A Hotel on Baltic Avenue; character names; adios is icumen in

I’m behind the times: O’C reports that they’ve moved the TOC hotel. (Or I guess more to the point, TOC has moved to a different hotel. I can’t imagine a bunch of debaters actually picking up the Ramada and carrying it on their backs somewhere else. A Days Inn, maybe, but not a Ramada.) It probably won’t be missed, although I only stayed there once or twice, preferring other, cheaper hotels in the area. As a rule, tournament hotels are vastly overrated, overpriced, and underheated (i.e., in the showers). But there are exceptions. I’ve had some choice digs at various CatNats (although Detroit’s elevator-deficient high rise left something to be desired), and I’ve always considered surviving the downtown New Haven hotels within walking distance of the Pups a true sign of Mastery of the Universe. The people I truly pity are the visitors at a hotel during a tournament who have nothing to do with forensics. You see these poor old couples on their vacations, with their sturdy walking shoes and their jutting fanny packs, picking their way through the mobs of teenagers in the lobby, wondering what cruel god has chosen them, and this weekend, for its revenge. One must keep in mind that most adults rank teenagers somewhere between coyotes and venus fly traps, and consider adolescence a disease akin to mumps, in that its only virtue is that you can only catch it once, although so far, unlike mumps, no one has created a vaccine to prevent it. (Speaking of coyotes, you might want to try today’s bracketology with someone who shares your religion, otherwise the arguments may destroy your friendship.)

I posted the last Nostrum for a while last night. Introducing Disney Davidson, coincidentally. I always liked the name Disney. For that matter, I also like the names Tarnish and Cartier. And Amnea. And a lot of the others, too. Jules and the Mite had, if nothing else, a way with appellation. The god of character names is, of course, Charles Dickens. The Murdstones. Scrooge. Magwitch. Mr. Fezziwig. The Veneerings. Pecksniff. Jarndyce. Last night, assembling reading material for the trip, I briefly pulled down Pickwick, then thought better of it and pulled down Copperfield, then thought I should stick to my guns and get the Chabon. It all depends on if I hit the bookstore before Thursday. I wouldn’t mind Copperfield again, to tell you the truth. Ham. Little Em’ly. The lone, lorn creetur. Uriah Heep. Hmmmm.

My last official act before hitting the road will be go through all my pending email. There’s a bunch of stuff I keep avoiding, none of it crucial, but some of it potentially fatal. Then, with a clean inbox—the postcontemporary equivalent of a clear conscience—it will be onto the plane and out of here.

I promise to leave you with an appropriate goodbye message tomorrow.