pt 5 will make no sense if you don't have 1-4 under the old belt, so if for some bizarre reason you're reading this but haven't read those, well, you've been warned.)

As for the refutations and whatnot, I'll post them to one of our team databases. Good, bad or indifferent, they are nonetheless potential positions that we might want to keep to ourselves for a while. I'll get to them next week.

Oh. I did just officially sign up again as coach for next year. This keeps the school's state trooper from shooting me on sight when I show up unannounced in the building. All right, actually, it doesn't keep him from shooting me on sight when I show up unannounced in the building, but it's the best I can hope for. I had lunch with Olivieri yesterday and I was telling that I'm sort of climbing the walls with boredom waiting for the season to start. The old Olive's doing well, if you're wondering.

When does school start, anyhow?

Latest news from Hermie

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Dear Mr. Menick:

Hello. How are you? I am fine.

Thinks are pretty quiet here at HQ, as you can imagine. The first herd has been shooed out of the stables, we've mucked everything out after them, put in new hay, and are ready for our next session. Now we're just waiting.

I thought you might be interested in my job during all of this. As you know, when little kids go away to summer camp, the administrations often do elaborate web pages for mommy and daddy back home to keep abreast of what junior and juniette are up to. We understand that some parents consult these pages with maddening frequency, although we have also heard tell that other families, after shipping off their spawn, ship themselves off to obscure love nests with heart-shaped jacuzzis and can't even remember their children's names during the ensuing festivities. Be that as it may, we have taken a leaf from the pages of these sites, to coin a phrase, and here at JLA we too publish a website full of photos and diaries of the activities of the day. Unfortunately, when those activities are actually taking place, we are too busy to publish any photos and diaries. So my job, in the interlude between sessions, is to make up photos and diaries. I have been busily visiting summer school sessions at La Jolla High (pronounced La Hoy-a Joll), where there are actual classes taking place—mostly remedial work for LD students where the LD does not stand for Lincoln-Douglas—and photographing these students as they learn their numbers and ABCs. Also, I have been creating diary blog entries for each day of the session (all of the names are taken from the many high school debate soap operas that infest the internet; we figure no one will recognize them as fictitious). When the session starts, we will post these pictures and diary entries one right after the other, bang bang bang. Every time a parent logs on, they'll see us in action. Sort of. They'll never see any real JLA kids, of course, and more to the point, they'll never see their own kids, but our guess is that they'll just assume that their kids will show up on the next posting. Or the next. Or the next... Eventually they'll give up and go off to one of those obscure love nests, or assume that their LDer (where the LD does stand for Lincoln-Douglas) is just out of the picture, on the right, next to Ham Buglaroni. ("Look, Ma! Isn't that Timmy Mae's left elbow?")

I hope you will follow our adventures when they begin next week, even though I may have spoiled your enjoyment by pointing out that they are entirely a fantasy. Meanwhile, I hope you have been enjoying your summer. I look forward to seeing you on the circuit next year.

Your friend,

Herman Melville
Cub Reporter

A subtle shift into first gear

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Well, up till now we've been idling, except for the couple of folks who went to Camp Gahskif-Tadabayt. But I sent out a notice yesterday about Yale, and people are beginning to confirm, and I was entering data into the signup db, and all of a sudden it feels real again. And Craig is trying to drum up business for Wake, which I think is a bit of a stretch if one does a CBA, if the C includes corraling parents as well as spending money. I'm a firm believer in the need to corral parents, obviously, but judicious corraling is necessary. Debate lasts three or four years, there's a tournament practically every week, and when Mother Teresa's kids were doing LD even she told them that every once in a while she wanted a weekend without hearing about the social contract, feminism, or the metanarrative.

I would be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel with Caveman—I actually am up to metanarrative and Lyotard—if I could only kill the Hydra in God of War. Which, if you know God of War, means that I've gotten exactly nowhere. I wonder if I was cut out for this videogame business. If anyone HAS killed the Hydra, would you please tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Caviar and champagne would have made it a doubles bid!

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I just faxed some ballots to Kurt, as a template for the MHL. I stripped everything out of them except the times of the LD speeches. I figured, if they need to know how to judge, they can pick up our handy dandy judge instructions. This of course excludes the ever confusing "22 points = Excellent" issue.

I'll get to the Yale registration shortly. We will have to confirm, because room lists will be due at the hotel. The Speech monster is, coincidentally, rearing its forensic head, with Dave telling people to itemize their pieces. The only result I saw was a senior begging to be dropped from the list. It is ever thus.

O'C is promising a wonderful Big Bronx this year. Well, actually, he's promising good food, since he knows the two are synonymous as far as I'm concerned. I've always maintained that BB would be an octos bid in both policy and LD if only they had served more free shrimp cocktails during the wilderness years.

The new profile pic, if you don't know, is a still from HERO. This is one of the most gorgeous movies I have ever seen. You could watch it with the sound off and love it. It's also pretty good with the sound on...