Pick a card

So we did Regionals with pure index cards, which is about the only way you can do something that small, especially when you're putting the novice bye into the jv pool. You can just get so creative in TRPC, and then you're done, whereas if you actually know what to do without any software at all, your worst-case scenario is simply that you have no software. Once upon a time, of course, all tournaments were done with cards. And in a way not only do we do Regionals with cards but also Grands, with double-flights and three judges and total madness from the get-go. Aside from me and Kaz and Bacon, there probably aren't many card throwers around anymore; I only learned in the twilight years when the Mac version of TRPC couldn't really do MHLs that well. One thing about being a dinosaur; you do know how to eat the leaves off of trees while standing in water up to your knees while being attacked by velociraptors.

At one point at Iona Joe broke the news to me that he and O'C were going to be on the TOC committee but not me. I had heard that JWP was making changes from Kaz, who didn't know if she'd still be on herself, so I was hardly unprepared for this (and I've been sort of an inexplicable member anyhow, no question about it). But more interesting, Joe acted as if I might be upset by it. Curious. Let's see. I'm the person on the committee who thinks the TOC is the most evil influence on LD and should be eliminated. Remember, "If the TOC didn't exist, I wouldn't invent it"? I have spent the years I've been on the committee appalled by the politics (for instance, I watched the evisceration of the Bronx in what can only be deemed an alternate universe while the outsourcing of bids to universities has continued unabated and unwarranted). And the annual lunch is a social event that I have often found positively painful; my only consolation is that the people I have had to make conversation with have had to make conversation with me in return. In the word of Pseudolus: "Free!" I have felt like a hypocrite since day one; let Joe and O'C feel like hypocrites for a while.

And I know you're wondering: Pip is back on the premises. Kt the Spamless Goddess of Silence relinquished the Wondercat on Saturday, and although he is still roaming the place complaining (I think he misses Stripe), the presence of novices at tomorrow's chez should put paid to his concerns that all may not be right with the world. He didn't even have to help me set up the DVD recorder; it was the proverbial piece of pie. Now all I need is something to record.

Coming up: making reservations for States, the last salvo of LDEP, and praying for divine intervention with my novices debating Mar-Apr. My guess is that only the former will be successful.