In which the DisAd switches venues

Arriving at WDW is way different from arriving at Universal. WDW is the size of Romania, for one thing. You drive quite a bit from the moment you enter the grounds to the moment you find your hotel. And once you enter those grounds, you know you are at Disney. It just feels like Disney, from start to finish. The underlying tissue missing at Universal is at WDW in spades. And keep in mind that, while figures on an individual park are hard to find (Disney groups the parks together), each one generates about a billion dollars revenue a year. There’s 4 parks at WDW, i.e., four billion dollars. Magic Kingdom gets about 19 million visitors a year (all of whom are often on line in front of you for Space Mountain). August is not a peak period, but the parks are far from empty. So let’s say that MK generated $4 million the day we were there, spent by about 50 thousand people. One park, one day. So while one is in awe of the physical plant that services a crowd of this magnitude (roughly times 4, daily, on an average day), one still feels that sense of "Disney reassurance" that certain critics have written about. I won’t go into that now myself. I just bring all this up because, predictably, at some point the members of the DisAd looked around and said Wow and started googling facts and figures to try to get a handle on it. Even people who hate Disney from the bottom of their souls are encouraged to go and study it just in terms of management of crowds, machines, hotels, restaurants, entertainment, etc. Tis a wonder.  

We stayed at Coronado Springs, one of the moderate hotels. It’s the biggest of this category because it caters to business conferences, and at times one wished one were at one of the more intimate spots. The rooms are all the same no matter where you are, however, presumably short of the Grand High Poohbah Suite at Swan and Dolphin, and one doesn’t spend a lot of time in one’s room wondering what to do to pass the time, so ultimately it doesn’t matter much. The first thing most of us did on arrival was hit the quiet pool near our room, something repeated for the rest of the week at every likely possibility. When it’s almost a hundred degrees out, a dip in the pool is just the thing, even if the water is hotter than your shower that morning. Wet is wet.

Our inaugural WDW dinner was at California Grill, at the top of the Contemporary Hotel. This is a classy joint with a view of the MK to die for (and to stay for, if you want to watch the fireworks). Because we were celebrating about a hundred events, including an anniversary and a (belated) honeymoon, they decorated our table with little Mickey tinsel. Jason, our waiter, was memorable, and we went so far as to get our picture with him. The wine flowed like wine, the food flowed like food, and the main portion of the trip was underway. And so to bed early, for a c of d start the next morning.

In which we begin debriefing DisAd14

So first I guess we need to get the DisAd out of the way.

We arrived from the four corners of the earth (i.e., New York) on a Friday and met up at the pool of our hotel at Universal. To put it simply, it was hotter than Hades, and remained that way for the duration. Occasionally the skies opened up and the winds howled and you were reminded of India during the height of monsoon season, but mostly it was just hot and humid. To expect otherwise of Florida in August would be sort of, I don’t know, Polyanna-esque? Anyhow, after swimming off the muck of air travel, we moseyed on over to Emeril’s for our welcome dinner. It was much better grub than you might expect, and we were primed and loaded for the next day.

Staying on property at Universal gives you two things: access to the Harry Potter attractions an hour before the park opens to the riff and the raff, and line-passing for all the other attractions for the duration. This meant getting up at the c of d on Saturday, but the payoff would be not waiting two or three hours for the HP rides. Definitely worth it. Of course, on our way in Saturday, three of our hearty troupe got separated, confusing Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley (some people just aren’t up on their Pottering), but a quick trip on the Hogwarts Express solved that one. The main agenda was Diagon Alley and the Gringotts attraction, and in a word, it’s amazing. You walk through the bricks and there you are. And the ride was by far one of the best around. After that, we (logically) rambled over to track 9 3/4 and rode the HE over to Hogsmeade. A few of us rode the dragon coasters. Fewer of us rode and rerode them. Then we looked at the line for Hogwarts and it wasn’t that long, so we staggered over there on legs still loosey goosey from the dragons, with the words of Sheryl K ringing in our ears that it was not much more than Soarin’ in its kindness and gentleness. It’s a great ride and all, but by the time it was over, at least Vaughan and I were reeling like drunken sailors on day three of shore leave. Apparently as the ride vehicle (so to speak) comes around after the passengers have disembarked, there’s a team with power hoses washing off the vomit, a tiny fact Kaz somehow overlooked. After digesting her review of Hurlwarts, more than a few of us vowed never to believe a word she said ever again. We also vowed next time not to ride the dragons first (or maybe at all). By the time we scraped ourselves off the pavement to line up for butterbeer, Kaz, who was with the wandering group, reappeared, and we beat the crap out of her with broomsticks. Butterbeer, by the way, is very sweet and probably best taken as an ice cream flavor. Somewhere in all of this I bought myself a Slytherin cap, but the maid at the Disney World hotel stole it—which makes cosmic sense to me—so you won’t see me wearing it at tournaments any time soon.

After filling up on HP, we did various other Islands of Adventures things, reminding ourselves that Spiderman remains one of the great dark rides. Having gotten soaked on Jurassic Park, we found some lunch and moseyed back to the hotel for a break just as the monsoon du jour started. A short nap later we were back at the other side, doing all the rest of the rides and whatever. Having gotten all of HP out of the way, we didn’t need to get up so early the next day, which was nice, and all in all, we did Universal efficiently and to the proper extent. There was a lot of fun stuff. Despicable Me and Shrek were cute. The Mummy was so good we did it twice. The Simpsons Ride was up there on the Gringotts/Spiderman level, and it’s hilarious from the moment you get into the line. If Back to the Future had to go, at least it went here. The new Transformers ride had a narrative that was completely incoherent, making it A) predictably Michael Bay, and B) a pale imitation of Spiderman. Oh, well.

Overall, with the exception of the HP areas, the theming of which is astounding, Universal remains a place with a lot of fun attractions, but no underlying tissue holding it together. I would recommend anyone interested in going to do what we did. Stay on property for the benefits of early and/or line-free access, in which case you’ll be able to wrap it up in a day and a half, as we did. It was a perfect start for the trip, and mid-afternoon on Sunday we packed up and headed over to WDW.

In which we explain the Modest Novice (somewhere else)

I wrote up a history of the Modest Novice and posted it over at NDCA. My work here is done.

In which we test the app

I thought I'd load the app for potential live blogging of the DisAd. I'll add a picture.

In which we tell you to go elsewhere

Last night CP, OC and I chewed the rag on the issue of overbooked registrations. Listen all about it here.

Speaking of rags, before the show we ragged on everyone we could think of in the debate community, just to get warmed up. If you have nothing good to say about people, you might want to join us for one of these sessions in the future.

In which movement is slight, and the weather prediction is, for lack of a better word, predictable

I check in on the Pups waitlist every day, and there’s literally no movement. I sent out a begging message to people to get honest and move out if they’re not taking their allotted slots, but I might as well have sent out a message offering free pokes in the eye with a sharp stick.

Tonight I’ll chat up CP and O’C on the whole waitlist issue. I wanted them particularly because CP invented the software that manages it, and O’C has enough waitlisted entries of his own to populate another couple of tournaments entirely. Yes, there will be attrition, but still… We’ll go over what people said on the NDCA site. We ought to be able to wrest a plan out of that.

Meanwhile, the assembled DisAd14 multitude is champing at the bit. At least I’m champing at the bit. I acquired a new camera for the journey, one of those small DSLRs that weigh about half as much as a regular DSLR. I broke it in over the weekend. I’m still learning the ins and outs of it, but the pictures look great and, in a shocking development, I can report that it is much easier to lug around something that weighs half as much as you’re used to lugging around. It’s really not a noticeable burden anymore, and that’s with an extra lens in the backpack. Although I’m thinking that the longer zoom may be the better normal lens, all things considered. It’s 40 on the bottom, which plays out, I think, a little bigger than 40 used to be on a camera (don’t ask why I think that—it’s technical, and I learned it on the street from the other kids, and look how badly they screwed up the birds and the bees for me). In any case, my experience makes me wonder if I would be happy just leaving it on most of the time. We’ll see. The DisAd should give it the workout it needs. Key for me is the ability to shoot with a polarizing filter. Blue skies, nothing but blue skies!

Okay, I just looked at the extended weather forecast for Orlando. In the 90s every day with a likelihood of t-storms. In Florida in the summer? Whoda thunkit?

In which we further ponder waitlists as big as the Ritz

I keep getting people telling me they shouldn’t be on the waitlist, and I’ve been finding that agreeing with them is the best policy, and then I refer them to the NDCA blog post. Not that there’s answers there (although there may be) so much as at least there’s understanding. And I do want to solve this, because I’m going to have to go through it all again for the Tiggers.

An underlying problem with most of the proposed solutions is that they’re onerous. They force the tournament do take difficult measures. And they punish the registrants. Severe entry limits? Well, you get more schools, but is that what you really want, especially at the expense of your longtime stalwart supporters, the schools that have been there year after year with an army or two? Fines or early fees? As CP points out, TBAs are for convenience. Making people put in real names, which really aren’t real, is just punishment for being realistic. Which also means not eliminating TBAs altogether, as well as charging for them way early.

The thing is, the idea that you have to sign up at a certain moment, and that’s your warrant for priority, while seemingly fair, is rather punishing. The coach of one of your favorite programs gets called away for a minute, and is thus too late to get in any team members? It looks to me like a lot of programs assign registration to some kid, poised at the computer as if they’re trying to cop tickets to a hot concert. I mean, really. It’s come to that? The arbitrary nature of first come, first served may have as its only virtue its arbitrariness; it's not a great measure of whether a team is tournament-worthy.

Obviously this is a problem only with certain tournaments, and I’ve heard from folks who say they would kill to have this problem, but in fact, those certain tournaments tend to have national draws, making them everyone’s problem. (And no, you don’t want to be in our position, because I assure you that you have neither the time nor the inclination to answer all the emails, at least not to everyone’s satisfaction.)

I’m going to be mulling this over for a while. I’ll probably throw together the next podcast on this subject.

In which we rant about registration procedures

But we do it over at the NDCA site: http://www.debatecoaches.org/blog-1/we-need-to-fix-registration-procedures If you're going to comment, do it there.

In which we manage the Pups

Talk about your flurries of activity.

The Pups opened on Friday. It was all waitlist, mostly because we want to be able to manage things a little bit, especially to allow people who need to fly in to have time to make arrangements. I’ve learned over the years that for some people, being on the waitlist and therefore not guaranteed a slot is not fair reason to be hesitant about buying a non-refundable plane ticket. I’ve also had people on waitlists tell me they have a ticket and that therefore they should be taken off the waitlists. I’ve had those people be ones who registered two weeks after a tournament opened.

I have learned from all of this.

On Saturday and Sunday JV and I cleared the waitlists. The thing is, there were up to three times as many registrants as there is capacity in some of the events. Holy Pup Moly! Big Jake also seemed to have very high numbers this year. Is there something in the water we don’t know about? With the Ivies, of course, it includes a lot of people just wanting to visit the school. Even when some of these venues were, shall we say, stinkers, people were still breaking down the doors. With Jake, though, it’s pure desire for $ircuit debate, or at least mostly that desire. It’s not exactly a vacation in Manhattan, despite its official name. The tournament is in the Bronx, and you’re probably staying at a motel in the world famous town of Elmsford. Not exactly bright lights, big city.

Anyhow, the Pups strategy was, first, clear off the far-aways, then hit the rest first-come, first-served. When we were done, I sent out a message to one and all, which immediately generated the predictable when am I going to get off the list questions. Given the numbers we’re talking about, e.g., 200 capacity in PF and 227 on the waitlist after hitting that capacity, I can honestly say that I haven't a bloody clue. Unless you’re, say, next on the list, how can I possibly tell? Although CP says he has some new metrics built into tabroom to track registration dwindle. I’ll be curious about that. Nevertheless, the old mail box was quite full, reminding me of what the season actually looks like once it begins. I had forgotten.

I also dickered a bit with CP over the removal of TBAs. He maintains, I think correctly, that people just put in phony names if you call them on their unassigned slots. But I think that those people are the ones who are really coming. A name change or two won’t hurt anybody. But at the very least, TBAs still on the waitlist disappear when you press the button to do so in tabroom. It makes the lot of the waitlist manager that much easier. In any case, we’ll eliminate them the first week of September. Poof!

And in other news entirely, I was forced today to throw away one of my Disney souvenir tee shirts. The shoddy piece of crap was falling apart. Jeesh! It had the 20th anniversary logo on it, meaning that I had bought it in 1991. I provide this to you as a warning: if you’re buying Disney wearable merchandise, don’t expect it to be around after 23 years or so. The stuff just doesn’t last.

In which we yammer

I'll just point you over to NDCA for my conversation with Adam Torson about the 2014-15 rezzes. Mostly we agreed. And mostly, they're good resolutions. http://www.debatecoaches.org/blog-1/our-first-podcast

I wanted a couple more folks, but they didn't make it for whatever reason. Next time maybe we will get more voices. I'm not sure yet what to talk about, though. I'm sure something will come to me.

In which, without regret, we go to bed early

O’C chastised me for not registering for his tournament at midnight. Like that’s ever going to happen. A thousand people signed up, he says, in two minutes, or something like that. I’m sure they did. It’s a great and popular tournament. It’s curious, though, that the vast majority of the entrants have the same initials: TBA. Hmmmm…

I got the raw file from Adam for the NDCA podcast, and assembled the show last night. Aside from my Darth Vader breathing, it sounds fine. (Note to self: move microphone up a little bit up from the pie hole next time.) I’m still debating how to work it for final presentation. I could create a second blog page on the NDCA site just for podcasts, but I’m thinking that one is enough, and I’ll just list it on the designated podcast page and solicit comments via the blog. I also have to get it onto iTunes, which I trust is the same process as the good old days when I did Nostrum and TVFT. And finally, at the moment it has no intro, and I probably should throw something together. I should have all this done by the end of the day, the good Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.

Full of inspiration from the Nat Soc Dark Arts, O’C is getting local coaches together for a season-opening lunch. That’s a good idea. Once we start doing tournaments, people are busy, well, doing the tournament. Time set aside to talk and plan will never hurt.

Anyhow, I have now registered for Jake, but am on the waitlist. Oh, the humanity. (Oh, the admin rights on tabroom—so much for humanity.) I’ve also registered for the Pups. The latter is real, because of the hotel room situation. Jake is more guess and golly, especially on the Speecho-American side. Ever try to get a Speecho-American to register for something two and a half months in advance? I did get one S-A who single-entered for Dec, which is admirably proactive on her part, aside from the fact that the tournament doesn’t offer Dec. Oh, well. That’s why the school hands out cattle prods to all the team coaches.

In which we're back, at least for a little while

Yeah, I haven’t posted in ages, and maybe longer. And since I’ll be on vacation soon, I won’t be posting again for ages, but if I don’t start to push myself in the right direction, I may never start up again. And let’s face it: the season is upon us.

Last night I worked with Adam Torson on a podcast. I should be able to mix it tonight and put it out tomorrow. We go over the proposed LD resolutions. I had wanted a couple of other folks to join us, but they bowed out for one reason or another. No problem. I’ll get them next time. The thing is, doing the podcast does require a modicum of tech skills on their part, since just recording Skype has been problematic (although I’m thinking it may be because I’m using the Mac Mini, and if I go back to the MacBook it may work better; we’ll see). So you can’t just grab someone at the last minute if they’re not prepped. I do want to get this out before the voting begins. And it will be under the auspices of the NDCA rather than TVFT.

See. I have been doing something.

Yale opens tomorrow morning, and everything looks set. I’ve even got some Sailors signed up. The Pups have a disclaimer they’re asking people to sign, which is a little problematic. More on that as things develop.

Jake opens tonight with the traditional “We Stayed Up for the Midnight Show and All We Got Was Jar Jar Binks” opening. I’ve tried to talk O’C out of it but he says it’s now a tradition, which is his blanket explanation for anything that a normal person (i.e., me, as compared to him) thinks is nuts. Whatever. You try to talk him out of it. I give up.

And for those following at home, the DisAd is now a mere two weeks away. Although a bunch of the DAs have been out frolicking in Vegas with the Nat Soc of the Dark Arts, so for them, it’s already vacation. Me, I’m working up a storm at home. Someone’s got to do some work around here.

In which, having nothing good to say, we become slightly rude

I’m trying to get Bietz and Palmer together for a podcast discussion or two on the next batch of LD rezzes. Probably next week. And we’ll see if we can do it in such a way that others can join in. Easier said than done, since I tried this last time and got nowhere, but we’ll keep at it.

Slowly but surely I’m getting a handle on the new DJ responsibilities, and the pressure is lightening a little. I’m able to eat lunch again, for instance, without working at the same time. I’m still finding lots of online articles of debate to share, but I’ve been shooting them all over to the NDCA twitter account. Which means I’ll shut down the virtual magazines next time I have a free minute. They were fun to do, but there’s really no time for them anymore. If I find a non-debate link that I just have to share, I’ll toss it into Fb, which more and more becomes people throwing in links they think they just have to share. The VCA knows I’ve never been all that addicted to Fb, unlike some people who, if you post the slightest thing, comment on it or like it before you’ve even removed your fingers from the keys. I don’t get it. Nobody on there is saying anything all that interesting.

This weekend we’re going with O’C to Mallios’s restaurant in NYC. Mallios is ex-Bronx, alum and coach both, and his place is apparently quite the spot. It’s the first time for me. I have to admit, I like it when a Bronx person goes on and succeeds. It so rarely happens… Not since Bobby Darin, really. Although there are those who might dispute me on this. (Some people just never liked Bobby Darin.)

In which we rev our engines

I’m breaking in a new P&L at the DJ. That’s always fun. The best parts are: 1) convincing the money people that the creative people (so-called) can trouble their pretty little heads enough to fill in a simple spreadsheet, and 2) designing a simple spreadsheet that actually can be read and understood at a glance that isn’t filled with abbreviations for things that used to be the standard phrase that we don’t use anymore. This sort of thing does keep one's head in the game.

Drawing close to August 1 means polishing tabroom files left and right. I got a room list from the Pups yesterday; they’ve got enough space to host the Summer Olympics, if they get in the mood. Having access to multiple big high schools in the area doesn’t hurt. I might have mentioned that this year LD is back at Hell House, with Friday on campus, which is my preferred combination. If we had been at The Other Place, I would have had to change the geography a bit, to insure that tab, the ballot table and the judges’ lounge were all right next to one another. The further from tab the judges get, the harder it is to find stragglers. One thing that’s the same in both places is the lack of civilization anywhere nearby. If you’re doing debate in any way, shape or form at one of these schools, you’ve got nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. And I'm assuming once again that there will be no wireless, so you don’t even have Netflix. In other words, go to your rounds!

O’C has gotten Rather Large Northern Borough Roman Numeral Something or Other started on tabroom too. What he’s got that nobody else really has is judges up the proverbial wazoo, which means that certain normal ways of handling hires and whatnot are rendered moot. And of course, he has the Jar Jar Midnight Madness Registration, although I think he set it for the wrong midnight. Oh, great. The teeming millions all get their s’mores ingredients and their bonfires and their single malts ready (okay, the kids at the camps probably don’t do the single malts) and it turns out that the tournament opened a day early and it’s filled up already with Brazilian ex-soccer players too embarrassed to show their faces in their home country so all you get for staying up late is a waitlist notice and that bitter memory of Phantom Menace.

All of this means I need to attack Bump in the near future. Feh. Anyone wanna buy a used tournament?

In which mostly we tell you to go somewhere else

I can't recall if I ever posted these numbers here, although I might have. But I wanted the wider distribution of the NDCA, so I just posted it there: http://www.debatecoaches.org/blog-1/some-interesting-statistics-on-mjp-in-ld The real issue, following this, is whether to fiat 1-2s and/or 2-3s over 3-3s or less, or solicit choices, or what-have-you. That will be the next order of business.

Meanwhile I'm trying to get Bietz and CP on board for a discussion of the next batch of LD topics, with an eye on turning the podcast into a broadcast. I failed miserably at it last time, but beaten though I am, I remained unbowed (or vice versa). The best conversations will come when they're open to all. Easier said than done, maybe, but we're working on it.

I spent a lot of time over the weekend updating the calendar, and most things have found their time and place. The Pups is heating up, seeing that registration opens in 2 weeks. Theoretically Big Jake should also be heating up, seeing that registration opens at midnight in the traditional Jar Jar Binks "if we're waiting on line at this ridiculous hour it must be good" approach. Whatever. O'C tells me that debate camps around the country have parties to celebrate the start of Jake registration. Which indicates to me that debate camps around the country would have parties for anything under the sun, including throwing one every time an ant crosses the pavement. I really do think, by the way, that since every other aspect of Jake is named after someone or something, the registration should be named after Jar Jar. It just seems so...right.

In which we update on the state of our calendar

So all I said was that we needed to fix up next year’s schedule, and there was a flurry of what I’d pretty much call total unresolved confusion, and the one thing I can categorically claim at this moment is that next year’s schedule is, in a word, unfixed up.

First, there’s the MHL Workshop. The choices are problematic, either too early and competing against Georgetown, which I didn’t even know was a conflict and all of a sudden the northeast is breaking down its doors, or on Yom Kippur, which is a pretty obvious conflict: Georgetown, I don’t know from; God, I have a clue or two. Which leaves a Sunday, Oct 5, as the most likely day. I polled the teeming millions, and got a fairly supportive response for the Sunday date, although mostly the responses ranged from meh to whatever.

And of course there’s the usual question of which comes first, the MHL or CFL in October. We asked EDM, but of course he was sipping champagne and eating bonbons on a high speed train across the Iberian peninsula, and told us he’d get back to us if he ever returned to New York, which if I were him, I wouldn’t even consider.

Then there was the question of whether Newark was definitely changing its date. I buzzed Jonathan and he confirmed it, so now we head off to Jersey the week before Lexington, leaving the week before Scarsdale open. We were going to put a big open UDL into what was the open weekend in January, and everybody loved that, but I’m not sure how they all loved it when I told them not so fast, not so fast, and we switched it. All right, fine. I’m penciling in the UDL the weekend before Scarsdale, and I’ll go whether they have it or not.

Then there’s March. I think what we’ve done is set the CFL Grands for the weekend of the 7th and NYSDCA for the weekend of the 14th, although various heads of debate state have yet to chime in with confirmations. Still, I’ll pencil it in. This leaves the NYS National Society of the Dark Arts district tournament and the NYSFL regional tournament up in the air, but they are small items that can’t really command a weekend of their own, things being what they are.

The moral of this story is, don’t buy any plane tickets for any of the local tournaments in New York that you weren’t going to come to anyhow.

In which we point out how the DisAd will transpire

We have established some guidelines for DisAd14, which begins in exactly 6 weeks.

First of all, everyone must go on “it’s a small world.” If we have to, we’ll strap people to the mast of the boat, Odysseus-style. And we will not allow Kate to arm herself with a slingshot.

We will not be hiring a wheelchair-bound person to get front-of-the-line access to the attractions. Apparently the Disney organization is now wise to this ruse, and only lets wheelchair-bound people do “it’s a small world” and the Hall of the Presidents. (Then again, if O’C decides not to come, maybe I’ll give Abhi a call, just to sound him out on things.)

We will not tweet every time a certain person on the trip squeals like a 12-year-old girl. We can’t afford the extra data charges.

We will make no snide comments when O’C goes off to get Cinderella’s autograph. Again. (Well, let’s be realistic: we will make no more than five minutes of snide comments, promise.)

JV will not swear once in the presence of a poor innocent child. (He will swear multiple times.)

Seriously, members of the DisAd will be allowed to wander off at will, despite the fact that I have planned out every single second of the trip from the moment of arrival, including potty breaks, catnaps, snacks, sips of water (not so many that they incur extra potty breaks), eye-rolling, mad dashes through the crowds at the end of the day to get on the buses first honed through years of speed-walking through tourist-thronged Manhattan streets, etc.

If anyone falls behind my schedule, we will abandon them without a qualm. This is war, people. Bloody feet don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.

Speaking of which, with any luck the mini-golf game of me, JV, Kt and Richard will not result in bloodshed. Or at least too much bloodshed. However, it will no doubt be the most serious segment of the trip. This is not a foursome that wishes the other player well. (“Your ball went into the ditch and was carried away by red ants and dropped in front of that rattlesnake? Well, the rules say, play it as it lies. Here, have a tourniquet.”)

We will not lie and say things like, no, that elevator in the Tower of Terror is just decorative, all you do is walk around the hotel and look at the dust and then come out the back. People are still complaining that at the DiDeAd we failed to mention anything about a certain Everest descent going backwards...

We will not wait for an hour in Diagon Alley for the Gringotts ride and then whine that we preferred it back in the olden days when it was the Jaws ride.

If certain members of the DisAd decide to drink their way across the world at Epcot, we will not discourage them, especially if they’ve beaten us at minigolf earlier in the week and we think we can trick them into playing again, this time completely intoxicated, for double or nothing.

We will not complain that we’re getting up every morning at the crack of dawn. This is a vacation, people. If you want to relax, go back to work.

In which we thank God we're not members of the National Society for the Dark Arts (yet)

Great googly moogly!

TOPIC AREA: Sports in the United States

Choice 1 – Resolved: On balance, students in grades 6-12 in the United States benefit when their schools offer interscholastic sports.

Choice 2 – Resolved: On balance, public subsidies for professional athletic organizations in the United States benefit their local communities.

You know, I haven’t posted a lot lately, being all tied up in the new DJ, but sometimes I realize, I really don’t have to post. After all, you know as well as I do what I’m going to say about these choices for Sept-Oct PF. I barely even have to think it. The only way Choice 1 will ever win the vote is if all the voters are non-PF people who want to punish this upstart division for some perceived sins or other that I can’t imagine. Which means Choice 2 is a shoo-in so that we can discuss…what…exactly? Presumably that pro sports already has enough money and doesn’t need the subsidies. Which is a pretty weak argument against the needs of most local communities to get the income derived from any corporate investment. The thing is, there’s no question that either these are a good idea or a bad idea, because the evidence, once one bothers to look it up, is highly unlikely not to go solidly one way or the other (and, as should be clear, I’m guessing in favor of benefits to the community, but whichever it is, that’s what it is). The facts will be what they are, and once the question of the financial benefit is established, in most civilized societies the discussion would be over. Then again, most civilized societies don't engage in Grand Crossfire. I say we just argue against sports, period. Anything that gives us Dennis Rodman, Luis Suarez and Tonya Harding should be ridden out of town on a rail, obviously.

Sigh.

I can’t wait until Oct 1, when the November topic is announced. I mean, how bad can it be?

In which we feel, shall we say, a sort of longing

I was talking to CP and telling him that I felt kind of bittersweet watching NatNats from afar. It overwhelmed Twitter, if nothing else. The thing is, no matter how you slice it, NatNats is not for us. It conflicts with mandated exams and, for seniors, graduation and/or proms. Over the years I’ve qualified a bunch of people who’ve immediately backed out, and more often than not been unable to get people interested in the first place, given the hoops they have to jump through. (Not to mention that, for me, it’s fairly impossible to attend, as I don’t have the time off from the DJ, but that’s a personal issue that can be gotten around.) And of course, the Sailor situation is little different from everyone else around here. So I get this warm glow of a feeling emanating out of Kansas City of “The Best in the Nation” and so forth and so on, and not to take away anything from anyone who was there, but New York is not necessarily going to be able to send its best every year, or at least not all of its best. And with the school calendars being about the same for the entire northeast, nor is anyone else around here. In my eyes, it’s the Best in the Nation, but with an implied asterisk.

I would like to have a valedictory event like this one that we could attend. My brief against the organization was not anything that it did (aside from its heinous fees when I personally didn’t attend), nor even suggesting that it try to accommodate our small portion of its membership, but merely that they never acknowledged our reality. To them, it was as if we were deliberately trying to be non-participatory. Which is why I ultimately gave up. The thing is, when you have a menu of national events to choose from, including national finals, you choose the one(s) that make sense to your situation. This one never has, and probably never will. And, as I say, I miss that particular opportunity. I miss sharing in that warm glow.

So it goes.

Now everyone is toddling off to camps (although, yes, our school is still in session). Which makes me wonder, sometimes. How many camps are there, anyhow? How many people go? Are these $ircuit-specific businesses? Or does the vast majority of the teaming millions of forensicians attend one or the other? I have no idea, although I’ve always supposed that for the most part it’s for circuit hopefuls. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I wonder if everyone I know is just too circuity for me, given my marginal interest in traveling far and wide just for a high school debate tournament. I mean, at the point where you have to get on an airplane, I begin to wonder if we’re not overdoing it just a wee tiny bit (except for big national finals, which is a different thing altogether). But the VCA knows well my thoughts on all of this, which haven’t changed in ages. There’s probably no point in continuing to harp on it. There’s worse things than selling your soul to debate. I’ve just always thought that there were also better things.

In which we briefly respond to the proposed LD resolutions

I’ve managed to acquire some new responsibilities at the DJ, and my brain has been a little bit occupied learning what I need to learn from the folks who provide the money every week. Good timing, when you think about it. I’d hate this to be happening, say, the week of Bump. It’s all good, in any case, and removes from my mind the idea that they’re all behind closed doors plotting how to get rid of me before the end of the week. I won’t regress to that one for at least another month or two.

For those who didn’t see them, here’s a working list of the LD rezzes. These aren’t final; NSDA was soliciting opinions. They may have all the opinions they need at this point. I certainly know how I feel about these off the top of my head, but as I move into PF almost exclusively, my interest is academic at best. Still, a few brief comments.


In the United States, K-12 education ought to be compulsory for minors. Hmmm. Should we argue that New Hampshire needs to provide kindergarten? Silly topic.

The United States federal government ought to define common K-12 educational standards. Hot button in its way, although I wonder about its durability. Better in PF.

The United States federal government ought to defer to states’ marijuana laws. States’ rights in 2014 is awfully inside baseball, if you ask me.

The “right to be forgotten” from internet searches ought to be a civil right. Minor interest at best. PF might make a go of something like this.

The First Amendment’s protection of political speech ought to extend to financial contributions. Probably okay.

Just governments ought to ensure food security for their citizens. Either really interesting or totally deadly.

Nuclear power is a just means of energy production. Just? Not very exciting, in any case.

A just government ought to require that employers pay a living wage. I actually like this one, if it’s about the responsibilities of government past the old social contract ideas of rights.

Sin taxes are just. Probably okay, but term of art though sin tax may be, I’d prefer sumptuary.

In the United States patents ought not be granted for biological substances. Something tells me that the bad science being tossed around on this one will cause brains to explode. And aren’t some medications biological substances? Meaning removing patents on drugs? Way off the mark. I'm a big fan of discussing IP issues, but not this one.

Historic preservation is a legitimate constraint on property rights. Too narrow.

United States foreign policy ought to value women’s rights over the pursuit of its economic interests when the two conflict. Yeah, that’ll make for interesting arguments.

The United States criminal justice system’s exclusionary rule is just. Pretty good.

In the United States, collective bargaining ought to be a civil right. I don’t like this one at all, on a gut level.

Corporations ought to value their responsibility to society over the conflicting responsibility to their shareholders. Meh.

Justice requires reparations to African Americans. Let fly the dogs of war. This is a great subject area, and we can argue important issues of discrimination that will actually be resolutional!

Inaction in the face of injustice makes an individual morally culpable. One of those perfect Nationals topics.

Adolescents ought to have the right to make autonomous medical choices. I don’t see it.

In the United States, Supreme Court justices should be subject to term limits. Interesting.

They will narrow this down, and maybe change some wording, and then there will be voting. Once again, a fine starting point. It will be up to the members at large to screw it up and vote for the wrong ones.

BREAKING NEWS: They did it.

1. The "right to be forgotten" from internet searches ought to be a civil right.
2. Just governments ought to ensure food security for their citizens.
3. Just governments ought to require that employers pay a living wage.
4. Sin taxes are just.
5. Historic preservation is a legitimate constraint on property rights.
6. United States foreign policy ought to value women’s rights over the pursuit of its economic interests when the two conflict.
7. Justice requires reparations to Black Americans.
8. Inaction in the face of injustice makes an individual morally culpable.
9. Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States should be subject to term limits.
10. Adolescents ought to have the right to make autonomous medical choices.

Compared to my analysis, I'd say we got the usual lineup of a good group of interesting ones, a couple that could go either way, and one outright stinker (adolescent medical choices). I'll go into detail shortly (and for all I know, I might think differently about things after I've thought about them more in depth).

In which we look at NatNats from afar

One of the regular features of not going to a national tournament is watching everyone report on Facebook how they’re having trouble getting to the national tournament. They should add a Schadenfreude button next to the Like button: I mean, it’s not that I want to see people’s flights cancelled or whatever, but when it happens, I get to savor that it isn’t me, as does everyone else whom it isn’t. Given my own debate flight history lately—a couple of NDCA trips going off the tracks one way or the other, thanks to the proximity of the Bronx team—I’ve been there with them in fact, as well as in spirit, so I know the pain. But I prefer someone else to be suffering it.

For a lot of people NatNats really is a culmination, but I still see it primarily as a Midwest speech event more than anything else. After all those frustrating years of arguing with them about the inability of the northeast to put together much of an entry, there was no love lost between us. Even though there are schools around the region who manage to put together good entries, they are still hamstrung by the undeniable fact of mandated exams, proms and graduations. So it goes, of course, and given that the dates of the event are pretty much set in stone, my desire was that some accommodation be made for our conflicts, but none were forthcoming. Even the final resolution, removing the stigma of Red Light District, was restrictive, limiting the numbers of qualifiers for purposes of following inviolable albeit arbitrary rules rather than looking at situation of the students themselves. Sigh.

Oh, well. Sour grapes on my part, and old news, and since I’ll be re-upping next season, I should put a lid on it. But my main point stands, that NatNats is a tournament with little personal relevancy for me. Given that you can only get yourself worked up for just so many national events, one needs to pick among them. I tell our Speecho-Americans that they’re working toward CatNats, a very big deal that is also well within their grasp. They are as able to qualify as anyone else, and they’ll get to go because it doesn’t conflict with anything like, say, their graduation ceremony. As for debaters, I’m obviously leaning toward NDCA as being the end-all be-all, especially after this year’s TOC fiasco. Unfortunately a lot of people are still locked into the TOC route, and I would be hard-pressed not to bring kids who qualify. But I’d rather not. I think the mechanisms for determining qualifications are problematic at best, the lack of neutral judging is inexcusable, and when you get down to it, the only reason the event has the power it has is because the community deliberately invests it with that power. Interestingly, the policy community has drifted a lot to NDCA, but LD and PF haven’t. Given the quality of the competitors in elims in those divisions, it’s hard to figure out why. Anyhow, I’ll certainly be pushing Sailors to NDCA as their culmination, and billing it as such, with TOC merely a diversion. After all, the choice the next couple of years is Las Vegas vs. Lexington, then Orlando vs. Lexington. And we’re talking about me, here.

No contest.

In which we provide the punchline here to help you out: "Mr. Schwartzkopf."

I just got two pieces of junk mail, the first with the subject line Anti-Aging, and the second with the subject line Burial Insurance. Tough choice which one to open first.

Also Feedly is down, suffering a DDoS attack. Sigh. RSS is my lifeblood, or at least it’s the blood I chew on (that doesn’t sound right) when I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing, like working. And work is sucky because I have not read anything usable all week, which is very frustrating. At least one of the books was good, just not for us. Not that I can spend much time with such an animal, but it does help a little. Add to this that today was the second of three in a series of root canal sessions, and you’ve pretty much got my life in a nutshell.

I went to the school yesterday because of some new finance system everyone has to learn, and in a shocker of shockers, it turns out that 95% of the whole thing is irrelevant. We will have to handle candy table sales differently in the future, though, I think, because the school has to pay sales tax to the state. Yeah, I know. There may be a loophole, if we only sell certain things. I’ll see. Anyhow, the people running the meeting were imports from some company that has nothing to do with the Sailors specifically, so when I talked to them about what I do, they looked at me as if I had just landed from Mars. Which, being in Speech and Debate, is a look I have long ago gotten used to. I did get the chance to catch up with Kathy S, our speech coach. Neither of us is sanguine about getting access to the Middle School for recruiting purposes in the next couple of last school weeks, but that’s par for the course. And kids who have joined the team over the years regularly report that, if there was MS recruiting, it was never the reason they had showed up. So though one wants it, one can live without it.

For those who were wondering, the Lexwegian job comes with the Palmer curse. This is good news, of course. He clarified it on FB. And if you don’t know what I mean by the Palmer curse, remind me not to swap old jokes with you any time soon.

I ran into my Nostrum fan at Jake on Saturday, by the way. There may be more than just the one, but he’s the only one I’m aware of at the moment. For those who are wondering, other than him, that is, I’m up to about 120 of the 170 or so in Series 1. I’m still targeting September, although admittedly, I need to get on the stick a little bit. The thing is, when I read an episode that depends entirely on, say, the vagaries of dial-up, I get distracted by, first, how old all this stuff is, and second, how it doesn’t really seem all that long ago. Last night I heard some techies prognosticating that 5 years from now we won’t recognize today, tech-wise. Probably true. 15 years ago? We had barely emerged from the primordial tech ooze.

In which another one bites the dust

Sara Sanchez is leaving Lexington for Chicago. I understand she’s doing it to get away from the cold Massachusetts winters. I think perhaps she misread the Glenbrooks job description…

There always seems to be one big change every season. While some programs’ personnel seem to have a barnacle’s ability to hang on no matter what, other programs have new faces practically every year. Lexington, actually, has been one of the busier venues for whatever reason. Given that I trundle up there twice a year, the old fingers are crossed that they’ll acquire another good egg for the spot.

There will probably be other changes among the local dramatis personae, but nothing as big as this one. Of course, in a way I’m used to a rotating cast, given all the colleges I work at. I have to admit there is great joy in seeing repeat faces at any of these, because it’s usually someone who has earned their stripes the previous year who can help guide the present leadership. The idea that colleges put their sophomores in direct charge at their invitationals is a very good one. They may be rookies, but they’ve got a deep bench behind them.

In my scouring of the universe for NDCA tweets, I’ve been inundated with NSDA reminders. Apparently they’re having a shindig of some sort next week. Good old NatNats. I really should go someday, just because. Otherwise it’s like being a cardinal who refuses to visit the Vatican. Then again, I’m more of a defrocked cardinal, or more accurately a self-defrocked cardinal. And I hate to admit it, but I’ll most certainly be refrocking next season. The argument that it’s good for students to have lots of points on their CV for college is a winning one. Add to that the fact that tabroom will be subsumed by the evil empire organization, and I don’t want to be sidelined there. Oh, well. I made my point, back in the day. I wonder if I’m up for another diamond or something?

In which we dabble in various arcana debatia

Saturday Bronx Science held a memorial for Richard Sodikow. It was very well attended, and all sorts of people shared memories from various perspectives—alums, family, colleagues. It was a good send-off, for a man who would have enjoyed a good send-off. Most people spoke with warmth and humor, and there was no question that many, many lives had been not simply touched but changed thanks to Soddie and the team that he built and supported for many years. The program lasted for a long time, but although my butt got a little worn out from sitting on those hard wooden Brx Sci auditorium seats, my mind seldom wandered. Strong praise indeed for all the speakers.

Then I went home and watched California Chrome not win the Triple Crown. Of all the horses coming close since Affirmed (although, as I’ve always said, I found Alydar even more impressive, because it takes heart to never give up and win every time but it takes heart and something else to lose every time and still never give up), this was the first one I was seriously rooting for. I didn’t bet anything (I lost all my discretionary gambling money betting the farm last year on Fred Robertson’s guaranteed Preakness pick), but that never matters for followers of the Sport of Kings. It’s all about the beauty of the thing.

Meanwhile the crowned heads of the NDCA, or as many as could get to it, were huddled down in Miami trying to rewrite the bylaws for the modern age. I would have loved to have been there, but alas, DJs and money are somewhat restrictive: there’s only so much of either to go around. There has been a steady flow of emails, though, and I’ve been trying to pitch in as much as possible. I wish I could iron out some of the website issues on my own—some of the data is well-buried beyond my reach and the listserver is temporarily moribund—but I trust CP will shortly pull us out of that. Meanwhile, don’t get me started on MJP, but of course, they did. Ugh. I know I can’t win, but I keep butting my head against it. It’s the first thing I want to talk about when I get the new podcast/broadcast off the ground, although the board may want to start elsewhere. We’ll see.

Next up, I need to read the latest Pup invite, and see that we’re all on the same page, and then I’ll look at the actual setup in tabroom.

September is almost here!

In which we see that 2014-2015 probably will happen

It’s about two and a half months till the DisAd. Time to shake away the cobwebs and nail everything down that isn’t already nailed. Not that there’s all that much that isn’t nailed, except for a few odds and ends and, on the important side, the FastPasses. I’ve gone over the tools in TouringPlans.com to figure out what passes to get, and now it’s just a matter of getting them. Of course, our best hope is that the parks aren’t too too crowded, which they shouldn’t be at that time of year. Except for Universal, which will probably be drowning in locals drawn to Diagon Alley. Negotiating Harry Potter is going to be the biggest deal of the entire trip, from the looks of it. I’m listening to the books, and am up to #3. I read them all, needless to say, and have seen all the movies, but I figured a refresher course wouldn’t hurt. And Stephen Fry doing the reading makes it slightly less than onerous.

Lots of planning going on in the debate world also. Nailing down the Pups, for one thing. That’s the problem with early tournaments—you have to plan early. Also there’s been the movement on the NYCFL front that I’ve already mentioned because of the national CFL meeting early in the season, and given that Catholic Charlie is now the Grand Imperial Poobah, he can’t exactly skip it, nor should his local regent, Mr. Beck. Where what will land I can’t quite say at the moment. And then we need to pin down the MHL workshop, but I’ll wait on that until O’C gets past the Soddie memorial this weekend.

It’s not only early tournaments getting the once over. There may be some big weekend switches in the new year, although no one’s committed yet. And God knows where the qualifiers will end up, since I know that JV and Catholic C want to move Districts, and there was a general shuffling of feet over the Last Chance, Even More Last Chance, Last Chance This Time We Really Mean It, and Last Chance This Time We Really Mean It More Than Last Time. Bump, on the other hand, will be where it has been in the middle of November, so don’t even think about it wandering off.

And speaking of Sailors, Capt Jake tells me he’s working on recruiting. This is good. It is also usually futile. Last year we get team members because the present team browbeat likely novices, prodding them personally to show up. That’s the Sailor way!

In which we launch the NDCA blog

I spent some time today putting together the inaugural post for the NDCA blog. http://www.debatecoaches.org/blog-1/ It is about as vanilla as a post can be, but the goal was to set up the blog, try out comments and tags, and generally see how things might work and how they would look. I’ve learned that you can do a lot with SquareSpace, but you do have to dig around a bit to find out how. What I’m not sure of is the comments, which look as if they’re set up to be moderated, but since I’m the moderator, it doesn’t ask to moderate when I make a comment. I’ll test that from a different machine that doesn’t know me when it sees me.

What I didn’t put in was the right-hand column. There you should be able to see past posts and search and find tags. All in the works, but one step at a time. As I said, I’ve got to dig around a bit to find each of them.

One of the value-added parts of CP staying at the Chez last weekend was that he detected interloping on my wifi, which I’ve never bothered to password protect because I figured if someone was stealing my signal, I’d sort of notice them sitting in my driveway. But apparently signal theft is no longer limited to the immediate vicinity if one has the right tools, so if you’re the person who’s been downloading GoT episodes before they’re broadcast, or worse, Rush Limbaugh episodes, your time is up. For the rest of you, the password is—No. Wait a minute. I don’t think that’s how that is supposed to work.

Of course, on the value-subtracted side, when we sat down last night to enjoy a little House of Cards, my Roku turned to me and asked why I had a password all of a sudden, and suggested I go online to figure out how to jump this particular fence. Hadn’t thought about that, but very little hoo-ha was required to settle down and start watching. And come to think of it, for years now people have toodled over to the chez and logged on to the legendary MenickNet wifi, and now they’ll have to know the secret code. Good luck getting it out of me. You can threaten my life with a railroad share, but once I go underground, I stay there.

And you might find it interesting that when the CFL was arranging its next calendar, it didn’t seem to notice that Yom Kippur fell on a particular Saturday. This is the down side of using the calendar in the rectory, guys, the one handed out by the Jesuits. There’s other calendars out there, with all the holidays, not to mention pictures of bathing beauties and firemen and kittehs or whatever else happens to press your particular buttons. Sigh.

In which we get together on the weekend

So I’ve been nursing an ailing tooth for a week now, waiting to get into the dentist’s today to finally have a root canal. Oh joy, oh rapture. Oh, well. At least my head won’t explode anymore every time I take a sip of coffee.

Caught up with the Usual Suspects over the weekend. CP came down, and we talked about his future as surf bum, among other things. I have this vision of him changing his name to Moon Doggy and wearing his baggies and waiting on the beach for the perfect wave, but he may have other ideas in mind. Met up with Kaz and JV and O’C and Kate and Richard and ate wonderful Italian food and gabbed like crazy. A lot of it was debate-oriented, but I promised Richard this would not be the case during the DisAd. After all, there is no debate in the summer for people to gossip about, and we’re certainly not still going to be talking about what happened at CatNats. (I know what you’re thinking. Something happened at CatNats? That’s what they said, and I’m going out on a limb and I’m going to believe them.) They were all also planning various hoo-ha-ishness over the upcoming NSDA powwow in Las Vegas, a venue worthy of planning various hoo-has. Aside from the NSDA part, I wouldn’t mind going…

Which does bring up the NSDA. Apparently it is now marginally public knowledge (since the Wunn and Only actually announced it somewhere) that tabroom.com is being subsumed by the Evil Empire NSDA, which actually is a good thing for all and sundry, insuring the endurance of a great system for managing tournaments, plus bringing the NSDA into something other than some Midwest operation that runs a tournament I can never go to. On the down side, this means that I’ll probably have to re-up, but I think I’ve made my point by now (especially since my local committee successors kissed and made up with Rippin’, pretty much entirely on the bases that I and so many others have been proclaiming since the Hundred Years War). So come the new school year, I will put my tail between my legs and shell out the Sailors’ money and get us back into the fold. And thus another great story ends with the proverbial whimper. Unfortunately, this time it’s me doing the whimpering.

For our weekend entertainment, we mounted a safari to Brooklyn, where we pretty much had to abandon Kaz in the Brooklyn Museum after she discovered their Egyptian collection. She mostly spends her free time acquiring information and photos and whatnot to inform her work teaching social studies, so this is as up her alley as you can get. She seems in fine fettle after acquiring a new school board and a lot of support from colleagues and grads to keeping the NFA debate program alive and well. Which of course always seems like such a no-brainer to those of us in the activity. That you have to hard-sell such a broad-based, empirically provable beneficial academic activity seems pretty counterintuitive, but somehow forensics remains the great underrated and often unknown educational tool that can do so much good in any school. Go figure.

In which we have little to say about debate, but say it anyhow

I have so little going on in my debate life that you should stop reading this now.

Once the season wraps up in Sailorville, that’s it. I don’t do any camps, so for me summer is entirely the DJ and whatever vacation I’ll be taking. Granted that this year the vacation is the DisAd, but despite it containing multitudes of debate folk, it has nothing to do with debate, and we don’t talk about debate or the debate world or anything in it. We didn’t mention debate more than once during the DiDeAd in 2010, and that was the tiniest riff to which we never returned. You’re surrounded by the most complex entertainment venue on the planet and you’re going to gossip about the CFL? Gimme a break. Besides, half the people on the trip, literally, are not a part of the debate world now, and only one of them ever was, back before half my team now was even born. It’s old news, or other people’s news. Come to think about it, we don’t gossip much about the CFL, or anything or anyone else debaterly, during the height of the season. We may compare notes on all sorts of things, of course, like why CP should be strangled for a particular quirk in tabroom or whether it’s MJP or MPJ, but as often as not we’re talking about something else altogether. That’s probably why we all get along. I mean, debate only goes so far, and then there’s, I don’t know, everything else?

That said, I do intend to throw a summer reading list at the Sailors that they can ignore at their leisure. I was especially impressed with Mills’s The Racial Contract, which AT recommended, plus if they haven’t already hit those inevitable canonical tomes like Locke and JSM by now, this is sort of their last chance. For that matter, you won’t really get the point of Mills if you haven’t read Mill & co. And the various aspects of the subject of race aren’t going away any time soon, and I feel that the Sailors, as PFers in their own little universe, need to be brought up to speed on exactly what’s what. Come to think of it, I think everybody needs to be brought up to speed on exactly what’s what. My take-away from the various discussions on race and privilege and diversity is that we need a lot more discussions of race and privilege and diversity. I’m admittedly ignorant of the subject in the context of actual debate rounds, an ignorance I intend to dispel, but the debate rounds themselves are only a part of the picture. I think I’m beginning to understand things I’ve never really thought about before. From such understanding comes change, and the goal should be to share as much of that understanding as possible.

One thing I have been trying to do that’s debaterly is capture content and tweet it via NDCA. Most debate sources that tweet spend most of their time talking about professional sports, but I do comb through them trying to find things relevant to topics du jour. And I’ve been taking my debate RSS grabs and funneling them over there. My hope, of course, is to heighten the visibility of NDCA as a source of discussion and content, and a lot of doing that is just getting into the habit of farming and replanting. Having nothing else debaterly going on at the moment to distract me enables me to get into those habits.

Meanwhile, this weekend CP is heading to the chez for a visit, and many of us will gather and share what gossip we might have left over from 2013-14 before battening down the hatches for 2014-2015. And we’ll also explore the darkest corners of Brooklyn while we’re at it. Wave if you drive by us.

In which we bid the proverbial fond farewell

Our journey ends on Saturday at Epcot.

We won’t get there at the c of d, but more like 10 or 11. I will shore up a Soarin’ FP because one does need to do this more than once, and maybe we’ll finish off anything else we can think of on the Future World side before moseying over to Mexico and, essentially, drinking strolling our way across the world.

World Showcase is not a lot of rides. If Russia had come through, there would be a coaster. If Japan’s original plans had gone through, there’d be a coaster and a trip through the history of the Floating Kingdom; that latter one is in Disneyland Tokyo. Apparently the back of Germany is also an abandoned ride. Oh, well. Mostly the countries are movies, simulacra, shopping and food. China and France are the best movies, I think, China because it’s about as close as I’ll get, and France because you get to sit down and look at people with berets bringing home baguettes to the accompaniment of Saint-Saens and Bizet. It’s fun to walk through the recreations of world sites and watch the various entertainments like Chinese acrobats, all of whom are about seven years old, and Off-Kilter, the Celtic rock band, and the Pearly People and Japanese drummers and whatever other cliché, twisted or not, that you can think of. And of course there’s the American Experience, which like the Hall of the Presidents, is a real conversation starter or, for some, the best nap on property. Mark Twain and Ben Franklin take you on a tour of American history from day one up to the opening of Epcot, with I think maybe a picture of Obama tossed into a montage at the end to make you think it’s up-to-date. Not to disparage it: I am not one of the nappers at this one. I’m thinking that this will be Richard’s most comprehensive introduction to American history other from what he cleans from trivia night at the local bar in Brooklyn. God bless the Queen!

Lunch will be whatever on valedictory day. Dinner has been chosen to occur at Germany, where we closed the DiDeAd. Tradition, in other words. And very large steins of beer and an oompah band. Following which we watch Illuminations with a tear in our eye, and bid a fond farewell to WDW and the DisAd14.

In which we don't go to CatNats

I follow forensics in a lot of places, including Facebook and Twitter. From the looks of things via these social media, no one is going to be at CatNats this weekend, because every flight known to Catholic and Heathen alike seems to have been cancelled. The only person who hasn’t yet posted a tale of travel woe is O’C, whose entire life is a tale of travel woe. Having decided ages ago to keep mostly to the roads and not the sky in my debate life is a decision I never regret making. It keeps the angst down to a manageable level.

Still, I’ve always had a bizarre fondness for CatNats. Granted, the grueling Saturday starting at about four in the morning was always a bit of a challenge, as were the strange venues in buildings without running water or surrounded by barbed wire and live mines. Then there’s the range in caliber of the debaters, some of whom fought with tooth and claw to get there and some of whom simply showed up to fill a diocesan quota, the unlikelihood of getting any food at the end of the day thanks to the league’s regular choice of cities that close at sunset (although Chicago obviously isn’t one of these—let me recommend a restaurant in downtown Rochester to you, as soon as I find one), not to mention the cold debate showers in the tournament hotels with their lobbies filled to overflowing with Speecho-Americans doing loud annoying Speecho-Americanic things that debate people can only shake their heads at. Does anyone else remember the hotel with the elevators that weren’t working in Detroit and the roving guerilla bands stealing one another’s cots? On the other hand, who isn’t fond of the quadruple checking system by hand in tab that means you’ll debate only the wrong people in alphabetic order, that you’ll inevitably get shafted by an input error, and that winning all five rounds isn’t necessarily a guarantee of breaking?

As I say, a bizarre fondness. Maybe it’s because each CatNat is memorable, whereas most other tournaments are the same old same old again, in the same place with the same people, so what’s the big deal? In any case, I hope everyone going arrives eventually, and that they have a fine old time. I sort of wish I was there with you. I could use a few new nightmares memories.

In which we hope against hope that O'C will be chosen to participate in the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular

We should be all tanned, rested and ready for DHS on Friday. I have to admit, I still call it MGM Studios, because I want it to be MGM Studios, but time marches on.

This is a fairly easy park to manage. Hit Tower of Terror and Aerosmith first thing, with FP for Toy Story Mania. Given that we’re with O’C, we probably have to go on Star Tours a couple of times, so one FP goes there. After that, I’m not quite sure. Nothing else looks terribly hard to get into in a reasonable amount of time. And some things, like the Great Movie Ride, you really want to stand in the line as long as possible to see all the coming attractions. We should be able to hit everything pretty much without any hassle. I'll probably do FPs for return trips to Rock n' Roller Coaster, if nothing else presents itself.

Food is a big issue at DHS. I was pushing for something different, but O’C used fiat powers to demand a return to Sci Fi Diner. Kate used fiat powers to start MK with Space Mountain, come to think of it. And general fiat agreement put us into Germany for the closing dinner ceremony on our last night. So if someone really wants to do something badly enough, the group will do it. If someone wants to wander off and get Cinderella’s autograph—yet again—on the other hand, they can wander off alone. O’C has said that he may do Star Tours a couple of hundred extra times, just being who he is and knowing that the word on the street is that this batch of rides (there’s a variety of possibilities for each time you ride it) will change after this year. Perish the thought he misses the Jar Jar Binks side trip to Balaclava. Anyhow, as I said, I was pushing for something different mealwise, like maybe the Brown Derby, because there’s ways of tying in your lunch with special seating at Fantasmic!, but I’m not against SFD, not by any means. I don’t even think the food sucks, although that’s the general consensus on the blogosphere. It’s a burger. How bad can it be? Meanwhile you sit in a convertible and watch coming attractions of 50s SF movies. Nothing wrong with that. As Kate and O’C both said, it’s an attraction in and of itself.

I do miss the old Disney-MGM Studios, though. Real animators on-site, the recreation of the old TV shows (one year my mother was in the soap opera, while another year I was the bearded guy from Home Improvement), and the really elaborate backstage tour, complete with Siskel and Ebert. Oh, well. S and E are both dead, production is long gone from the property, and all the great MGM memorabilia and merchandise has been sold off never to be seen again. I had this t-shirt I really loved, with a big Leo the Lion on it…

In which we go to Animal Kingdom

Thursday of the DisAd is Animal Kingdom.

The first thing about AK that you need to know is the controversy over Expedition Everest. Is it the best coaster in WDW, or the worst? We first rode it when it opened, back when the yeti was in full animatronic swing, so I miss that, but otherwise, in terms of a themed coaster, as far as I’m concerned it’s as good as it gets. The naysayers are those who are somewhat dismayed when the ride runs out of track and they’re forced to careen backwards for a while. We had not warned anyone about this last time, taking the position that this was too much of a spoiler, and if you like coasters, it won’t bother you. Compare this to Tower of Terror, where it’s clear that if someone doesn’t want to plummet down an elevator a whole bunch of times, they’re not going to like it, period, so don’t push it. That I understand. But a little backwards time on Mt. Everest? Why not?

I bring this up because AK is, ultimately, a small park, and if you run to Everest first thing, and have a FastPass for the Safari, what else do you need FPs for? I’ll say the Rapids ride, which I’ve never done, and that leaves one more. I say, return to Everest. Others say, you’re out of your mind. Jeesh.

I think of AK as the most photogenic park, because I’m fond of animal photography. If I decide to bring my SLR (the jury is still out on that one), AK will be the reason why. I was perfectly satisfied, however, with the photos from my little compact Canon in Europe last year, so I don’t know. Bring both? Just the little one? Hard to say. I don’t feel the need to bury myself behind the lens for the whole trip, but I do like taking pictures. Tough call. There are two walks in the park, so to speak, which are essentially paths through various animals. They don’t like to call AK a zoo, but by me it compares well to the zoo experience, if you dress it up a bit and theme it to death. Anyhow, these walks are where you’re up c and p with the animals, and the added benefit of a long lens comes in handy. As I say, the jury is still out.

AK also has a couple of musical experiences that are quite pleasant, one based on Lion King and the other on Finding Nemo. It’s nice to sit down in air conditioning in Florida in August no matter what your opinion is on these sorts of shows. I’m quite the fan of AK, and if it were up to me, this would be the starting park, working one’s way up to the ultimate experience of MK. If I were bringing kids, that’s what I’d do, because, honestly, they might not appreciate the lesser impact experiences of the other parks after they’ve seen Paree. But with adults, I’ve bowed to O’C on this and agree that we hit ‘em hard right from the start.

That evening we’re doing dinner at Boma, an African buffet at the AK Lodge. This keeps everything themed the same way all day. And it’s good food! All in all, this is a pretty easy day, without a lot of running around, and a swell time should be had by all.

In which we do our first day at Epcot

Epcot Center (which it will always be to me), is almost a two-day park. It’s not that we expect to do everything in it, since some of the things aren’t on even my lightest of hit lists, but we’ll do most of it, with lots of leisure for roaming and eating and the like. It’s that kind of park. You have to hit a few of the attractions hard and fast, or get FastPasses, but mostly you can take it as it comes. There’s never a line for the Japanese department store, for instance. For that matter, there’s hardly ever lines for any of the attractions except Soarin’, Test Track and Mission Space. Come to think of it, the longest line is probably the one to avoid watching the Norway movie, although maybe Frozen now means that this poor little film is getting at least some love.

We’ll start our first Epcot day at rope drop, with the traditional trip over to Test Track to kick things off. I haven’t been on this one since they updated it; apparently you now pick out certain aspects of your car to make it somewhat Tron-ish. Whatever. After that, there’s this thing called the Sum of All Thrills, where you create your own virtual roller coaster ride. It’s in one of the Innovention places (are they still called Innoventions?). Then Mission Space, the wimpy side, since when O’C went on the non-wimpy side many years ago it shook his brain loose in his skull and he’s never recovered, and then over to the Land for its various attractions, which should get us to lunch or so. I’m figuring a FP for Soarin’ and Space and some other random thing for this day. Lunch will probably be at Morocco, and on the countries side of the lake we’ll do Morocco, Canada (which is mostly a movie about how everybody you think is from the USA is actually not, although you wouldn’t mind sending a few of them back) and the UK. I want to catch the various shows that I can in any of these. They have musicians and traveling players and so forth. Which should get us through to mid-afternoon, at which one might attack another round of miniature golf, or if the spirit doesn’t move one toward the tiny links, maybe a shot back to the hotel for a little rest and swimming before dinner at Raglan Road, very high-toned Irish food with music and dancers, and finally the Cirque de Soleil show, La Nouba.

According to the countdown, there’s 87 days to go. If you’ve been following it, there’s been a lot of hoo-ha over the opening of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride, which has been eclipsed by even more hoo-ha over the opening of Diagon Alley. Goblins vs Dwarfs? The Wicked Witch vs Voldemort? In a way, I feel sort of sorry that Disney is putting up a D ticket against a Super-E down the road. So it goes. They could have had Harry if they had really wanted him. Instead they’re creating an Avatar land of some sort for the far distant future, although ground has been broken. Avatar? Why not? Of course, building the full Star Wars land, which you know will happen some day, is the killer. Not yet, though.

Sigh.

In which we take a day off, so to speak, from commando theme park attacks

At this point the DisAd14 has gathered and eaten on Friday, attacked Hogwarts and other points Universal on Saturday starting at the crack of dawn, attacked Gringotts and other points Universal on Sunday starting at the crack of dawn, and put away the entire Magic Kingdom on Monday, starting at, yet again, the crack of dawn.

Time for a modicum of sleep.

Blizzard Beach opens at 9:00 a.m. For me, this would mean up at about 8:00, which is as late as I ever sleep, so it’s a pretty good deal. The plan this day is for the group to break up a little bit. Some folks may head over to the Morse Museum in Winter Park, which I’ve been to and found quite interesting. But if the sun is shining, I’m more likely to head over with the Blizzard Beach contingent. The best part of BB is the toboggans, if you ask me. I’ve gone down the virtually vertical water slide, and didn’t enjoy it much. It’s just sort of ZAP and you hit the water. The toboggans twist and turn and go all over the place, for much more entertainment value. Do this for a while, then share a raft down from the top with whoever else is around, and you’ve eaten up a couple of hours, at which point the commoners have arrived in force and the lines have grown and it’s time to lollygag along in a big tire-thing along the sleepy river or whatever they call it. Blizzard Beach being ice-themed, occasionally you get shot with a blast of cold water, but mostly you just relax and soak up the idea of not doing anything.

After lunch, there will be the first of our mini-golf tournaments. I hold the honors from the DiDeAd, but have since been beaten by JV on our m-g day in Manhattan last summer. (Yes, there is a mini-golf course in the city, within falling-out-the-window distance of Stuyvesant.) So there will be much grudge-match venom being brought into this game. The Blizzard Beach course (actually, there’s two), are Christmas and beach themed. Shouts of “Fore!” cutting through the “California Girls” and “Jingle Bell Rock” music, in other words. I would advise those of the betting persuasion not to count the daughter out in your handicapping, not to mention the son-in-law whose golf skills are totally unknown. However, putting your money on O’C to take it all is just throwing it away. O’C’s lack of athleticism extends even to mini-golf, which is about as non-athletic as you can get without being in a coma. He’s enjoyable to watch, however, much in the way a traffic accident is enjoyable to watch, as long as it’s not your car involved in the pileup. If his golf skills are contagious, we’re all in for trouble.

That night we’re doing Greek food at Cat Cora’s on the Boardwalk, followed either by Jellyroll’s, a singalong piano bar, or karaoke at a very serene Japanese sushi place. I’m sort of leaning toward the former, although the latter may prove the crowd favorite. We’ll see.

In which we take a couple of random potshots at various pop singers, etc.

The Eurovision contest is over for this year. Members of the VCA know my fondest for this event, with its singing babushkas and the like. It is the epitome of pop music, distilled to its essence after being sent to Las Vegas for humility lessons. The best thing to do is go to YouTube and watch as many of the contestants as you can before you decide to swear off music completely. (Hint: Abba won in 1974. ‘Nuff said.) (All right, maybe not enough said. Watching folks like the CNN talking heads comment on Conchita Wurst is enough to make you decide to swear off talking heads completely, if you haven’t already. And her win almost restores your faith in pop music and Eurovision.) (Almost.)

Last week CP and Bietz and I tried to record a new TVFT in aid of learning how to broadcast live, and got nowhere. I had some software, MIXLR, and everything seemed to be set up correctly, but it didn’t work. Drat. Then we defaulted to Skype, but for some reason the sound was so off I couldn’t bring myself to publish it. I tried to fix it with the tools at my disposal, but it wouldn’t happen. So, I’ve been looking at Google Hangouts. That will be our next shot at it. As I think I’ve said before, the point is to get something going for NDCA. There are so many interesting conversations that can be had, and that seems like a good place to have them. I’ve looked at Hangouts and it seems pretty straightforward, but then again, so did MIXLR…

We spent the weekend away from the chez. Saw Hair! of all things Thursday night, the national tour having landed nearby. That was fun, followed by a trip up to Woodstock and environs, not because I’m having some bizarre 60s flashback, but simply because I’ve never been. There’s a great mountain to hike, and I went to the website where they told me, over and over and over again, to watch out for timber rattlesnakes, as this is apparently their major home in the northeast. When you get to the mountain, it also reminds you of the copperheads and water moccasins that are lying in wait for you. Why did it have to be snakes? We only did a small piece of the trek; my head got too tired from spinning around trying to find my imminent death to continue very far. The town itself is obviously where old hippies all go to die, although I can’t imagine why. I mean, the music festival was, A, a long time ago and, B, not actually in Woodstock. I’m one of those people very much alive at the time, and very much into music, who doesn’t pretend to have gone, or even wanted to go. The front top headliner on all the advertisements was Melanie. Melanie? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml1696pN-yE I don’t think so. Anyhow, today's Woodstock is a lot of shops selling hippie bric-a-brac and the like, okay for walking around if you can find a decent place for lunch, but that's about it. It was enjoyable enough though, along with some other town visits in the region. An easy getaway from the usual, in other words.

Speaking of the NDCA, I’ve been planning to revitalize (or maybe just vitalize) their Twitter. I gather they’re not posting anything. They do follow a lot of debate posters, though, most of whom post anything but debate stuff. I figure that I’ll just post my own articles of interest to debaters over there to get a little traction, and retweet any good stuff from everyone else. I’ve start on this, but not 100% just yet. Getting there, though, if you’re interested. @DebateCoaches.

In which we imagine JV cursing at Winnie the Pooh while elbowing Minnie Mouse out of the way to get his morning coffee

We kick off the WDW portion of the trip with dinner at California Grill, one of the best eateries on property, high up in the Contemporary. It has a great view of MK, plus great food. I didn’t make a late reservation, where you watch the fireworks from the balcony, although we might still be there if we dawdle enough. Honestly, my feeling was that we’d see the fireworks the next day on the ground when we’re actually in MK, and we needed to be up at the crack of dawn for the opening show there, so why push it?

The opening show at MK, with the arrival of the train and all sorts of singing and dancing and the Mayor of Main Street greeting the guests, is pretty much what I’m thinking of as the Vaughan acid test. If he can make it through that, he can survive anything, up to and including “it’s a small world.” I’m not suggesting that JV is something of a cold-hearted cynical bastard. It’s just that he is, shall we say, more likely to play the part of Captain Hook than Peter Pan in our particular production of the show. This week will be bringing out his kindlier, gentler side, if any. O’C, on the other hand, is nothing but kindly and gentle, with the odd teardrop appearing in his eye at the very mention of Cinderella (who, I keep reminding him, is not real, and if she were, isn’t that person pretending to be her signing autographs in the park). I’m a softy myself, to tell you the truth, although it may not be readily apparent. Kate’s more on the JV side, given that she’ll only go into small world if she’s allowed to bring a bazooka.

The MK day is a long one. You get a bunch of E tix out of the way early, with a few FastPasses in your back pocket for later (probably Peter Pan, Seven Dwarfs and Splash Mountain). By around 11 o’clock the riff and the raff are pouring into the park, and you start gravitating toward the C and D attractions, which never really line up much. When the stomach starts growling you pop onto the monorail for a ride through the Contemporary over to the Polynesian for a nice, quiet lunch and break. I will inevitably fall asleep on the five-minute ride back to the park, fully refreshed for the rest of the day. People might veer off for their own amusements (or peace and quiet) for a while at this point, but eventually we’ll regroup and finish up things. I’m usually not that interested in the day parades, but there is a new one I’ll probably want to catch, mostly for the fire-breathing steampunk dragon. But I’m definitely in for the nighttime light parade (the Baroque Hoedown is a permanent punishment for the Sailors on my iPod) and, of course, the fireworks. One thing we’ll definitely do again is the evening Jungle Cruise—much better than during the day. A reride of Thunder Mountain in the dark isn’t bad either, if the lines aren’t too long.

The final attraction of the day is the run back to the bus to the hotel. You may need to push a few toddlers to the ground on your way, or throw some wheelchairs down a few stairwells, but Kate and I pride ourselves on our speed walking skills, honed through years of Manhattan-tourist-avoidance. I’m expecting the rest of the group to keep up, or suffer on their own. I’m not tucking anyone in but myself, and as far as I’m concerned, getting home as quickly as possible is top priority when you have to get up again bright and early the next morning.

But wait! We’re not getting up all that bright and early. The next day is Blizzard beach. For all practical purposes, we sleep in.

Aaaaah.

In which we show it day-by-day

These are the DisAd14 days in order from beginning to end.

Friday - Arrival at Universal
Saturday – Hogwarts then general Universal
Sunday – Diagon Alley, finish up Universal, transfer to WDW, Coronado Springs.
Monday – MK
Tuesday – Break day. Blizzard Beach, minigolf.
Wednesday – Half day early start at Epcot. Minigolf rematch. La Nouba.
Thursday – AK
Friday – DHS
Saturday – Epcot half day, late start.

That gives us three days in a row of early commando attacks on the parks, a sort of sleep-in day, three more early starts, a final sleep-in day, and then disappear back to the real world. That’s not a bad balance, and there shouldn’t be too much craziness the way the days have been planned. As I’ve said, it’s not the busiest time of the year, and we are equipped with all the tools of the planners trade.

We’ll kick things off with a nice dinner on Friday at Emeril’s at Universal. You wouldn’t expect it to be much more than a noisy theme restaurant with lots of duck fat, but we ate there ages ago and it was top drawer. Universal has a stretch of restaurants and shops outside of its two parks, and we are staying on that property, so my plan is to arrive in the afternoon, lollygag by the pool, stroll the shopping boulevard, eat like a king, then tuck in nice and early for a crack-of-dawn start in the a.m. Staying at Universal means you get first shot at the Harry Potter attractions before the gates open to the hoi and the polloi. It also means front-of-the-line status on, I think, everything else, so aside from hitting the boards early, it will be easy after that. I’m expecting to be able to take a break midday for a quick nap (which those who know me know that I can do standing up while tabbing and doing the crossword puzzle at the same time), then head back for part two of day one.

Sunday is another early start, to the other side of Harry, the new attractions at Diagon Alley, which are scheduled to open in July. Leave after lunch and mosey over to WDW to our hotel, for some more lollygagging.

I’ll be really curious to reactions to Universal compared to WDW for our newbies. Richard, after all, is a total WDW virgin, and JV hasn’t been there since Mickey Mouse was in black and white. Will they feel the immersion in the latter, the total Disneyfication of their inner souls, as compared to the just generally nice collection of rides in the former? We’ll see.

Richard Sodikow, debate god

My daughter asked if she could go home early from a tournament because a friend of hers had a car to drive her back. I was jealous. The car was a cute little sports convertible. “I remember one time,” Sodikow responded to this, “when I looked out the window at a tournament and saw a bunch of students driving around the parking lot in a convertible, none of them sitting in the seats, all of them standing up and acting like idiots. And then I realized, they were my idiots.”

*

Sodikow was one of the founders of the Mid-Hudson (now Metro-Hudson) League. He would always host the first-timers’ event. At the end of the day during the awards ceremony, he would ask the assembled novices if, A, they had enjoyed themselves, and B, if they had learned anything. If they could answer yes to both questions, they would be debaters for the next four years. During the awards ceremony now, I ask them the same questions, since those are the only two good reasons one ought to bother with debate, and if you can’t answer yes to both, what’s the point?

*

There was a point early in his career, he told me, when he had to decide between Stuyvesant and the Bronx. At the former, he probably would have gone more of a drama route, as compared to the debate route at the latter. And then he described with lust in his eyes to state-of-the-art theater complex Stuyvesant had later built in its new location. And then he shrugged. “I did manage to be New York Teacher of the Year, so I guess it worked out fine.”

*

I learned to tab, on index cards, at MHLs under Sodikow’s tutelage. He also tabbed Bump for me, back in the day, but not on index cards. When tabbing first went digital, it was on Macs only, and a testy program it was. While he would wait for the machine to calculate, he would slowly rub the chassis of his computer, presumably to relay to it warm and comfortable thoughts so that it wouldn’t crash, which it was prone to do more often than not. That’s my image of him in tab, staring off into space, massaging the rounds out of his laptop.

*

On the 6 hour bus ride home from Edison HS, below DC, in the wee hours, he would sit in the front seat on the right and sing opera just slightly above a whisper. 6 hours of opera.

*

Sister Raimonde, another debate god, ran the NYSFL with an iron hand. When she spoke, everyone listened. Back then, Soddie ran policy tab, in a building off by itself, running a bit late this particular year. While we were waiting for him and the results, the rest of the award ceremony was in full swing. The gym we were in was packed to the gills with forensicians, but as Sister Raimonde announced this and that, she commanded everyone’s complete attention. No one else would dare speak while she was on the podium. At the last possible moment, Soddie showed up with the results from policy and delivered them to Sister. She got to them a moment later, and said something to the effect that she especially wanted to thank Mr. Sodikow this year now that he was retiring. From somewhere in the gym, a shocked and stunned student’s voice immediately rang out into the otherwise respectful silence: “Sodikow’s retiring?”

The entire gymnasium broke out in hysterics. Then Sister Raimonde, who was not amused, raised an eyebrow. Silence returned immediately, and the awards ceremony concluded without further incident.

*

A student of mine was being dogged by a kid from another school who was totally infatuated with her, much to her dismay. At one tournament, he sidled up to her and gave her a little package with a necklace in it. She came to me asking what to do. “So this boy gave her a present,” I said to Sodikow. “She’s pregnant?” he immediately responded. “I hate when that happens.”

This particular incident, and this interchange, eventually worked their way into Nostrum.

*

Anyone reading Nostrum could tell that Manhattan Lodestone (“A Magnet School”) and its coach, Mr. Lo Pat, could only be Bronx Science (transported to midtown) and Sodikow. The Round Robin, the unique LD topic, the fearsome debate god—what else could it be? When Nostrum came back for a second series, after a long break, Sodikow had long been retired, and in the new series, Mr. Lo Pat was also no longer at Manhattan Lodestone, having been replaced by Halefoil Cumcut, who was loosely based on Jon Cruz. Art imitates life, and all that. Of course, in fiction, Mr. Lo Pat had been set upon by the unknown “Halibut Killer,” and one of the regrets I have about Nostrum is never explaining who, indeed, was the wielder of that deadly samurai sword. Anyhow, I am proud to say that, when I began putting together the final ultimate version earlier this year, I found among the correspondence of Jules O’Shaughnessy and the Vast Nostrumian Army fan mail I had forgotten from RBS himself.

It was the best note I ever got. I figured if Sodikow liked Nostrum, I had won over my most important audience.

In which we plan every last minute

In the olden days, you went to Disneyland and bought a ticket for anything you wanted to do. Those tickets evolved into ticket books, ranged from A to E for corresponding attractions, with a certain number of each, to spread people around. The point was, the park had X number of E-ticket attractions, and you were given X-Y number of E tickets. Crowd control was built in, and on the guest side of things, you hadn’t even gotten through the door and you were already faced with choices. I was lucky when I was little to be traveling with adults who were happy to pass along their Es to build up my supply, so I didn’t have to miss anything, aside from the pressures of time and lines and whatnot working against the average park-goer.

Eventually the park was general admission with all attractions included. Which meant that going to WDW was a matter of engineering the best course through a given park, minimizing the amount of time spent on lines. Rule number one for this, which you would think would be obvious to everyone capable of breathing, is to get there at park opening. But you’d be surprised how hard this is for some people. For whatever reason, they are unable to gather their forces for the firing of the opening shots, and they miss out on the first hour or two when you pretty much walk on to anything you want without waiting. If you get the (now virtual) E tickets out of the way early, you breeze into the less busy attractions for the rest of the day without having to give it too much thought, provided it’s not one of the busiest days of the year. The DisAd, in mid- to late-August, is only a moderately busy time, so that won’t be a problem for us.

Rule number two is to use the Unofficial Guide, which I have sworn by since its earliest days. For all practical purposes, the Guide is the aggregate of untold numbers of line engineers processing the best paths for speedy touring and passing along the results. For years I was a dedicated follower of the book. Whoever was with us, they trusted me and I trusted the Guide, and even though we were occasionally caroming all over creation, we were seldom waiting on a line. Life was good. In fact, even during busy times, and we did occasionally visit during such times, the Guide was a lifesaver. Plus showing up early. I think one of the big reasons people come home dissatisfied from a Disney trip is poor planning on their parts. Granted one might not want to attack an amusement park with the diligence of Eisenhower contemplating the invasion of Europe, but for me planning has become part of the whole fun of the trip. And the satisfaction of a good trip as a result is more than enough payback.

A while back, Disney introduced the FastPass. This was a reservation for a ride that you picked up in advance. You could get one of these for an E ticket a couple of hours hence, and after a certain interval, you could get another one, etc., etc. Adding the FassPass tickets to good tour management allowed things like repeat rides on one’s favorite attractions. You can ride Star Tours, if you’re O’C, maybe 20 times in a row. The old FastPass would help you on at least a couple of those trips.

Now Disney has what they call FastPass+. These are reservations made not while you’re in the park (for the most part, although you can make them in the park, and augment the ones you’ve already gotten after you’ve used them), but up to two months in advance. In other words, the park commando now plans his touring in general, plus when and which of a handful of FastPass+ reservations, 100 days before the trip, and remains poised to enter them the moment they become available (60 days in advance if you’re staying on property). I’ll be able to solicit passes for the entire DisAd, once everyone has ceded to me their reservation rights, which they have mostly all done.

Add to this the fact that the Unofficial Guide, which I still swear by, is now an app that you can adjust to your heart’s content, moving things this way and that way, augmenting with FastPasses, etc. I’ve already got MK and Epcot planned out. I started working on AK today, but hit up against a server problem, so I’ve postponed until tomorrow, but obviously, no soon is too soon for me!

If anyone needs help planning their Disney trip, let me know. I’ll plan everything for you, including breakfast, lunch, afternoon snacks, bathroom breaks, rides, shows, catnaps, family arguments, snakebite first aid, parking assignments, gas-passing and general albeit scheduled serendipity—gratis. It’s like playing a computer game, Sim Disney. Except real people get to be the sims.

Hey! Vaughan! Get over here! It’s 11:38. There is no scheduled bathroom break now. You’re supposed to be in the India section of “it’s a small world” at this very moment. You want to spend the rest of the day in the guard house? Suck it in, bub! You’ll pee when the Unofficial Guide says you can pee, and not a minute before.

Jeesh!