Inside the bunker

This weekend's tab room at Lakeland was, perhaps, emblematic. It was also hotter than Baghdad. You should know what goes on in there.

First of all, the judges were, again, one step ahead of us. I thought that the fact that they often don't speak English and that they know every hiding place in every school was trouble enough, but they pulled a new one on us this time. They went home. One of them left a note at the ballot table Friday night informing us that he would not return on the morrow. Another simply didn't return, with no notice whatsoever. That both these judges left in the middle of the tournament, in one case abandoning a team completely, is beyond my understanding. I wanted to toss the teams out on their butts, but I was only running the computer, not the tournament. It gets harder and harder to like lay judges, but the real issue is the kids, not the judges. There is no question that the teams involved knew full well that their judges were blowing off their obligations, just like kids know full well that they haven't bothered to train their judges, but don't give a damn, because their bad judges will be out judging someone else. The notoriety of a handful of teams, and a handful of judges, because greater and greater. I guess the offenders simply hope that we'll stop scheduling their lousy judges and let them off the hook. Now THAT is sleazy. And deliberate. I'm tempted to start posting the names of the schools and judges to avoid. And I can't wait to write the judge section of next year's Bump invite. Don't even think of signing up if those notables are any of yours. You know who you are.

There were plenty of bright spots, though. While I alone was left to defend Moby Dick as a regular reread (the various coaches assembled were almost unanimously strong supporters of tossing Melville overboard completely), and also seemed to be the only person who liked Dickens AND Austen, we could at least all agree that The DaVinci Code is the only bestseller in recent memory that actually delivered on what a bestseller ought to deliver. In other words, it was only as philistines that the coaches could find unity. Then there was the Menick evidence against kritiks, or something along those lines. Let's put it this way. Some yabo quoted this blog in his case, against a Hen Hud debater, and WON! I don't know which is more embarrassing, that the yabo didn't have a clue to the credibility of his source, or that my guy lost to it. Heads should seriously be hanging in shame today. And then there was the usual schmoozing and gossiping about various and sundry. Mr X with his ego being the only thing bigger than his mouth was roundly savaged, and everyone hopes he will be going away at the end of the season. Ms Y, it turns out, was given the boot; I didn't even know her but I was glad to hear it. And the disconnect between what everyone says the TOC is doing and what the TOC is doing was remarked upon yet again; as a member of the LD advisory committee, I am ever astounded at the things people say we're up to!

And on the local front, a commitment was made to keep the MHL together in the face of Bill Barthelme's leaving Bergenfield. News of how we'll do things will be reported eventually, but expect at least as many tournaments as in the past, and an active website for signups and information.

And not that you really care at all, but Lakeland was yet another example of why you can't use the "new" TRPC software. Every version after 2002 has faults. The runover of divisions is well-known, but this time we got incompletely filled-in schematics, plus total inability to find extra judges that were clearly available in the data. If you plan to run a tournament and need the old software, let me know. It's on my flashdrive and it's yours for the asking. If you use the new software, you're on your own. The only good thing it does is print ballots, if that's your fancy. The only way to use it is if you have one and only one division of something (and even then you'll run into trouble, e.g., it forgets how to print a schematic). I use these programs week after week after week, and while the old version lacks a few bells and whistles, it's solid as a rock, and Rich Edwards is my god! As for the new version... I prefer index cards.