Wikisneakia

Well, the thing about Wikis is, if you get caught out claiming you have the oldest tournament known to man, you can sneak in during the night and make it “one of the oldest tournaments known to man.” I’m referring to O’C’s comment on my Speaker Awards post, and the Big Bronx Wiki at WTF, which I only referenced because I wanted some speaker data. Tsk, tsk. What he doesn’t explain in the Wiki, by the way, is sextodecimofinals, which has always bothered me. Quite honestly, I always felt that Soddy was pretty damned brilliant about debate stuff, but from this evidence, he didn’t know squat about math. If one does want to be precise, the word would be hexadecimal, not sextodecimal—ask anyone who’s ever programmed in 8-bit machine code. Sextodecimal is reminiscent of a marginally inept navigator trying to note the position of a ship lost in the horse latitudes. I also noticed no reference in the Wiki to the Big Bronx rallying cry. Tsk, tsk again.

Meanwhile the Sailors are bumping their heads against the walls scrambling to recruit this year’s midshipmen. They’ve got a couple of days. Good luck, guys, though as I always say, people come into the high school genetically wired to debate or not to debate, much like they come in wired for, say, football or cheerleading or tropical fish club. Each year has its own vintage, and I for one wait for this particular uncorking with both bait and breath, as the saying doesn’t go.

If you have a hankerin' for seeing your name in print, Smilin’ J is looking for Rostrum writers. Harumph. I didn’t get the traditional WTF $5K for my article last year, and they challenged the word schmegeggie, but I have to admit that I did get a nice little certificate. Next time I’d only do it for the $5K.

I’ve got the new printer working fine, thanks for asking, and I’m happy as a clam over being back where I (will soon) belong. I even recorded another piece of Caveman last night. One more to go, and it’s a done deal, then I can start up The View from Tab. Speaking of which, I’m pretty much figuring on one iteration of Classic TRPC for both divisions of Bullpups, given that they say there will be much sharing of judges. I need to get my hands on that data, but Chris Palmer is MIA at the moment, and he’s the man with the passwordage. I’ll keep bugging him. I would hate to wait till Monday night to start. 160 varsity, 100 JV – that’s a lot of meatballs to drop into the sauce, if you know what I mean.

Speaking of which, I just read Robbie’s aff. He’s running Auguste Escoffier. This is, I think, a first. The only way the case makes sense is if you eat it during prep time.