$12 worth; The BCOTC; Lakeland; My inner Tiger

I moseyed on over to the NYSFL site yesterday. I have to admit that I had been thinking about the possibility of sending a serious entry to States in light of my concurrent thinking about sending a serious entry to Lakeland. Consider this the perennial triumph of hope over experience. It turns out that their desired use of the Albany campus fell through, and they are resorting to the usual venues. Which no doubt means, for reasons that I’ve never been able to understand, the usual 4 rounds in addition to all the other usual negatives. O’C talks about a NY State organization that reflects the vibrancy of New York State forensics, especially debate. This organization runs tournaments throughout the year, and caps itself off at the end with a tournament to be proud of. (At least I think O’C talks about this. Maybe it’s my imagination. Maybe it was Faux’C.) If I thought there was the proverbial snowball’s chance I might consider trying to help run the damned thing and make it into that sort of organization, but my likelihood of getting a position of power in that particular enclave is not exactly great. But think of it. We could break the state down into regions that (like Mid-Hudson) that actually conduct regional tournaments (and those regions already exist). We’d have a meaningful qualification process. We’d have the best possible judges. Why not? One of the big issues holding them back now seems to be lack of venue. Have multiple venues, then. I’d rather send my people to two separate tournaments that are good than one that is at best a compromise. I’ll bet we could find venues that would even house, which would be a lot cheaper than the fleabags up at Albany. All the profits from the tournament would go to the host venues, by the way, less the cost of trophies. While it is nice to pride oneself on the bargain price of $12 a head, which they do now, it only means that we’re getting $12 of debate in return. I’d pay a lot more money to create a decent judging pool, five prelim rounds, and aggressive competition. If it were housed, all that money going to the fleabags now would simply go to the tournament. Let’s face it. At least the debate side isn’t that big. Smaller than Bump, actually, or Big Bronx, so the numbers are quite manageable. This could be done instantly, in time for the 2008 tournament. I’d send everyone I could. So would you.

Dream on.

Meanwhile, from the arena of missing the point entirely, NG, the present holder of the Biggest Crackpot on the Circuit cup, thinks that I need a way to capture YouTube-type videos on my iPod and that I’ve been living under a cabbage leaf for not having same. Golleeee, Andy! I have absolutely no desire for any of these programs, as my total video-watching time is rather small, and my need for short films of cats flushing the toilet is rather limited. (TubeSock is the Mac app of choice for this, of course; I’ve got it and don’t bother to use it.) I am against stealing content through BitTorrent, but surprisingly enough, I have heard of it. Since I am in the content-providing business at the old day job, I believe people should pay creators for their work, if the creators so wish. Creators who wish to give it away, on the other hand, should also be free to do so: witness Jules and the Mite giving away Nostrum, in which I am a willing co-conspirator. On the other hand, I do admit not knowing until recently about programs that allow you to rip your DVDs much as you rip your CDs, regardless of DRM. This is not theft; if I choose to watch something on my iPod rather than my TV, I’ve paid for it no matter how you slice it; I’m just the one doing the slicing. And since I expect to watch, oh, maybe 6 hours of video on my iPod over the next year or two, I’m not looking for a lot of this material. I was thinking the Gehry or Zinn documentaries, and the Broadway history that was on PBS, and I’m about done until 2010. Maybe the BCOTC ought to run for that NYSFL position. It would be a marriage made in forensic heaven. He could post all the rounds on YouTube, then we could download them to our Zunes. A hungry public awaits.

As you can deduce, I was thinking about the Lakeland tournament over the weekend. I talked to Stefan (the Lakeland coach) briefly at Newark, and O’C, and thought it a good idea to send out a clarification message to the Bump and MHL mailing lists. I had been leaning toward using Jan-Feb on general principle, but Mar-Apr appeals to me so much and is so much better for the younger LD brain that I said we’d go with that one. (Talk about pre-emptive strikes!) I’ve lit the old fire under the Sailors bell-bottoms to get them signed up. I don’t expect this to be an overwhelmingly large event, but it should be a solid confab of good debaters having at it with a meaningful topic. Nothing wrong with that!

Meanwhile, the weather looks bright for the Scarsdale Extravaganza this weekend. I’m looking forward to it. The last normal tournament of the year, for all practical purposes (although having the participating varsity debaters judging novice rounds always makes things a little interesting). After that it’s a short break, then Lakeland, a CFL, Regionals (depending on when they’re conducted, I’ll help out, my opinion of States notwithstanding), CFL Grands and Districts—little if any normality. And then it’s golf season, six months of proving that lack of athletic ability does indeed apply even to something as unathletic-appearing as golf. And then, wow, it’s debate season again.

Where did the summer go?