What I don’t know about RSS would fill volumes. I do manage to screw up Nostrum postings about twenty-five percent of the time, but eventually I do get them straightened out again. Essentially what I do is copy the code for an old episode, paste it at the bottom of the file, and update it with the new info. You’d think that would be a piece of cake. But it’s easy to put the main codes in the wrong place, or miss something, or generally wreak havoc. Also, the simple browser access to my host site doesn’t allow for editing of xml files, so you have to download it, strip it of some tags it acquires during the download, and then upload it in its corrected form, which means that if I’m home, I just use the FTP program and that’s that, but if there’s an error I’m correcting on the fly from a computer other than Little Elvis, there’s a whole other layer of error potential. And I, for one, embrace layers of error like [insert humorous metaphor for ecstatic voluminous layer embrace]. Anyhow, at least according to my Yahoo page RSS, there are now 2 new Nostrums floating in the castosphere. That subset of the VCA known as the Nostrumian Brigade can breathe easy and plug in their earbuds. I know I will. I’m especially looking forward to the point a week or two hence when the Epistles of St. Jules to the Forensicians recommences. More on that as we get to ‘em.
Meanwhile, I’m at sixes and sevens over the whole lost O’C interview. I mean, yeah, I could do it again, but the thrill is gone. How many times can he tell me about his collection of Darth Vader pajama bottoms? What I’m thinking of doing is recording a précis of the original interview, which is still on the MegaPod, just extracting the good parts, and doing it mano a mano but with only one mano, so to speak, i.e., me. We’ll see. He does claim to be game for a redo. However I do it, I obviously need to test the process a little better first.
The plebes were, as I suggested yesterday, intrigued by their first exposure to varsity LD at Bump. I put one in each Octos room as the runner to collect the ballots, but of course also to watch and learn, and then they went where they wanted in the subsequent outrounds. My favorite thing they got out of this varsity exposure was, as I said, the feverish need to run the criterion of “recourse,” which they continued to expound upon yesterday on our listserver. My final coachean deed last night was to suggest that they actually look the word up in the dictionary. This could have the effect of them potentially making some sense, or abandoning it; I’ll take either result.
And I am beginning to feel normal again. One forgets how much a tournament takes out of one. With all the changes for next year, I have already begun the fun thing of reworking my Excel master registration sheet. I’m turning it into a database that ought to work for any tournament, including MHLs, and I’m putting such niceties into it as automatic generation of the skem name (i.e., taking Muck Stewedprune from Lexington and turning him into Lexington MS to copy over to TRPC), plus macros for the sorts (housing, division, etc). That’s the kind of fun thing I really enjoy. I’ve been an Excel dog going back to the days of being a Lotus 1-2-3 dog. I can make Excel sing, dance and take out the garbage. But I’ve never done much with it for Bump aside from storing information. The time has come, eh?
And tomorrow we’re off to Li’l Lex. La Coin runs 3 tournaments to my one; this is masochism of the highest order. Presumably Li’l Lex warms her up for Bi’g Lex, and then she coasts through Mi’d Lex. Whatever. One’s enough for me. Anyhow, Li’l is, as I say on our schedule, one of the high points of the Sailor’s social season; everyone signs up in droves and a swell time is had by all. I’ll be driving up behind the bus with a couple of the ABs, and the only thing I need to work out is what, exactly, our entertainment will consist of. Amy Sidaris? TAL? Wait, Wait? Penn? So much entertainment to choose from. Plus a night at the Battle Green Inn. Does it get any better than that?
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