I’ve been mulling this for a while. Since I have an iPad and an iPhone, both now nattily upgraded to IOS 5, the question was, what about the computer? The beauties of the cloud are sort of lost if you don’t throw all your hardware into it. But I’ve got Velvet Elvis so nicely honed through years of experience, including the running of tournaments using VMWare Fusion, that I was loath to mess around with it. Since the DJ is within walking distance of an Apple store, I started cruising the mall with techlust in my heart.
These were the options:
1. Status quo, and no computer connection to the IOS 5 devices. But this is like buying a convertible and never putting the top down.
2. A new computer. Either I bought a Mac Mini and set up a new desktop, which would be the cheaper alternative, or I bought an Air, which has the virtue of inherent sexiness. I played with the Air a bit (the little one). Since in Lion you can expand the window to screen size, it was just about the same as Velvet Elvis, all things considered. But then the question is, does this tiny sucker become my home computer? That didn’t make sense. And the problem was an anchor computer, not an extra travel companion; VV already travels fine.
3. Bite the proverbial bullet and upgrade.
I knew that, one way or another, I could upgrade VV and still have TRPC somewhere. Worst case scenario is my Dell. So, I bit the bullet and visited the Mac App Store for the very first time on Monday night. Two minutes later I was downloading Lion.
Installing a new operating system is the sort of thing you do in your sleep. I mean, you start the installation, and then you go to bed, because it takes forever. And sure enough, yesterday morning as I was heading out the door to the DJ, I checked VV and there was a little welcome message explaining the brave new world of gestures to me. I gestured to the machine to be patient and went off to work.
Last night, after meeting with the Sailors, I attacked the Windows issue. I had realized at some point during the day that I hadn’t backed up my Windows stuff, which was no great loss, but would mean finding my Round Robin schema and reinstalling Word and Excel. By the way, the versions of Word and Excel that I run (this is XP, folks) are so old that in Word the alphabet only has 24 letters (Q and W weren’t invented yet) and Excel thinks that infinity is somewhere in the neighborhood of 42. Whatever. When I clicked on the icon to run my old version of Fusion, I was told about the difference between 32 and 64 bits in no uncertain terms, and that was that. So, I got the latest version of Fusion for Lion, and downloaded that. By now I was realizing that even though once upon a time I had set up Fusion like a house a’fire, I had forgotten how I had done it and would be faced with the daunting challenge of doing it again. Oh joy. Oh rapture.
And of course, I couldn’t install Fusion as an upgrade. I tried to install it as a second version of the software, keeping the first, having some dream that I could figure out how to port over stuff, but I couldn’t do that either. Sigh. So, I replaced the old Fusion with the new Fusion.
And all my Windows stuff was there! All my apps! My various versions of TRPC, including the one that does tenths of a point for judges who can tell the difference between a 27.3 performance and a 27.4. Word, Excel, RRs, pictures of O'C getting Cinderella's autograph—everything!
Life is good.
So, everything seems to be running well. I purchased some iTunes music, and sure enough afterwards it was in the cloud for every device. The calendar and contacts are humming. My version of iPhoto is too old to be clouded, but the comments in the App store say that this really isn’t working yet, so I can wait.
Tonight I check the printer drivers; they’re the sort of thing that almost inevitably require upgrades with a new OS, and the last thing I want to do is arrive at Regis Saturday unable to print a schematic. But the bottom line is, as with every other OS 10 upgrade I’ve done, and I’ve done them all, it was relatively painless. Next up is looking at the new features, which may or may not appeal (I’ve already sort of bought into the inverse scrolling).
And think of all the money I saved! Now maybe I can buy that Jambox…
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
The Debutante Ball
The 2011 First-Timers’ (and Some Old-Timers’) event now joins a billion other tournaments in the annals of forgotten history, except by O’C, who memorizes all the results just in case there’s a pop quiz some day. Somehow we didn’t get the policy results posted; Kaz gave me empty files, so she’s poking around her computer and should come up with something shortly. Perish the thought that the results not enter history. It’s small things like this that send the O’Cs of life over the edge.
We had not one but two schools trying to put sophomores in as judges. This has never been allowed, and it’s clear on the website, and now I’ve asked CP to help us incorporate something into tabroom.com as well. Meanwhile I’ll have to choice but to check all the judges against team rosters: quelle pain, as they say in France (although when they do, they’re probably talking about bread, which is a comment that proves that, once again, if you were smarter, I’d be funnier). I tend to take a mean view of shenanigans, as the VCA well knows. I have no compunctions about tossing people out of tournaments, and I intend to continue that practice. The good news is that the violators are always the same people, over and over again. Recidivism runs high in debate circles. Go figure.
We had the tournament at Bronx Scientology, which looks exactly the same as it did last week for Big Jake. Even the postings and announcements were still taped to the various walls. I would suggest that if the custodians expect to get trophies for cleaning up after the tournament, they might want to get on the stick.
The tournament itself was nonstop busy work. JV and Abdul did some training while Kaz and I data’d it up, then Abdul came by to help enter and JV went to California to try to break into the movies or something. O’C was shocked that I managed to pull off a 6:30 award ceremony and four rounds. Actually it was 6:35 but You Know Who was, as always, the last ballot in. (Yeah, we had Voldemort in the PF pool.) A splendid time was had by all, and then, wonder of wonders, we announced that we would roughly do it again this coming week at Regis.
The fun never ends.
We had not one but two schools trying to put sophomores in as judges. This has never been allowed, and it’s clear on the website, and now I’ve asked CP to help us incorporate something into tabroom.com as well. Meanwhile I’ll have to choice but to check all the judges against team rosters: quelle pain, as they say in France (although when they do, they’re probably talking about bread, which is a comment that proves that, once again, if you were smarter, I’d be funnier). I tend to take a mean view of shenanigans, as the VCA well knows. I have no compunctions about tossing people out of tournaments, and I intend to continue that practice. The good news is that the violators are always the same people, over and over again. Recidivism runs high in debate circles. Go figure.
We had the tournament at Bronx Scientology, which looks exactly the same as it did last week for Big Jake. Even the postings and announcements were still taped to the various walls. I would suggest that if the custodians expect to get trophies for cleaning up after the tournament, they might want to get on the stick.
The tournament itself was nonstop busy work. JV and Abdul did some training while Kaz and I data’d it up, then Abdul came by to help enter and JV went to California to try to break into the movies or something. O’C was shocked that I managed to pull off a 6:30 award ceremony and four rounds. Actually it was 6:35 but You Know Who was, as always, the last ballot in. (Yeah, we had Voldemort in the PF pool.) A splendid time was had by all, and then, wonder of wonders, we announced that we would roughly do it again this coming week at Regis.
The fun never ends.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
The novices are about to launch, etc.
We TVFTed last night, for the first time since August. This abundance of infrequency is not from lack of trying. Early in the year there’s a lot of traveling and setups, and then this, that and the other thing arise, and the next thing you know, it’s the end of October. We should settle into a reasonable regularity going forward.
The abundance of infrequency with this blog, on the other hand, will probably continue. There are just so many hours in the day, and writing that other blog makes this one harder to fit in. I do try, though.
On the Sailor front, it looks as if we have 4 solid plebes and a couple more translucent ones. NPR is dithering between speech and debate and has asked me to choose for him, earning a predictably Yoda like response. I can’t tell people what’s right for them; high school is all about answering that question for yourself. At this week’s meeting the Cannibal stood up to the plate on some training (shades of the Panivore), which bodes well for the future. But the future remains clouded because the juniors were out on the bounding main visiting Ellis Island, my first thoughts on hearing which were that they were leaving the country and going back where they came from. With the abundance of their absence at this week's meeting, we were unable to discuss PF. Next week.
This weekend is the annual First-Timer’s event. I’ve gotten a couple of people complaining about the rules of the MHL, specifically in regards to the fact that a middle school debater is not a novice. Our experience has been that former middle schoolers are way beyond the average novice; after all, Robbie and HoraceMan won novice Scarsdale as 8th graders, and granted they were exceptional, they weren’t all that exceptional. People tell me that their middle schoolers only debated a little bit, though, and I am a little torn. We’ll have to talk about this among ourselves over the weekend. Maybe we can do better than an absolute elevation to JV. Anyhow, the point of first time debate is that it’s a person’s first time; in the past we’ve had a not-first division, and we’ll try that again this time and see if the numbers support it. We want everyone to come and have rounds, one way or another. The goal of the league is inclusiveness. Unfortunately, you can’t please everyone.
I have talked a bit about Big Jake last weekend, and there isn’t a lot to say. Each happy family is the same: a well run tournament mostly does all the things a tournament should do the same as every other well run tournament. The problem is that well run tournaments are not guaranteed at any level. But I have to admit that, if nothing else, the reliability of the software these days, combined with the experience of the folks behind the wheel (Bietz and I worked like telepaths—it was spooky) means that things will probably go okay at that end at least. As I said to O’C, running a tournament, i.e., being the tournament director, means you don’t do anything yourself but manage everybody else doing things. He’s gotten there now. And he’s appreciative, as a manager, of the roles everyone else plays. If he thanks the little people (like me) one more time, I’m going to have to poison his dragon roll. On the other hand, he did claim that the entire Bronx team (there’s 2837 novice LDers just for a start) have all come down with Big Bronxitis. There’s a price to pay, apparently.
The abundance of infrequency with this blog, on the other hand, will probably continue. There are just so many hours in the day, and writing that other blog makes this one harder to fit in. I do try, though.
On the Sailor front, it looks as if we have 4 solid plebes and a couple more translucent ones. NPR is dithering between speech and debate and has asked me to choose for him, earning a predictably Yoda like response. I can’t tell people what’s right for them; high school is all about answering that question for yourself. At this week’s meeting the Cannibal stood up to the plate on some training (shades of the Panivore), which bodes well for the future. But the future remains clouded because the juniors were out on the bounding main visiting Ellis Island, my first thoughts on hearing which were that they were leaving the country and going back where they came from. With the abundance of their absence at this week's meeting, we were unable to discuss PF. Next week.
This weekend is the annual First-Timer’s event. I’ve gotten a couple of people complaining about the rules of the MHL, specifically in regards to the fact that a middle school debater is not a novice. Our experience has been that former middle schoolers are way beyond the average novice; after all, Robbie and HoraceMan won novice Scarsdale as 8th graders, and granted they were exceptional, they weren’t all that exceptional. People tell me that their middle schoolers only debated a little bit, though, and I am a little torn. We’ll have to talk about this among ourselves over the weekend. Maybe we can do better than an absolute elevation to JV. Anyhow, the point of first time debate is that it’s a person’s first time; in the past we’ve had a not-first division, and we’ll try that again this time and see if the numbers support it. We want everyone to come and have rounds, one way or another. The goal of the league is inclusiveness. Unfortunately, you can’t please everyone.
I have talked a bit about Big Jake last weekend, and there isn’t a lot to say. Each happy family is the same: a well run tournament mostly does all the things a tournament should do the same as every other well run tournament. The problem is that well run tournaments are not guaranteed at any level. But I have to admit that, if nothing else, the reliability of the software these days, combined with the experience of the folks behind the wheel (Bietz and I worked like telepaths—it was spooky) means that things will probably go okay at that end at least. As I said to O’C, running a tournament, i.e., being the tournament director, means you don’t do anything yourself but manage everybody else doing things. He’s gotten there now. And he’s appreciative, as a manager, of the roles everyone else plays. If he thanks the little people (like me) one more time, I’m going to have to poison his dragon roll. On the other hand, he did claim that the entire Bronx team (there’s 2837 novice LDers just for a start) have all come down with Big Bronxitis. There’s a price to pay, apparently.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Another Bronx Bites the Dust
O’C wants me to review Big Jake, on the assumption that I’ll say all sorts of wonderful things about it and how he should be carried on the backs of forensicians everywhere and whatnot. Yeah, right. I mean, the tournament was fine and things went well, but if you were there you know that, and if you weren’t, you either don’t care or you do care for reasons I hesitate to guess at. What I know the VCA wants to hear is all the bad stuff.
I’m your man.
Consider this the list for improvements for next year:
1. There was no Sporcle in the tab room. This is like having no air in the space suit. The Jake authorities apparently think that Sporcle will ruin the youth of America. So what? Tab rooms need it. Jeesh.
2. There wasn’t a Starbucks within a hundred miles. You want me to be pleasant to you at eight o’clock in the morning without a triple venti nonfat latte? Dream on.
3. The conspiracy theory du jour from Bietz, that Steve Jobs died weeks ago but they were keeping him on ice because they didn’t have the iPhone 5 and wanted to distract everyone, was the worst conspiracy du jour in tab room history.
4. Ryan Hamilton snores. In the tab room. Regularly. How could I sleep with that racket going on?
5. This tournament cost me about $400. First, the ice cream from Mr. Softee was so softee that it ruined my sneakers and I had to order a new pair. Second, Bietz had this little portable Bluetooth speaker that I am now going to have to buy. I can’t afford this kind of tabbing. I am not made of money.
6. Carrying a walkie-talkie into the tab room is a hanging offense.
7. I am a firm believer that the tab room should have an open door policy. However, it should also lock from the inside, and the windows should be covered so that it looks like no one is home.
8. Debaters: Problems that arise in round one should be addressed some time before semis. Our Wayback Machine ain't what it used to be.
9. If O’C is going to eat a sandwich in the tab room, there should be sandwiches in the judges’ lounge when I look at what O’C is eating and decide I want one too and walk all the way down there—it's halfway to Brooklyn—to find nothing but pasta salads. Pasta salads, even good pasta salads, are not the sandwich that O’C was eating.
10. If you ask me what time it is, please do not do so when I am standing under a clock.
11. People who think Yo-Yo Ma is the antichrist know nothing about music. People who, after announcing that Yo-Yo Ma is the antichrist, make disparaging Yo-Yo Ma gestures for the rest of the day should be put to sleep, although while trying not to start snoring again.
12. If I invite you to a steak house, try not to be a vegetarian.
13. If I’m going to wear my Mickey Mouse Bronx Booster Pin, people ought to bow down as I walk past. I didn’t get one salaam all weekend.
14. Having Panivores at your tournament does not warrant a dozen trays of macaroni and cheese. It just encourages them.
As I say, other than that, it went fine.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Big Bronx Schedule
(An oldie but a goodie.)
Friday
1:00-3:00 Registration
3:30 Opening Assembly
3:45 Award Ceremony for Past Performance -- featuring awards not presented last year that have been moldering ever since in the basement
4:00 Round 1 (all divisions)
6:00 Random Draw Award Ceremony – Achievement awards for all those advancing from Round 1
6:30 Dinner in cafeteria (featuring foods of all nations not presently suffering from a famine)
7:00 Dinner Award Ceremony – Achievements in both eating and cooking will be honored
8:00 Round 2 (all divisions)
10:00 Housing in auditorium
Saturday
7:30 Housing Award Ceremony (A) – Achievement in sleeping, showering and brushing of teeth (for those who traveled more than one hour to their housing)
8:00 Housing Award Ceremony (B) – Achievement in sleeping, showering and brushing of teeth (for those who traveled less than one hour to their housing)
8:30 Round 3 Flight A
9:15 Award Ceremony – Achievement in Round 3 Flight A
9:30 Round 3 Flight B
10:15 Award Ceremony – Achievement in Round 3 Flight B
10:30 Coffee break (featuring coffees of all nations that grow coffee humanely, if any)
11:00 Round 4
1:00 Lunch in cafeteria (featuring foods of all nations where the “Star Wars” films have grossed over a billion dollars)
1:30 Award Ceremony – Honoring those who put their napkins in their laps during the eating of lunch
2:00 Round 5
5:00 Non-Award Assembly – The auditorium is there, let’s all go into it for a few minutes and pretend something is happening. Anyone caught playing the piano at this assembly will be shot.
5:30 Early Bird Dinner in cafeteria (featuring foods of all nations that serve cheap evening meals to senior citizens when the rest of the world is still finishing off lunch)
6:00 Award Ceremony – Honoring those who respect Senior Citizens, unless the senior citizens are judging, in which case they throw parker house rolls at them
7:00 Bronx Achievement Award Ceremony – honoring those who have shown up at Big Jake more than just a couple of times, and whose registration checks haven’t bounced
8:00 Some Round (we’ve lost track)
10:00 Housing in the auditorium. Watch your step. There’s going to be a lot of awards scattered around and you don’t want to trip over any of them.
Sunday
8:00 Round 7 or so
10:00 Award Ceremony to honor anyone who actually shows up at this award ceremony
10:30 Announcement of advancing debaters
10:45 Award Ceremony for advancing debaters
11:00 Announcement of non-advancing debaters
11:15 Award Ceremony for non-advancing debaters
11:30 Service Award Ceremony for custodial staff, food vendors, Big Jake Parents’ Association, Big Jake Alumni Association, Big Jake Former Felons Association, etc
12:00 Elimination Rounds begin. (Please note: in the interest of moving things along quickly, awards for the elimination rounds will be given in the rounds. It’s not that we don’t like awards ceremonies, but we do not wish to go overboard.)
Friday
1:00-3:00 Registration
3:30 Opening Assembly
3:45 Award Ceremony for Past Performance -- featuring awards not presented last year that have been moldering ever since in the basement
4:00 Round 1 (all divisions)
6:00 Random Draw Award Ceremony – Achievement awards for all those advancing from Round 1
6:30 Dinner in cafeteria (featuring foods of all nations not presently suffering from a famine)
7:00 Dinner Award Ceremony – Achievements in both eating and cooking will be honored
8:00 Round 2 (all divisions)
10:00 Housing in auditorium
Saturday
7:30 Housing Award Ceremony (A) – Achievement in sleeping, showering and brushing of teeth (for those who traveled more than one hour to their housing)
8:00 Housing Award Ceremony (B) – Achievement in sleeping, showering and brushing of teeth (for those who traveled less than one hour to their housing)
8:30 Round 3 Flight A
9:15 Award Ceremony – Achievement in Round 3 Flight A
9:30 Round 3 Flight B
10:15 Award Ceremony – Achievement in Round 3 Flight B
10:30 Coffee break (featuring coffees of all nations that grow coffee humanely, if any)
11:00 Round 4
1:00 Lunch in cafeteria (featuring foods of all nations where the “Star Wars” films have grossed over a billion dollars)
1:30 Award Ceremony – Honoring those who put their napkins in their laps during the eating of lunch
2:00 Round 5
5:00 Non-Award Assembly – The auditorium is there, let’s all go into it for a few minutes and pretend something is happening. Anyone caught playing the piano at this assembly will be shot.
5:30 Early Bird Dinner in cafeteria (featuring foods of all nations that serve cheap evening meals to senior citizens when the rest of the world is still finishing off lunch)
6:00 Award Ceremony – Honoring those who respect Senior Citizens, unless the senior citizens are judging, in which case they throw parker house rolls at them
7:00 Bronx Achievement Award Ceremony – honoring those who have shown up at Big Jake more than just a couple of times, and whose registration checks haven’t bounced
8:00 Some Round (we’ve lost track)
10:00 Housing in the auditorium. Watch your step. There’s going to be a lot of awards scattered around and you don’t want to trip over any of them.
Sunday
8:00 Round 7 or so
10:00 Award Ceremony to honor anyone who actually shows up at this award ceremony
10:30 Announcement of advancing debaters
10:45 Award Ceremony for advancing debaters
11:00 Announcement of non-advancing debaters
11:15 Award Ceremony for non-advancing debaters
11:30 Service Award Ceremony for custodial staff, food vendors, Big Jake Parents’ Association, Big Jake Alumni Association, Big Jake Former Felons Association, etc
12:00 Elimination Rounds begin. (Please note: in the interest of moving things along quickly, awards for the elimination rounds will be given in the rounds. It’s not that we don’t like awards ceremonies, but we do not wish to go overboard.)
Thursday, October 13, 2011
The Customer is Always Wrong
I hate putting together my own tournament, but I love watching other people put together theirs. At the moment I’m in various stages of involvement with various events. I’m tabbing for O’C starting tomorrow. (It's a unique tournament: The awards ceremony begins Friday afternoon and ends around lunchtime on Sunday. Then there’s a single round of debate—the round is named after Japhod Beeblebrox, a Bronx Science alum, and is called the Davy Crockett—and everyone goes home.) So there’s that one. There’s the Tiggers, registration for which opens Saturday, in which I am acting in loco palmeris to help them with general coordination. Then there’s the MHL first-timers’ next weekend, followed by a bunch o’ single days, followed by Bump.
And here’s the thing: people are really a pain in the butt.
There’s the inevitable people who, rather than signing up for a tournament, reinvent the tournament. As CP roughly puts it, you know your tournament has arrived when somebody does this. I personally deleted three requests on tabroom.com to create the New York City Invitational, and there were more than that deleted by other folks. I’ve already deleted one for Princeton. You know, sometimes you really do have to RTFM. There is a big difference between registering for a tournament and creating a tournament. Jeesh.
Then there’s invitations. While tournaments operate to some extent under common law systems of obligation and procedure, each individual tournament has its quirks. All happy tournaments are alike; each unhappy tournament is unhappy in its own way, in other words. (Are we literary today or what?) The problem is, no one ever reads the invitation. RTFI? Tournaments have rules about signing up, payments, fines and the like. I’ve simplied it at Bump so that registration closes and you pay me the money, and if you screw up you put more money into the contribution box and we send it to someplace where life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death, using the respectability of charitable contribution to add to the shame of people screwing up. The thing is, when people screw up, they inevitably claim they didn't. I mean, they swear to God, the furies and Dick Cheney that they’re right and you’re wrong. Hence my poorbox. It’s hard to argue in the face of all those starving suckers.
I do hate to argue with people though. I am, shockingly, rather mellow most of the time. I do need to be pushed. But people have, on occasion, pushed me. I am especially ired by bad judges, which tend to always come from the same schools, and I have begun taking action beyond bloviation. This action is usually met with stunned demurrals or slinking into the sunset mutterings about that @*&$^% Menick without actually confronting me because, well, the customer is always wrong. When you’ve entered non-English speaking judges that you haven’t trained into a tournament, it’s not easy for them to tell me that they in fact do speak English and are trained when they can only do so in a pig latin gumbo of Prakrit and Esperanto**. Jeesh, as I am wont to say.
I can’t wait to see what arises at Big Jake. Mostly it tends to run well on the customer side because people have traveled a long way and spent a lot of money and tend to be professional debate programs, as compared to pikers and stumblers and ne’er-do-wells. And besides, Ryan Hamilton, the tournament's official greeter, enforcer, bouncer and Sporcle referee, will whip people into shape if they don’t watch their step. There are a lot of things that strike fear into the hearts of debate people, e.g, the wrath of JV. But nothing can hold a candle to the threat of exile to Hamiltonia. Look on his works, ye mighty, and despair!***
* I’ve been listening to a certain audiobook lately, read by Stephen Fry, that is a perfect 10.
** Unfortunately, the way I wrote this paragraph allows me no way to work in a joke about someone having a thick Esperanto accent. Too bad.
*** Have we set the allusion record this time out? Close, I’ll say. Damned close.
And here’s the thing: people are really a pain in the butt.
There’s the inevitable people who, rather than signing up for a tournament, reinvent the tournament. As CP roughly puts it, you know your tournament has arrived when somebody does this. I personally deleted three requests on tabroom.com to create the New York City Invitational, and there were more than that deleted by other folks. I’ve already deleted one for Princeton. You know, sometimes you really do have to RTFM. There is a big difference between registering for a tournament and creating a tournament. Jeesh.
Then there’s invitations. While tournaments operate to some extent under common law systems of obligation and procedure, each individual tournament has its quirks. All happy tournaments are alike; each unhappy tournament is unhappy in its own way, in other words. (Are we literary today or what?) The problem is, no one ever reads the invitation. RTFI? Tournaments have rules about signing up, payments, fines and the like. I’ve simplied it at Bump so that registration closes and you pay me the money, and if you screw up you put more money into the contribution box and we send it to someplace where life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death, using the respectability of charitable contribution to add to the shame of people screwing up. The thing is, when people screw up, they inevitably claim they didn't. I mean, they swear to God, the furies and Dick Cheney that they’re right and you’re wrong. Hence my poorbox. It’s hard to argue in the face of all those starving suckers.
I do hate to argue with people though. I am, shockingly, rather mellow most of the time. I do need to be pushed. But people have, on occasion, pushed me. I am especially ired by bad judges, which tend to always come from the same schools, and I have begun taking action beyond bloviation. This action is usually met with stunned demurrals or slinking into the sunset mutterings about that @*&$^% Menick without actually confronting me because, well, the customer is always wrong. When you’ve entered non-English speaking judges that you haven’t trained into a tournament, it’s not easy for them to tell me that they in fact do speak English and are trained when they can only do so in a pig latin gumbo of Prakrit and Esperanto**. Jeesh, as I am wont to say.
I can’t wait to see what arises at Big Jake. Mostly it tends to run well on the customer side because people have traveled a long way and spent a lot of money and tend to be professional debate programs, as compared to pikers and stumblers and ne’er-do-wells. And besides, Ryan Hamilton, the tournament's official greeter, enforcer, bouncer and Sporcle referee, will whip people into shape if they don’t watch their step. There are a lot of things that strike fear into the hearts of debate people, e.g, the wrath of JV. But nothing can hold a candle to the threat of exile to Hamiltonia. Look on his works, ye mighty, and despair!***
* I’ve been listening to a certain audiobook lately, read by Stephen Fry, that is a perfect 10.
** Unfortunately, the way I wrote this paragraph allows me no way to work in a joke about someone having a thick Esperanto accent. Too bad.
*** Have we set the allusion record this time out? Close, I’ll say. Damned close.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
It's in their pipes and now they're smoking it
So I walk into the meeting last night, and the room is packed with newbies. Instead of the three I was sort of getting used to, there were maybe a dozen fresh-faced little freshman staring up at me. Apparently there was a general recruitment for all the teams/clubs, and we got some people answering the call. Very nice. Of course, this meant that I had to start at the beginning again, which I really can’t do, but I managed to cover Debate Philosophy 101 in about 20 minutes, and then we went on from there. Whether any of these people will return is questionable, but I talked nonstop for 90 minutes and occasionally someone got one of the jokes and either they will come back or leave the district immediately for gentler shores. I’ll find out next week.
Okay and the Cannibal weren’t there for the PF announcement, but my entire slate of Juniors (two, count ‘em, two) were, and at least one of them was quite happy with this, he being of the persuasion of former LDers who weren’t all that excited about VLD. The plebes probably couldn’t make heads nor tails of any of it; the first-timers probably even less so. Whatever. I’m thinking that the best thing to do is get on the train for December rather than just the one time at most in November. This will allow me to continue concentrating on the Modest Novice and then Nov-Dec through October, which is only two more meetings, while setting up the infrastructure for PF (viz team research).
In private conversations I have had, no one is surprised by the switch. It’s not absolute, which helps. People can LD their little hearts out for four years if they are so inclined, as I’ve said. That’s a good thing, but only for some people. For other people, and I think a majority, PF will be a good thing. As I seek to spread the benefits of debate as I see them to the greatest number, it is, as they say on Vulcan, the logical thing to do.
Okay and the Cannibal weren’t there for the PF announcement, but my entire slate of Juniors (two, count ‘em, two) were, and at least one of them was quite happy with this, he being of the persuasion of former LDers who weren’t all that excited about VLD. The plebes probably couldn’t make heads nor tails of any of it; the first-timers probably even less so. Whatever. I’m thinking that the best thing to do is get on the train for December rather than just the one time at most in November. This will allow me to continue concentrating on the Modest Novice and then Nov-Dec through October, which is only two more meetings, while setting up the infrastructure for PF (viz team research).
In private conversations I have had, no one is surprised by the switch. It’s not absolute, which helps. People can LD their little hearts out for four years if they are so inclined, as I’ve said. That’s a good thing, but only for some people. For other people, and I think a majority, PF will be a good thing. As I seek to spread the benefits of debate as I see them to the greatest number, it is, as they say on Vulcan, the logical thing to do.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
A Big Change
No, I am not quitting LD.
I am simply adding PF.
It’s like this:
Historically, there has always been a drop-off between sophomore and junior years, or wherever the line is drawn between varsity and whatever leads up to it. We have a fairly healthy JV experience regionally, although I have to plead guilty to removing most of the JV divisions from the colleges and replacing them with novice divisions. This was done to provide more experiences for novices, with the assumption that the other kids going to college tournaments ought to kick themselves up a notch and go varsity. Also, the JV divisions were confused amalgams of debaters with anywhere from one week to three years of experience, which made them a little less than competitive, or a little too competitive, depending on your point of view.
In any case, the drop-off in LD is not new. I’ve seen it since the beginning of my tenure at Sailorville. Whatever the nature of LD over the years, the jump to varsity has meant a much bigger commitment than some debaters were already making. The kid who wanted to derive benefits from debate without giving it the commitment of one’s total soul was left out. That kid could continue with the activity, but only to face a career of relentless losing and confusion. Today’s LD is probably more confusing than ever. At least in the past, while the material might be over one’s head, at least one could follow what was going on. Now speed makes that difficult, unless one has already sold one’s soul to do that speed oneself (no easy trick). As I have said many times, I have nothing against speed intrinsically, but I personally can’t follow it (although I used to, when I judged every week, although now it’s even faster so I’m not so sure I could do it if I tried). Those who believe that speed leads to only judges who can do speed who are, by definition, college students, could be right, but I don’t think that this is exclusively the case at any tournament except, maybe, TOC. Still, speed is almost everywhere, at every tournament, if not in every round.
Another aspect of today’s debate that requires that soul-selling is theory. Again, I have nothing against theory and see it as a useful tool against abusive positions, but given the prevalence of theory in rounds, one has to assume that virtually all debaters are being abusive in the first place, requiring these tools in almost every round to combat them. Also, of course, there are the sort of positions that I’m sure will be used in Nov-Dec, where the argument whether one is morally obligated to help those in need (which, I would suggest, is emphatically negative) will never touch on the moral obligations of helping others in need, but will simply argue the wording of the topic or the intrinsic unfairness of the topic. Again, there’s nothing wrong with arguing at that level, but to be honest, I don’t really care about it. It’s game-playing, and while I love playing games, I also love the content of resolutions, and I’m a little saddened to see the content relegated to a minor position in the discourse, if it holds any position at all. The content of LD is rich, but lately, it’s all but forgotten.
Mostly my concern is not with LD, but with student drop-off. My core belief—the reason I do this in the first place—is that forensics is good for students. All students. Anyone doing literally any forensics activity will be better off as a result. The benefits of debate are learning to write and research and think a certain way, and to speak on one’s feet. All good stuff. I don’t want to limit that good stuff to freshmen and sophomores, who then go off to become mall rats.
So, the program at Hen Hud will henceforth work thus. All novices will do LD all year. Starting second year, everyone will switch to PF, unless they wish to stay in LD. That is, PF will be the default position, and LD with be an option. Practically speaking, it’s the other way around now.
What will the results of this be? Well, I hope it will keep students longer. LD in the first year will train them on basic debate strategy: after all, debate is debate and an argument is an argument (and those members of the VCA who have followed my thoughts on PF know that I believe that a virtual LD structure underlying a PF case is a good idea). I will be able to work with students more thoroughly throughout their career because, honestly, lots of the specifics of LD are lost on me these days, and that is not true of PF. Also, I will be able to rope in more parents to help out. And I think that the average Sailor will have a better debate experience overall. They still can do LD if, for instance, they’re of the Panivorous persuasion—I’m not stopping anyone from doing it, and I will encourage those who want to. But most kids, facing the circuit mentality, tend to fade away, and I want to put a stop to that.
Again, this is nothing against LD. Nor have I ever had anything against PF that I’m suddenly changing my tune about. I love all forensics. I’m just changing focus a little bit.
And I don’t think I’m alone in this.
I am simply adding PF.
It’s like this:
Historically, there has always been a drop-off between sophomore and junior years, or wherever the line is drawn between varsity and whatever leads up to it. We have a fairly healthy JV experience regionally, although I have to plead guilty to removing most of the JV divisions from the colleges and replacing them with novice divisions. This was done to provide more experiences for novices, with the assumption that the other kids going to college tournaments ought to kick themselves up a notch and go varsity. Also, the JV divisions were confused amalgams of debaters with anywhere from one week to three years of experience, which made them a little less than competitive, or a little too competitive, depending on your point of view.
In any case, the drop-off in LD is not new. I’ve seen it since the beginning of my tenure at Sailorville. Whatever the nature of LD over the years, the jump to varsity has meant a much bigger commitment than some debaters were already making. The kid who wanted to derive benefits from debate without giving it the commitment of one’s total soul was left out. That kid could continue with the activity, but only to face a career of relentless losing and confusion. Today’s LD is probably more confusing than ever. At least in the past, while the material might be over one’s head, at least one could follow what was going on. Now speed makes that difficult, unless one has already sold one’s soul to do that speed oneself (no easy trick). As I have said many times, I have nothing against speed intrinsically, but I personally can’t follow it (although I used to, when I judged every week, although now it’s even faster so I’m not so sure I could do it if I tried). Those who believe that speed leads to only judges who can do speed who are, by definition, college students, could be right, but I don’t think that this is exclusively the case at any tournament except, maybe, TOC. Still, speed is almost everywhere, at every tournament, if not in every round.
Another aspect of today’s debate that requires that soul-selling is theory. Again, I have nothing against theory and see it as a useful tool against abusive positions, but given the prevalence of theory in rounds, one has to assume that virtually all debaters are being abusive in the first place, requiring these tools in almost every round to combat them. Also, of course, there are the sort of positions that I’m sure will be used in Nov-Dec, where the argument whether one is morally obligated to help those in need (which, I would suggest, is emphatically negative) will never touch on the moral obligations of helping others in need, but will simply argue the wording of the topic or the intrinsic unfairness of the topic. Again, there’s nothing wrong with arguing at that level, but to be honest, I don’t really care about it. It’s game-playing, and while I love playing games, I also love the content of resolutions, and I’m a little saddened to see the content relegated to a minor position in the discourse, if it holds any position at all. The content of LD is rich, but lately, it’s all but forgotten.
Mostly my concern is not with LD, but with student drop-off. My core belief—the reason I do this in the first place—is that forensics is good for students. All students. Anyone doing literally any forensics activity will be better off as a result. The benefits of debate are learning to write and research and think a certain way, and to speak on one’s feet. All good stuff. I don’t want to limit that good stuff to freshmen and sophomores, who then go off to become mall rats.
So, the program at Hen Hud will henceforth work thus. All novices will do LD all year. Starting second year, everyone will switch to PF, unless they wish to stay in LD. That is, PF will be the default position, and LD with be an option. Practically speaking, it’s the other way around now.
What will the results of this be? Well, I hope it will keep students longer. LD in the first year will train them on basic debate strategy: after all, debate is debate and an argument is an argument (and those members of the VCA who have followed my thoughts on PF know that I believe that a virtual LD structure underlying a PF case is a good idea). I will be able to work with students more thoroughly throughout their career because, honestly, lots of the specifics of LD are lost on me these days, and that is not true of PF. Also, I will be able to rope in more parents to help out. And I think that the average Sailor will have a better debate experience overall. They still can do LD if, for instance, they’re of the Panivorous persuasion—I’m not stopping anyone from doing it, and I will encourage those who want to. But most kids, facing the circuit mentality, tend to fade away, and I want to put a stop to that.
Again, this is nothing against LD. Nor have I ever had anything against PF that I’m suddenly changing my tune about. I love all forensics. I’m just changing focus a little bit.
And I don’t think I’m alone in this.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Saturday, October 08, 2011
Friday, October 07, 2011
The new season
So where are the Sailors this year?
Turnout at the first general meeting was spotty at best, although on the bright side most of the people there were potential debaters. Speecho-Americans, who operate on S-A time, started showing up at later meetings. Subsequently, after a little mix and match, we’ve got three debate plebes. This is about average for the course. One of them is already rebeling against his nickname, NPR, which is a hell of a lot better than some other nicknames I’ve come up with over the years. The other two have no nicknames. Come to think of it, the team is fairly free of this curse at the moment, although the Cannibal is arriving next Tuesday (I’m sure much to her chagrin, but as I always say, wipe that chagrin off your face!). Two of the three are on the listserver, the official measure of enlistment. NPR is on the fence. We’ll see. If he hits the road, I’ll give the nickname to someone else. I like the sound of it. It’s no Panivore or Wheat Germ or Termite, but it will do.
Last night we had the parent meeting, where first I tell everyone what we do, and second, I lock everyone in until I have the requisite number of volunteers to run Bump. By now I have my spiel down pretty well, including the timing of all the jokes, although I can never resist tossing in a few ad libs, and they worked pretty well. I mean, I’ve got some good material, people. I’m wasted on forensics. I always promise a half hour meeting, and it always comes in at exactly a half hour, and then maybe another half hour and some change. And we did get Bump parceled out. Food, housing, judges’ lounge. That’s their job.
My job is registration. This year we’ve about doubled PF, which really doesn’t surprise me. What surprises me is how long it’s been taking for PF to get any traction in the region. But maybe that’s ending. In any case, we’re roughly at waitlist in every division, and a hundred over in housing (so for most of those folks, it isn’t going to happen, although I’ve asked the parents to do their best, and last year they found 20 or so extra slots, to the thanks of a grateful debate nation). This is the point at which I keep an eye on it, looking for shenanigans (and in some cases, heading shenanigans off at the pass), worrying it as deadlines approach. The most important thing maybe be that I got Kathy S, the S-A coach, to promise to sell water this year in bottles bigger than one ounce. I mean, I like ripping off debate children as much as the next guy, but those bottles last year were ridiculous. On the other hand, Mrs. Panivore explained how, at housing, she gives kids bottles of water to bring with them to the school. Which, of course, undermines my ability to rip off debate children. We did have a talk about that. She’ll just hand them bagels in the future. Lord knows, the Panivore household has more bagels than it knows what to do with.
Thursday, October 06, 2011
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Star Wars, Episode Seven: The Rise of the MJP
I’ve always assumed that the word eponym was named after a guy named Epo.
Also, at the DJ, which is jumping lately, there are three people we refer to as the two guys who look alike who don’t look alike, and the other guy who looks just like them.
Okay, I got that out of my system.
Let’s look at PJ’s comment on MJP (which, of course, is merely an M and a twist away from him, which he hasn’t seemed to notice):
I was writing about how one or two schools are totally off from whatever everyone else ranks. From my tab perspective, this is an annoyance, but my tab perspective is narrowly dedicated to making the tournament run smoothly. It is pragmatic and selfish, not philosophical.
I'm uncertain if it would be 'better' or 'worse', but if it is only 1 or 2 schools maybe they simply suffer from innumeracy.
No, I think it's very deliberate. It's the same schools all the time, and it definitely reflects an opinion of who should judge. Some schools, of course, don't rank at all, which reflects an opinion of ranking (except for the couple of cases where it reflects ineptness at getting the rankings in on time) or a young team without interest in the vicissitudes of judge paradigms.
I am mildly curious if I did rank everyone backwards, at least for the students I ranked for. If I did it wasn't for the purposes of mucking up the system. And if I didn't it wasn't for the purposes of NOT mucking up the system. I've been open about my MJP views. I am not morally opposed to it, so we do engage in it more as form of defense than anything else. I don't think that other people's ones are automatically our 1s.
PJ's team, as I recollect, was fairly mainstream. (Which I hope doesn't cause him to pull his hair out. Oh. Wait a minute on that one...)
I am slightly surprised the 1-1 or 3-3 issue does happen more often. A round judged between schools of differing philosophies SHOULD have differences in rankings, and that it does not occur actually troubles me. It means debate IS becoming more specialized. As the near-great Robert Heinlein observed, 'specialization is for insects.'
Well, yes, and that's the interesting nub. Why has the universe at large gone so deliberately in lockstep in this? I know we all don't agree on whether the sun rises in the east, so why do we agree on MJP so much?
I think that the folks who are opposed to it—and therefore dismiss it—because it does...something...to the judge pool might want to think again about this. I don't believe that the mechanism is hiding some intelligent design, that it must lead to some teleological predictable outcome (i.e., recent college grad judges who did well on the $ircuit). If everyone ranks according to their wants and needs, it would be quite different. The thing is, the ones doing the most ranking do want that special cadre of $ircuit judges. This pushes them up to 1 for a lot of people. People who don't rank get the other person's 1. End of lesson.
I will publicly say that I am prone to ranking recent graduates whom I don't personally know or have judged low, but that is because I have no particular reason to think that they are good judges until I see their ballots. I don't think that winning some TOC16 tournament means that one is a qualified judge, I actually tend to suspect that people who had to scrap just to get to the bid rounds -and did so often- might very well be better. will also low rank judges who have pedagogical practices I strongly disagree with (it is hard to take judges who like theory but won't vote on RVIs seriously, its kind of like taking Republicans seriously regarding criticisms about the national debt). I also tend to believe that debaters who did not flow much as competitors rarely magically become good flowers when judging. Debaters who debated for programs which don't do much of their own case writing I suspect are not that great at critical thinking, until they show otherwise.
And 'Oral critique' will usually be more than enough to get a '6' from me, or a '5' at best no matter how many tournaments one broke at has a HS debater. Though I may be open to visiting them in their capacity as a dental hygienist.
Which means, of course, that PJ is carefully choosing his judges based on his analysis of them. His analysis is conservative and, dare I say, smart. It is the kind of analysis that people who don't rank also ought to be doing.
In MJP at a big tournament, you'll get equals. My bet is that a large part of the field feels like PJ, but their scorn for this newfangled MJP thing, and therefore their refusal to use it, puts them in a position of being the most harmed by it. MJP, as I say, has no internal engine making it that way. The process of making MJP a machine to honor people who shouldn't be honored is propelled by people who refuse to honor someone else.
Let me put it another way. MJP is here to stay, at least for a while. Don't be put off by it. Use it. Use it your way. That's what it's all about.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Pups 11, Part 4
Yale in the past has been something of a general reunion, with lots of conviviality and the like. This year, with everybody cast to the winds for all three days, there wasn't quite as much. So it goes.
Kaz visited us on Friday, since policy didn't start till the next day. She has a new PC, and spent most of her time not getting it to run TRPC. There's a system file that isn't in the default setup, and all I had was the XP version, and the minimal internet we had barred her from downloading it from the internet. Sigh. We did get the Pup printer to work, however, with my extra computer. I wonder whatever happened to that printer.
Speaking of printers, we used my Brudda to copy. Never again. There's so much copying, it gets so hot, it doesn't want to work normally anymore. Next year, somebody else's printer dedicated to copying.
JV was at my hotel, and we met after the festivities both nights for a late meal, so at least we had that. O'C was roaming around from venue to venue; he says he was putting out fires and chaperoning, but all I saw was his lugging around this sushi he had bought at lunch, and as the hours progressed and the heat and humidity rose, that sushi wasn't looking any too pretty. I really hope he didn't eat it. Forensics wouldn't be the same without him.
I never saw La Coin at all, although she texted me that the rumor was that UPenn wasn't happening. "They say" were at it again. UPenn will be happening no doubt better than ever this year (and it's the one left that CP will be at). I can't wait to meet They someday. I want to ask them where they get this stuff.
In fact, I saw the most people all weekend at the award ceremony, at which I arrived late because I was finishing up LD and then loading my car. By the time I got there the place was packed to the Puppish gills, so I just grabbed a GatorAde from an obliging concessionaire and sat on the fence (a place I hardly ever park) and chatted with one or the other of my fellow wizards. No big changes in the region this year. Abdul is in at Byram, but everyone knew that. Brother John is now district chair in NYC. He has my sympathies. O'C has a whole bunch of new assistants he's calling the Brain Trust (he says his team vetoed the Think Tank, possibly because they didn't like the competitive connotation of tanking); as with all O'C assistants, I wait a year before trying to remember their names. At my age, short-term info like that just takes up space, and I like to wait until they're Dunayed before giving any real mind to them.
And, of course, CP wasn't there at all. It turns out he got sick, and he claims that since he probably was going to get sick in any case, it was better than he didn't run things. And yes, things ran well without him, but we missed him. I mean, no one can replace ChrisParker Palmer.
Kaz visited us on Friday, since policy didn't start till the next day. She has a new PC, and spent most of her time not getting it to run TRPC. There's a system file that isn't in the default setup, and all I had was the XP version, and the minimal internet we had barred her from downloading it from the internet. Sigh. We did get the Pup printer to work, however, with my extra computer. I wonder whatever happened to that printer.
Speaking of printers, we used my Brudda to copy. Never again. There's so much copying, it gets so hot, it doesn't want to work normally anymore. Next year, somebody else's printer dedicated to copying.
JV was at my hotel, and we met after the festivities both nights for a late meal, so at least we had that. O'C was roaming around from venue to venue; he says he was putting out fires and chaperoning, but all I saw was his lugging around this sushi he had bought at lunch, and as the hours progressed and the heat and humidity rose, that sushi wasn't looking any too pretty. I really hope he didn't eat it. Forensics wouldn't be the same without him.
I never saw La Coin at all, although she texted me that the rumor was that UPenn wasn't happening. "They say" were at it again. UPenn will be happening no doubt better than ever this year (and it's the one left that CP will be at). I can't wait to meet They someday. I want to ask them where they get this stuff.
In fact, I saw the most people all weekend at the award ceremony, at which I arrived late because I was finishing up LD and then loading my car. By the time I got there the place was packed to the Puppish gills, so I just grabbed a GatorAde from an obliging concessionaire and sat on the fence (a place I hardly ever park) and chatted with one or the other of my fellow wizards. No big changes in the region this year. Abdul is in at Byram, but everyone knew that. Brother John is now district chair in NYC. He has my sympathies. O'C has a whole bunch of new assistants he's calling the Brain Trust (he says his team vetoed the Think Tank, possibly because they didn't like the competitive connotation of tanking); as with all O'C assistants, I wait a year before trying to remember their names. At my age, short-term info like that just takes up space, and I like to wait until they're Dunayed before giving any real mind to them.
And, of course, CP wasn't there at all. It turns out he got sick, and he claims that since he probably was going to get sick in any case, it was better than he didn't run things. And yes, things ran well without him, but we missed him. I mean, no one can replace Chris
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Pups 11: Part Three, The Usual Suspects
As always, representatives of the League of Usual Suspects visited us in the tabroom. The us in the tabroom included Abdul B, who got to see all of this first-hand, when he wasn’t jotting down notes on the music so that he could rush home and sample everything. (I let him take over the speakers on Sunday, and we switched roles. I want to hear more of that last stuff he was playing that sounded like Zeppelin…)
Fr’instance:
There was the person who got told they won by the judge but showed a loss on the results. They lost.
There was the ballot that no matter how we read it, we couldn’t figure it out. The judge wasn’t all that sure either.
There was the person who missed the round, and claimed that a lot of other people must have missed it too, and therefore they should all get byes. But they didn’t miss it in droves, and the byes were not forthcoming. The general rule is, there’s the next round right after the last round. Keep an eye on things; this is not the job of the tab room to make sure you get to your round. Yes, it would be nice if there were clearer advertisements for this, but with no cell, no wireless, and no copier, paying attention is the name of the game.
The late judges were always late. It’s always the same people. They have never shaken their butts, and they’re not going to start any time soon.
The judges who complained that they weren’t being used were heard from. They were being used, of course. With that many judges, there was about half a tournament off for most people. At other tournaments, these are the same folks who complain they’re judging too much. You can’t win.
We do have systems for seeing that the judge burdens are taken up fairly. At some tournaments I go through in advance and take people out of rounds at random (i.e., judge 1, no rd 1, judge 2, no rd 2, etc, going up and down the line, keeping the coverage equal with a little more in the presets and first break, where you need more highly ranked judges); you can do that when you have a real surfeit of judge talent. We also look occasionally to see if any extra judges have gotten way fewer rounds than everyone else, but like hurricanes in Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire, this hardly ever happens; TRPC is good about this.
This is the perception, though: Why do people think we’re actively doing something in tab either for or against them? The computer spits out the assignments, we check ‘em and print ‘em, and that’s it. In the case of MJP we look to see that the assignments are fair. If they’re not (say, a 1-2 or a 2-2 when everyone else has a 1-1), we take the first available 1-1 off the top of the stack and replace (and the stack isn’t alphabetical, so it’s not like you should change your name to Zeus if you want to judge less). The whole point of tabbing is neutrality. Much of what we’ve done lately with transparency and MJP and the like is make us even more neutral. It’s not as if we’re doing nothing in there other than listening to music and making wry remarks about our colleagues on the other side of the door (which we are doing, but that’s beside the point); we’re also spending hour upon hour entering data, and more importantly, not intervening any more than we hope the judges are intervening. We don’t want to leave any footprints on the tournament. We want fairness and accuracy. I’m pretty confident about the former, and ever hopeful of improving the latter, which is why we post results.
We are not out to get you. Really. We don’t even know who you are, when we’re tabbing. And that’s the God-honest truth.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Pups 11: Part Two, On Location
The high school where we ran the LD prelims was roughly as big as the Pentagon, with the usual confusing room numbering that most high schools inflict on their visitors. When I arrived the only Pups around were concessionaires, but they tried to connect me with a tab room, and then more official Pups came around, and they did connect me with a tab room, but it was, sticking with the Pentagon analogy, over in the White House, so we found another tab room nearer to the table. We got thrown out of this room the next morning by the school that was having some sort of breakfast session, which was too bad, because this room had some wireless and some cell phone service and the other room’s wireless service laughed at you maniacally while the cell service only worked if you climbed up on a desk and stuck your head out the window. Also typical for high schools, but rough on a tournament. On the other hand, the building itself was solid and perfectly nice, with an agreeable principal who popped in now and then to see that we weren’t feeding the equipment to the homeless or whatever. Unfortunately, the room list that we had and the rooms that we had never were the same; lots of Pups did lots of running around trying to solve that, the end result being that, as rooms came and went like spirits in a Neil Gaiman novel, they just shunted the participants into the nearest space that would suffice. You could just put “Any Old Room” down as the venue half the time. That did slow things down a bit. Judges not picking up their ballots also slowed things down a bit. There weren’t too many of these, but even one in MJP means a whole lotta juggling and, occasionally, a diminution of the ranking of adjudicator. Nothing worse than trading in a 1 for a 3, I’d say. But that’s usually what happens when the judge doesn’t show. Blame the judge, not tab.
Speaking of which, there’s others you can blame. One or two schools notoriously rank everybody bass-ackwards. Your 1 is their 4, in other words. You end up meeting, if you’re lucky, at a 2, but more likely at a 3. So here’s a word to anyone who thinks they’re beating the system with clever pairings: you’re not. At a big tournament like Yale, 99% of the elim rounds got A+ judges. Literally the only ones who didn’t were the people who ranked “creatively.” If you don’t like ranking, then don’t do it. It won’t hurt you (you’ll get other people’s highly ranked judges, and more often than not agree with the choice). But at the point where you see the lists of good debaters from the last few years, and you start by ranking them at the bottom, your rounds just aren’t going to be that well adjudicated from anyone’s point of view. If you think you didn’t get your best choices for judges at Yale, again, don’t blame tab. It’s entirely your fault.
I mean what I’m saying here, about 99% of the prelims having been adjudicated by mutual 1s. I would press the button, close my eyes, and bingo: 1s all the way up and down the line. Occasionally a 2-2 would pop up, easily fixed to a 1-1. And those 3-3s would be there, unfixable. I think there was a single flight of the 6 where one team (one of these bubbleheads) got a 1-2 ranking. The rest was a walk in the park, at least until break, or when a judge pooped out on us.
Don't poop out on us. We know who you are. We will get our revenge!
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Pups 11: Part One, The Early Years
So, sez you, how was Yale?
Not bad, sez I.
Of course, it started during a monsoon. I’m beginning to associate Pups with meteorological Armageddon. Pupageddon? As always, the Clarion was on top of its game. I love dealing with a hotel that knows how to run a hotel; it’s amazing how rare that is. I had sent them a rooming list, and they had rooms for everybody on it. So, so nice.
I only had the People’s Champion and 3 sailors, and given the new location for LD, they were mostly with me, except as noted elsewhere. (Bear with me on this. It may take a day or two.) We drove to the campus and for a little while there was less than torrential downpour, and we had lunch and then went off in our own directions. The pups were still setting up when I got there. I like roaming in and standing there with a cup of coffee until they realize, wait a minute, it’s Menick. The pups running things this year were new to me, and I to them, but of course we had had many communications prior to the event. Registration was in LC, in a comfy little auditorium, and while they set up, I massaged the data. I wasn’t sure yet how to handle LD (one computer or two), so I set up the divisions separately. I was also unsure how many judges would port over from VLD to JVLD. Here’s the thing about that. There were a lot of judges in the VLD field who were perfectly fine but only in the middle of the rankings. I know these folks well, and would rank them As in JV in a second. So once I knew that I could, I pulled out a handful of varsity judges and seconded them to JV. For them, it was not necessarily great news, because in VLD they would have gotten easier rounds (the way downs and the way ups) and in JVLD they got nothing but bubble rounds where every decision counts. Those who complain about MJP’s effect on VLD should keep in mind its effect on other divisions.
I put myself into the line for registration first, just as a test case, and had some stuff for them to test (the bastids tried to overcharge me!) and it went well. Mike V was the registration grownup, a necessary position. Early on I realized that some people didn’t know where LD was (the info had changed many times) and I made sure that the table reminded folks. This ultimately didn’t matter too much because one school from the borough closest to Westchester got so caught in the bad weather that I spent three hours of the two hours I was on campus patting O’C on the virtual shoulder and telling him it was all right and not to worry. Of course, I would have dropped his team’s collective rump in a heartbeat if there were anything in it for me, but that’s just the nice kind of guy I am. In their favor, they had the Panivore on board (and I think the bus actually had a sign, Panivore On Board), and while I didn’t care about BSers, I wanted the P to judge until her brains fell out because, again, that’s just the nice kind of guy I am.
Anyhow, at 3:30 or so I packed up myself and the Sailors and we headed off to the high school.
To be continued…
Not bad, sez I.
Of course, it started during a monsoon. I’m beginning to associate Pups with meteorological Armageddon. Pupageddon? As always, the Clarion was on top of its game. I love dealing with a hotel that knows how to run a hotel; it’s amazing how rare that is. I had sent them a rooming list, and they had rooms for everybody on it. So, so nice.
I only had the People’s Champion and 3 sailors, and given the new location for LD, they were mostly with me, except as noted elsewhere. (Bear with me on this. It may take a day or two.) We drove to the campus and for a little while there was less than torrential downpour, and we had lunch and then went off in our own directions. The pups were still setting up when I got there. I like roaming in and standing there with a cup of coffee until they realize, wait a minute, it’s Menick. The pups running things this year were new to me, and I to them, but of course we had had many communications prior to the event. Registration was in LC, in a comfy little auditorium, and while they set up, I massaged the data. I wasn’t sure yet how to handle LD (one computer or two), so I set up the divisions separately. I was also unsure how many judges would port over from VLD to JVLD. Here’s the thing about that. There were a lot of judges in the VLD field who were perfectly fine but only in the middle of the rankings. I know these folks well, and would rank them As in JV in a second. So once I knew that I could, I pulled out a handful of varsity judges and seconded them to JV. For them, it was not necessarily great news, because in VLD they would have gotten easier rounds (the way downs and the way ups) and in JVLD they got nothing but bubble rounds where every decision counts. Those who complain about MJP’s effect on VLD should keep in mind its effect on other divisions.
I put myself into the line for registration first, just as a test case, and had some stuff for them to test (the bastids tried to overcharge me!) and it went well. Mike V was the registration grownup, a necessary position. Early on I realized that some people didn’t know where LD was (the info had changed many times) and I made sure that the table reminded folks. This ultimately didn’t matter too much because one school from the borough closest to Westchester got so caught in the bad weather that I spent three hours of the two hours I was on campus patting O’C on the virtual shoulder and telling him it was all right and not to worry. Of course, I would have dropped his team’s collective rump in a heartbeat if there were anything in it for me, but that’s just the nice kind of guy I am. In their favor, they had the Panivore on board (and I think the bus actually had a sign, Panivore On Board), and while I didn’t care about BSers, I wanted the P to judge until her brains fell out because, again, that’s just the nice kind of guy I am.
Anyhow, at 3:30 or so I packed up myself and the Sailors and we headed off to the high school.
To be continued…
Monday, September 26, 2011
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Ave atque vale!
So yesterday CP sent a message out to the forensics community, via the agency of an email blast to the attendees of Yale, explaining why he wasn’t running things behind the scene anymore for the Pups. I have talked here before about Chris’s contribution to the community overall. In addition to creating tabroom.com, which would have been enough, somehow he got involved in working with a bunch of Ivies on their tournaments. Longtime members of the VCA know well how I felt about colleges back in the day; I don’t know if I every used the phrase bloodsucking leeches, but I saw again and again how colleges were raiding the high school community, running tournaments against local schools on established weekends, using their name value to offer amateur hour events that were often embarrassing, and generally taking the money and running. Worse, many of them seemed to get TOC bids (which still bothers me: yeah, a bid should go to where the bid people are, but just because we’ve established a precedent doesn’t make it right—call me the Clarence Thomas of forensics). (Actually, please don’t call me the Clarence Thomas of forensics.) We’ve had that discussion before (and quite actively on TVFT).
Anyhow, then along came CP. I have no idea how he got started doing this, but the next thing you knew, he brought professional management to the Ivies. Their tab rooms knew what they were doing. Their organizers gained a sense of stability impossible to otherwise attain as students come and go. They learned to work with the community rather than solely for their own ends. It was an incredible transformation, and he deserves the credit for it.
Now he’s taking a less active role in these tournaments, because they do take an incredible amount of work, and there are just so many hours even in his day. Plus he believes, and I think rightly, that they are ready to go on their own. So I take this opportunity to thank him once again. Without Palmer, the landscape of high school forensics would be radically different, and nowhere near as good.
(Then again, if the Pups goes to hell in a hand basket this year, we now know who to blame, that *&^%$# CP!)
Anyhow, then along came CP. I have no idea how he got started doing this, but the next thing you knew, he brought professional management to the Ivies. Their tab rooms knew what they were doing. Their organizers gained a sense of stability impossible to otherwise attain as students come and go. They learned to work with the community rather than solely for their own ends. It was an incredible transformation, and he deserves the credit for it.
Now he’s taking a less active role in these tournaments, because they do take an incredible amount of work, and there are just so many hours even in his day. Plus he believes, and I think rightly, that they are ready to go on their own. So I take this opportunity to thank him once again. Without Palmer, the landscape of high school forensics would be radically different, and nowhere near as good.
(Then again, if the Pups goes to hell in a hand basket this year, we now know who to blame, that *&^%$# CP!)
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
Counting down
You’re out there spending your weekend however you spend your weekend, and you realize, this is it, see you again in April. This is an exaggeration (there’s a weekend off in October thanks to the Jewish holidays), but it’s mostly true.
The party’s over. Time to get down to business.
All the decks have been cleared Pup-wise. Now it’s just a matter of folks entering their judge prefs starting tomorrow. Tonight I’ll take a last look at the hireds and make sure they’re all where they’re supposed to be. Then I’ve got to haul out my equipment and make sure everything’s in working order, specifically the Brother printer and my old PC. I expect no problems, but one never knows. Then we pack it up and haul it up to New Haven, and let the games begin.
I’ve been happy with the lack of sad-soap stories and pleas for special treatment. I’m pretty much inured to both, but CP had promised them a-plenty. I mean, at this point I’ve told people no more hireds about as often as Obama has given in to the Republicans, so we’re covered on that. I would imagine some fall-out over putting VLD judges in JV rounds, but if you’re not particularly preferred, do you really want to sit around for three days? And on the opposite side, if you’re a good judge, shouldn’t you share your expertise with younger students? In my experience, the really good judges, be they former debaters or coaches, never gripe at judging younger students. They recognize it as an opportunity to both do some educating and, honestly, relax a tad. But, of course, I’m talking about the mensches here. The unmenschables are something else altogether. Maybe I’ll give them CP’s phone number.
I did spend some time sorting out geography. The new venue Saturday is quite close to the hotel, rendering trips to the campus sort of irrelevant. My goal has been to find a dinner solution near the hotel. So far, not so good. Oh, well. Tournaments are all about the food, aren’t they? (Unless you’re panivorous, in which case, who knows what tournaments are all about?)
The party’s over. Time to get down to business.
All the decks have been cleared Pup-wise. Now it’s just a matter of folks entering their judge prefs starting tomorrow. Tonight I’ll take a last look at the hireds and make sure they’re all where they’re supposed to be. Then I’ve got to haul out my equipment and make sure everything’s in working order, specifically the Brother printer and my old PC. I expect no problems, but one never knows. Then we pack it up and haul it up to New Haven, and let the games begin.
I’ve been happy with the lack of sad-soap stories and pleas for special treatment. I’m pretty much inured to both, but CP had promised them a-plenty. I mean, at this point I’ve told people no more hireds about as often as Obama has given in to the Republicans, so we’re covered on that. I would imagine some fall-out over putting VLD judges in JV rounds, but if you’re not particularly preferred, do you really want to sit around for three days? And on the opposite side, if you’re a good judge, shouldn’t you share your expertise with younger students? In my experience, the really good judges, be they former debaters or coaches, never gripe at judging younger students. They recognize it as an opportunity to both do some educating and, honestly, relax a tad. But, of course, I’m talking about the mensches here. The unmenschables are something else altogether. Maybe I’ll give them CP’s phone number.
I did spend some time sorting out geography. The new venue Saturday is quite close to the hotel, rendering trips to the campus sort of irrelevant. My goal has been to find a dinner solution near the hotel. So far, not so good. Oh, well. Tournaments are all about the food, aren’t they? (Unless you’re panivorous, in which case, who knows what tournaments are all about?)
Friday, September 16, 2011
Together Again!
VLD and JVLD will be together at the Pups. This is a load off the proverbial mind. It'll be at a new location halfway between my hotel and the campus, which has its benefits. I thought I'd point out the change of venue, and the melding, right away, for any who might have read how it was otherwise and were acting accordingly.
It ain't over till it's over.
It ain't over till it's over.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Slugs: The Other White Meat
The joy of my life these days is wondering where O'C will check in next. Last night it was Gristedes supermarket. I was thrilled to hear it. Made my evening. Really.
I guess I'll turn off Foursquare notifications today.
We had the inaugural meeting last night, and have acquired a handful of prospective LDers. They didn't jump out the window while we were discussing animal rights, so I guess they'll mostly be back. It was hotter than Hades at the school, but we got through all the formalities. Let's see how many show up next week for the regular meeting, and how long it takes them to figure out how to sign up for tournaments.
Tonight I'll lay out all the MHL workshop stuff and get it out to people. That's mostly just rebroadcasting last year's agenda, but people need to know it's coming.
I find the animal rights topic interesting. I do maintain that it behooves the affirmative to come up with a definition of animal rights that includes having them for breakfast. This may not be essential, but being able to defend a version of animal rights that limits those rights (as all rights must be limited) makes sense to me. The idea that the affirmative must, in CX, claim to be a vegetarian, as a Sailor claimed last night, just strikes me as soooo novice. An animal has the right to certain treatment, but in the old circle of life, that treatment might include being served with mashed potatoes. Keep in mind that the topic says justice, not morality. Giving an animal its due, in other words. What are animals due? What do they deserve? What are their entitlements? That seems simple enough to me for an aff to dig in. On the other side, even walking in off the streets one immediately hinges on to the words requires and recognition for neg positions. Negative need not assert that animals have no rights, although neg can certainly assert different rights from the aff if that seems desirable. The thing is, those rights aren't persuasive enough when compared to human issues to require recognition.
All of which seems true to me. That is, there's real possibilities for real arguments on both sides. No doubt few if any people will argue that way for long, but hope springs eternal...
I guess I'll turn off Foursquare notifications today.
We had the inaugural meeting last night, and have acquired a handful of prospective LDers. They didn't jump out the window while we were discussing animal rights, so I guess they'll mostly be back. It was hotter than Hades at the school, but we got through all the formalities. Let's see how many show up next week for the regular meeting, and how long it takes them to figure out how to sign up for tournaments.
Tonight I'll lay out all the MHL workshop stuff and get it out to people. That's mostly just rebroadcasting last year's agenda, but people need to know it's coming.
I find the animal rights topic interesting. I do maintain that it behooves the affirmative to come up with a definition of animal rights that includes having them for breakfast. This may not be essential, but being able to defend a version of animal rights that limits those rights (as all rights must be limited) makes sense to me. The idea that the affirmative must, in CX, claim to be a vegetarian, as a Sailor claimed last night, just strikes me as soooo novice. An animal has the right to certain treatment, but in the old circle of life, that treatment might include being served with mashed potatoes. Keep in mind that the topic says justice, not morality. Giving an animal its due, in other words. What are animals due? What do they deserve? What are their entitlements? That seems simple enough to me for an aff to dig in. On the other side, even walking in off the streets one immediately hinges on to the words requires and recognition for neg positions. Negative need not assert that animals have no rights, although neg can certainly assert different rights from the aff if that seems desirable. The thing is, those rights aren't persuasive enough when compared to human issues to require recognition.
All of which seems true to me. That is, there's real possibilities for real arguments on both sides. No doubt few if any people will argue that way for long, but hope springs eternal...
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
September Song
I’ve finally accomplished something useful: I’ve outscored O’C in Foursquare. No doubt this is temporary, since he checks in every time he thinks about eating sushi, but I will now retire victorious, leaving him the field. I did not pay all that money for an iPhone to dedicate it to checking in to the local beaneries. I don’t care about where most people are, unless I’m looking for them. Then again, if all the people I’m avoiding would start checking in, I’d know where not to go. For that, I’d be getting my money’s worth out of the iPhone.
Remarkably enough, the biggest event at the Pups, going by teams and not people (because otherwise it would be PF), is Congress. (Although thanks to what’s been going on in Washington lately, I gather the NFL wants people to call it by its more meaningful name, Nyahh Nyahh Nyahh Debate.) Where have all these legislators come from, and why are they convening on New Haven? Maybe it has ever been thus and this is the first time I noticed it, but I find it curious.
Tomorrow I’ll get the registration set up for the MHL workshop. This is where we offer a free day of instruction to anyone who wants it. It’ll be at Bronx again, on 10/2. It’s unfortunate to have to have it on a Sunday, but every other day was a Jewish holiday. The calendar this fall is brutal, either with dueling tournaments or dueling religions. The last weekend of October, for instance, has more tournaments than O’C has Foursquare check-ins. I will be in my usual devoir, tabbing the CFL, while everyone else will be everywhere else. So it goes. Although it’s not as if I want the place to myself. Still, a one-dayer has the virtue of one’s own bed, and I can’t argue with that. In fact, I get three one-dayers in a row, right before Bump, although I do sleep in my own bed for that one too, only not very well. Which reminds me that I also need to alert the Sailors., Retd., of the proceedings.
Ah, September. Nothing much happening, but everything in the pot ready to simmer. Enjoy it while you can.
Remarkably enough, the biggest event at the Pups, going by teams and not people (because otherwise it would be PF), is Congress. (Although thanks to what’s been going on in Washington lately, I gather the NFL wants people to call it by its more meaningful name, Nyahh Nyahh Nyahh Debate.) Where have all these legislators come from, and why are they convening on New Haven? Maybe it has ever been thus and this is the first time I noticed it, but I find it curious.
Tomorrow I’ll get the registration set up for the MHL workshop. This is where we offer a free day of instruction to anyone who wants it. It’ll be at Bronx again, on 10/2. It’s unfortunate to have to have it on a Sunday, but every other day was a Jewish holiday. The calendar this fall is brutal, either with dueling tournaments or dueling religions. The last weekend of October, for instance, has more tournaments than O’C has Foursquare check-ins. I will be in my usual devoir, tabbing the CFL, while everyone else will be everywhere else. So it goes. Although it’s not as if I want the place to myself. Still, a one-dayer has the virtue of one’s own bed, and I can’t argue with that. In fact, I get three one-dayers in a row, right before Bump, although I do sleep in my own bed for that one too, only not very well. Which reminds me that I also need to alert the Sailors., Retd., of the proceedings.
Ah, September. Nothing much happening, but everything in the pot ready to simmer. Enjoy it while you can.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
The Pup Thickens
Flies are in the Puppish ointment, but that is to be expected. They lost the building we had last year for LD, so they’ve had to juggle some things. The biggest problem is attempting to share judges; JV and V will be in two different venues. This means we can’t be as generous with judge hires as we might have been otherwise. A bunch of folks who are still waiting for hires are going to be a little bummed, but so it goes. They can’t sell judges they don’t have, and quite honestly, they’ve got a good bunch, so no one can complain. I doubt if that will stop them, though. Our other problem is splitting up the tab staff. With Vaughan in Speecho-American land, other arrangements must be made. Oh, well.
At least the Sailor registration is intact. One thing about a small team is that you don’t have to move an entire army (or in our case, an entire navy). Three cars worth, altogether. Compared to some folks who have, maybe, 77 entries, including teams and excluding judges; they might as well hire a battleship for the weekend. The grass is always greener. I’m sure these battleship folks wish they had three cars worth, while I would love to have all that raw material to play with.
It occurred to me at some point yesterday that Bump registration will open in a couple of weeks. Jeesh. We had to postpone tonight’s inaugural until tomorrow; tonight is school open house. Why do I never check the calendar?
At least the Sailor registration is intact. One thing about a small team is that you don’t have to move an entire army (or in our case, an entire navy). Three cars worth, altogether. Compared to some folks who have, maybe, 77 entries, including teams and excluding judges; they might as well hire a battleship for the weekend. The grass is always greener. I’m sure these battleship folks wish they had three cars worth, while I would love to have all that raw material to play with.
It occurred to me at some point yesterday that Bump registration will open in a couple of weeks. Jeesh. We had to postpone tonight’s inaugural until tomorrow; tonight is school open house. Why do I never check the calendar?
Monday, September 12, 2011
A Well-Oiled Machine
The NYCFL moderators met this Saturday at Iona. It used to be that this was some sort of grand reunion at the beginning of the year, but in the age of Facebook and Twitter and the DiDeAd (we have our own listserver), I feel that we’ve barely been away. Kathy S and I talked a lot about the Sailors on our way down and back, and that was productive, but at the actual meeting, it was mostly, let’s do it again. I recall back in the day when this meeting would run on and on, but after a while you run out of things to discuss. There were a few new faces, but most of us are growing mold, and, well, there you are: a well-oiled machine. When it was over, JV and Kaz headed down to the VassaRR, which was at Collegiate. No doubt the Collegiate Alumni were meeting up in Poughkeepsie. If anyone doubted that the RR was at Collegiate, both O’C and CP kept checking in on Foursquare, presumably for no other reason than to annoy me. I had no choice but to retaliate. I am going to be the Mayor of the Taconic State Parkway in 3 days!
We’re still organizing who’s running what at the Pups. A few folks haven’t been heard from yet. And meanwhile we’re beginning to set up the Tiggers, with some defections here and there. That’s very early days, though. Pups, on the other hand, are breathing down the proverbial neck, and as far as I can tell, reality is just beginning to settle in and people are beginning to realize that they’re not going to be able to hire 50 judges and they’re paring down their entries. We could still use more LD judges, just to make things that much more swell. O’C is on the case, says he.
Tomorrow night is the inaugural Sailors meeting. I heard from the admiralty that there was whining about the pamphlet, because it had pictures of people who were no longer at the school. So, I wonder, we put on pix of people still at the school, for what? The pamphlet goes to people before they show up, to convince them to enlist. Does it matter which pictures of people they don’t know are on the page? It’s not like the pix are so old that everyone has a mullet or something. Speaking of which, if you Google Hen Hud for images (I was looking for the official Half Moon for O’C for the Bump medals), pretty much the first image you get is The People’s Champion. He obviously made his mark on the place.
We’re still organizing who’s running what at the Pups. A few folks haven’t been heard from yet. And meanwhile we’re beginning to set up the Tiggers, with some defections here and there. That’s very early days, though. Pups, on the other hand, are breathing down the proverbial neck, and as far as I can tell, reality is just beginning to settle in and people are beginning to realize that they’re not going to be able to hire 50 judges and they’re paring down their entries. We could still use more LD judges, just to make things that much more swell. O’C is on the case, says he.
Tomorrow night is the inaugural Sailors meeting. I heard from the admiralty that there was whining about the pamphlet, because it had pictures of people who were no longer at the school. So, I wonder, we put on pix of people still at the school, for what? The pamphlet goes to people before they show up, to convince them to enlist. Does it matter which pictures of people they don’t know are on the page? It’s not like the pix are so old that everyone has a mullet or something. Speaking of which, if you Google Hen Hud for images (I was looking for the official Half Moon for O’C for the Bump medals), pretty much the first image you get is The People’s Champion. He obviously made his mark on the place.
Friday, September 09, 2011
How I Spent My Summer Vacation
As the VCA knows, I have a Day Job. I don’t name it because then it gets swept by software trawlers and posted back to them, not that it matters all that much, but in my mind, the DJ and the Night Job should remain separate. I am loath to spend time on the latter when I should be working on the former, although often enough the former impinges on the latter. So it goes. It pays the bills, so it gets its due.
One of the things I’ve wanted to do for a long time on the DJ is get my products up on our website. I spent a lot of time demonstrating that I could provide regular content, and at the beginning of the summer we started putting it on the site. The trip from testing to live, which is still incomplete, has been fairly rocky. I haven’t changed what I’ve been doing, but our web design is done by outsiders, and I’ve been at the bottom of the list of their things to do, even though, frankly, I think what I’m doing is more interesting than anything else they’ve got. In essence, it’s a link blog, a batch of good content on books and entertainment, and the goal is to populate the marketing parts of the page with complementary business. I put together a system so that my staff can help feed me promising articles, plus I’ve been building up my own resources. My middle name is now RSS. The thing is, if you look at, say, 500 web pages a day, a hundred of them just repeat one another, another hundred are duller than dish water, the next hundred are about the Kardashians, another hundred are too hifalutin, and the last 95 cuss too much. Which means I get 5 good articles a day, with any luck. Often I get fewer, very occasionally more.
Starting with those good articles, I write about them, adding my own perspective, which is the only thing that makes them unique. As time goes on, I find myself adding more and more, but that’s probably not a bad thing, because it’s value added and therefore better content on its own. Additionally, I do birthday tributes when the spirit (and the birthday boy/girl) moves me enough. And I’ve got some ideas for other things, which I’ll do when we get to the fully live slash operational mode. (We’re half alive now. Like the Kardashians.)
The end result of this is over on the right, The Books and Entertainment Blog. I think that most folks will find it enjoyable, if you’re at all interested in books, movies, music, TV or theater. It tends to be more classic than contemporary, but there’s plenty of new enough stuff. It doesn’t talk down to people; I’ve long ago learned that everybody is smarter than you think, except for a couple of them, list provided on request. To really enjoy it (and it’s meant to be enjoyable, an editorial product on its own), you should put it into your own RSS feed or follow it on Twitter (@RD_Books_Ent). We haven’t done anything to promote it on Twitter; I just put it there because it picks up the entries automatically and ports them easily elsewhere, like the widget you see here.
The down side to this is that I have for all intents and purposes abandoned the Coachean Feed. It is, in a word, a victim of the number of hours in the day. I don’t know how many people will care about that; if I do see something worth passing along, I’ll just note it in the main body of CL.
How did you spend your summer vacation?
One of the things I’ve wanted to do for a long time on the DJ is get my products up on our website. I spent a lot of time demonstrating that I could provide regular content, and at the beginning of the summer we started putting it on the site. The trip from testing to live, which is still incomplete, has been fairly rocky. I haven’t changed what I’ve been doing, but our web design is done by outsiders, and I’ve been at the bottom of the list of their things to do, even though, frankly, I think what I’m doing is more interesting than anything else they’ve got. In essence, it’s a link blog, a batch of good content on books and entertainment, and the goal is to populate the marketing parts of the page with complementary business. I put together a system so that my staff can help feed me promising articles, plus I’ve been building up my own resources. My middle name is now RSS. The thing is, if you look at, say, 500 web pages a day, a hundred of them just repeat one another, another hundred are duller than dish water, the next hundred are about the Kardashians, another hundred are too hifalutin, and the last 95 cuss too much. Which means I get 5 good articles a day, with any luck. Often I get fewer, very occasionally more.
Starting with those good articles, I write about them, adding my own perspective, which is the only thing that makes them unique. As time goes on, I find myself adding more and more, but that’s probably not a bad thing, because it’s value added and therefore better content on its own. Additionally, I do birthday tributes when the spirit (and the birthday boy/girl) moves me enough. And I’ve got some ideas for other things, which I’ll do when we get to the fully live slash operational mode. (We’re half alive now. Like the Kardashians.)
The end result of this is over on the right, The Books and Entertainment Blog. I think that most folks will find it enjoyable, if you’re at all interested in books, movies, music, TV or theater. It tends to be more classic than contemporary, but there’s plenty of new enough stuff. It doesn’t talk down to people; I’ve long ago learned that everybody is smarter than you think, except for a couple of them, list provided on request. To really enjoy it (and it’s meant to be enjoyable, an editorial product on its own), you should put it into your own RSS feed or follow it on Twitter (@RD_Books_Ent). We haven’t done anything to promote it on Twitter; I just put it there because it picks up the entries automatically and ports them easily elsewhere, like the widget you see here.
The down side to this is that I have for all intents and purposes abandoned the Coachean Feed. It is, in a word, a victim of the number of hours in the day. I don’t know how many people will care about that; if I do see something worth passing along, I’ll just note it in the main body of CL.
How did you spend your summer vacation?
Thursday, September 08, 2011
How To Stay on the Waitlist
There comes a time in the life of every tournament where everybody starts asking for favors. Usually this means taking them off the waitlist. CP’s philosophy about this (and he can correct me if I’m misrepresenting him) was that the more you bothered him, the less likely he was to grant your requests. The thing is, getting off the waitlist really isn’t a popularity contest. At a big event like the Pups, there are schools that may not get teams in at all. Obviously they must be serviced first, in the order in which they arrived. Short of performing some special service for the tournament (exclusive of showing up), there is no other warranted claim to spots.
At a big tournament, this is fairly easy to maintain. It’s a tougher attitude to stick to at a small tournament, where the temptation is to let in as many people as will fit. This means that big programs get big allotments of slots, which means that your brackets start falling apart and your judge pool is all butter pecan (or whatever other flavor the big program comes in). The smaller tournament may make its money, but it risks ruining its tournament. Obviously, with about 100 or so VLDers at Bump, I can keep things relatively balanced. It’s harder for me in, say, VPF, which has maybe a field of around 30 or so. I could probably get 10 more teams in if I removed the school limit, but instead of a nice balanced (albeit small) event, I would have a skewed not much bigger event. And more money in the Sailor coffers. And fewer people thinking VPF at Bump is worth attending. Running a tournament requires both a long and short term perspective. Luckily for me, I’ve run so many Bumps that I don’t have to give it much thought anymore, even though I do tinker with things all the time. And with the Pups and their big field, I have worked with them long enough to know that maintaining the integrity of the tournament is their priority.
Two more weeks and we kick into gear. Those of you heading to Texas will be kicking in that much sooner. 2011-12 already. Happy New Year!
At a big tournament, this is fairly easy to maintain. It’s a tougher attitude to stick to at a small tournament, where the temptation is to let in as many people as will fit. This means that big programs get big allotments of slots, which means that your brackets start falling apart and your judge pool is all butter pecan (or whatever other flavor the big program comes in). The smaller tournament may make its money, but it risks ruining its tournament. Obviously, with about 100 or so VLDers at Bump, I can keep things relatively balanced. It’s harder for me in, say, VPF, which has maybe a field of around 30 or so. I could probably get 10 more teams in if I removed the school limit, but instead of a nice balanced (albeit small) event, I would have a skewed not much bigger event. And more money in the Sailor coffers. And fewer people thinking VPF at Bump is worth attending. Running a tournament requires both a long and short term perspective. Luckily for me, I’ve run so many Bumps that I don’t have to give it much thought anymore, even though I do tinker with things all the time. And with the Pups and their big field, I have worked with them long enough to know that maintaining the integrity of the tournament is their priority.
Two more weeks and we kick into gear. Those of you heading to Texas will be kicking in that much sooner. 2011-12 already. Happy New Year!
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
Nipping at the Pups
When you have a lot of people attending a tournament, there’s a lot of hoo-ha. For the Pups, aside from my own entries, which include some waitlisted Speecho-Americans, all I’m really interested in is the LD side of things. At this point, it is all waitlist management. There is a practical, objective limit to the size of the fields (the number of rooms does not infinitely expand to meet the field), and there’s obvious reasons to limit the size of any one school’s entry (two or three big debate schools could take up the whole thing, given the opportunity). The goal of the Pups is diversity, and an inclination to draw from more than just the region. So one pulls schools in from far away if one can, although mostly one goes down the waitlist in the order of FIFO. If one were to play favorites, it would be fairly obvious, I think, and would not be to the benefit of the tournament. Similarly, one could presumably play non-favorites (“I never did like you, hence I’ll punish your students”) but I’m sure that would also be fairly obvious. If a school does have a bad history, though, and choices must be made, well… If your judges notoriously don’t show up, for instance, don’t be expecting any extra favors. Anyhow, at the moment it’s looking to me that maybe all the schools on the VLD waitlist will get slots, just because every day there’s a little movement as people drop. Whether anyone will get more than the allotted 4 slots is something else. JVLD seems more steady. The tournament is a mere two weekends away. We should be down to business after the end of this weekend, I would imagine. Plans will be in the works, and unless someone comes down with a severe case of the Creeping Crud, they’ll be there.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I sent out the recruitment marching orders to everyone yesterday. Play nice together and bring in as many sheep as possible, essentially. Despite all our knowledge that recruiting can be done, somehow, for the Sailors it remains pretty much of a genetic crapshoot. People in the district know about forensics, and somehow a few of them sign up for the team. No matter how aggressive or passive we are, same results. Maybe if I taught at the school it might be different, but who knows? In any case, the fingers are crossed. Give me 5 novices with staying power. Is that asking too much?
O’C’s latest check-in on Foursquare is that he got a haircut. How can Bronx Funnies possibly compete with the reality?
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I sent out the recruitment marching orders to everyone yesterday. Play nice together and bring in as many sheep as possible, essentially. Despite all our knowledge that recruiting can be done, somehow, for the Sailors it remains pretty much of a genetic crapshoot. People in the district know about forensics, and somehow a few of them sign up for the team. No matter how aggressive or passive we are, same results. Maybe if I taught at the school it might be different, but who knows? In any case, the fingers are crossed. Give me 5 novices with staying power. Is that asking too much?
O’C’s latest check-in on Foursquare is that he got a haircut. How can Bronx Funnies possibly compete with the reality?
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
Excelsior, You Meathead!
All right. This is how it is. One more Foursquare notice that O’C is standing on some subway platform somewhere and I’m cutting up his iPhone and serving it to him with wasabi, soy sauce and chopsticks dipped in motor oil. Jeesh!
Saturday I put in the order for the Bump trophies. They’ve moved the shop, and I drove awhile in the wilderness until I found it, and I thought that maybe this was some sort of sign, but no, there it was, finally. Meanwhile, O’C (if he lives) will be acquiring some medals for me, although he’s probably forgotten all about it in his Foursquare mania. Where’s the check-in at the trophy shop getting Bump medals, one might ask. He did come up for dinner last Friday along with Kt, and we did our best not to talk about 1) debate and 2) Disney for the entire evening. It wasn’t easy.
Mostly I’m thinking about other things than Bump at the moment. I met with the Sailors for the first time last night and tried to convince them that attending tournaments was sort of part and parcel of the debate experience. What do I know? We kicked a few animals around for a while. My feeling is that you need to prove that animals have rights, then that it is justice to give recognition to those rights. That is, start at the beginning. As for the neg, I’m not quite sure where one might jump on, that animals have no rights or that justice doesn’t warrant recognition of those rights or what. Here’s what I think. An aff needs a case that proves animal rights inclusive of (and independent of) carnivorous humanity; aff needs to prove that it’s okay to have a burger, in other words. That would indicate a case with a solid footing, even though, as I tried to explain to the Sailors, I would never actually run anything about vegetarianism (probably on either side). How they’ll take what I was saying remains to be seen. A lot depends on where their research takes them.
Meanwhile, there’s the Pups coming up, there’s Montiwegia, there’s the MHL workshop, and then there’s Jake. Mostly I’m concentrating on Pups at the moment—cleaning up judge requests while O’C acquires some more judges, monitoring the LD waitlists, that sort of thing. We just began organizing for the workshop. Once the season begins, it begins with a vengeance.
Saturday I put in the order for the Bump trophies. They’ve moved the shop, and I drove awhile in the wilderness until I found it, and I thought that maybe this was some sort of sign, but no, there it was, finally. Meanwhile, O’C (if he lives) will be acquiring some medals for me, although he’s probably forgotten all about it in his Foursquare mania. Where’s the check-in at the trophy shop getting Bump medals, one might ask. He did come up for dinner last Friday along with Kt, and we did our best not to talk about 1) debate and 2) Disney for the entire evening. It wasn’t easy.
Mostly I’m thinking about other things than Bump at the moment. I met with the Sailors for the first time last night and tried to convince them that attending tournaments was sort of part and parcel of the debate experience. What do I know? We kicked a few animals around for a while. My feeling is that you need to prove that animals have rights, then that it is justice to give recognition to those rights. That is, start at the beginning. As for the neg, I’m not quite sure where one might jump on, that animals have no rights or that justice doesn’t warrant recognition of those rights or what. Here’s what I think. An aff needs a case that proves animal rights inclusive of (and independent of) carnivorous humanity; aff needs to prove that it’s okay to have a burger, in other words. That would indicate a case with a solid footing, even though, as I tried to explain to the Sailors, I would never actually run anything about vegetarianism (probably on either side). How they’ll take what I was saying remains to be seen. A lot depends on where their research takes them.
Meanwhile, there’s the Pups coming up, there’s Montiwegia, there’s the MHL workshop, and then there’s Jake. Mostly I’m concentrating on Pups at the moment—cleaning up judge requests while O’C acquires some more judges, monitoring the LD waitlists, that sort of thing. We just began organizing for the workshop. Once the season begins, it begins with a vengeance.
Monday, September 05, 2011
Sunday, September 04, 2011
Remember when LD used to be about philosophy?
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Stick with me, kid, and I'll show you the world.
Stick with me, kid, and I'll show you the world.
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