The Magnificent Eight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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