Rooms, Glorious Rooms

Oh joy, oh rapture. I just talked to the new principal of the grammar school, site of the elusive “rooms.” Wait for it—she’s a former debater. Can you hear my sigh of relief? Of course, there will be some logistical issues, because there’s memorial ceremonies on Saturday, but there’s nothing we can’t work our way around. I’m almost beginning to look forward to next weekend. Almost being the operative word there. That’s about as good as it gets.

I sent out a list of who I think is coming to the tournament, to the people I think are coming to the tournament, to see if the people they think are coming to the tournament bear any resemblance. Should be close. The nice thing about my Excel spreadsheet is that it is malleable, and can print out anything, any way. Next year I think I’ll incorporate the housing info. Although I am still alternately contemplating a tabroom.com approach. With single divisions per iteration, I could even do a direct import into E-TRPC. I might do it. The only real problem with tabroom.com for the MHL is the simple, well, “I’ll just send Menick an email because it’s easier” approach. You’d be surprised how many people are of that persuasion. Whatever. Speaking of the MHL, there is some damned bug (see how I blame CP and not myself) that says my judges are in a first-timers division, and I can’t sort that out, but it’s not horrible. This is going to be a big event, and that’s NOT because O’C is overstuffing it with his teeming masses. There’s enough Policians to [insert humorous metaphor here for some activity that requires a lot of people who talk fast]. Which is good to see. And plenty of LDers too. PF looks like it will be a bust, though. I’ll check it all out tonight. I’ve given O’C a 6:00 deadline for his data (following a new rule that he must be no more than 1/3 of any division, not because it’s the Bronx and they’re annoying), which I know he’ll keep, since it’s Halloween, and he’ll be out in his J. T. Kirk drag trick-or-treating, pushing aside 4- and 5-year olds in an effort to fill his bag with a record-setting number of Necco Wafers. Because of its location on a busy, non-sidewalked street, the chez gets virtually no T-or-T-ers (which is not to be construed as an invitation: I bought one bag of Snickers, and I intend to eat them myself at The Day Job).

Last night we tutti’d at the high school, covering all manner of things, including Nov-Dec. The Bietzocast was a good starting point, because it gave us some things to consider seriously, and some to throw out the window. As casual fans of the 14th Amendment, we didn’t care much for a federal point of view on the topic as distinct from the states, but in the real world, with RICO and Enron and terrorists and the like, much of the available thinking might be federal-court based. But that seems inconsequential philosophically. And I’m the only person I know who thinks of this topic philosophically, except maybe Termite. BTW, that justice might not exist, or that the US is inherently unjust, do not strike me as philosophical arguments, insofar as neither of them are statements of truth (and I don’t care what your source is, b.s. = b.s. coming and going, and you can look it up in the physics books if you don’t believe me). Anyhow, a good and fairly deep discussion. After that, we only dabbled in November Pfffft because, well, it’s really really hard to understand unless you’re an economist. The little research I did had my head spinning. Thank God it’s only one month, and for us, only one tournament, Wee Sma’ Lex. Still, next week we’re going to chez it up solely for Pffft. We also need to talk strategies, to get the Sailors ship a little less leaky. I mean, they did worse at Manchester than the teams that weren’t there, although mostly we blame poor, sick Alex for that, as his microbes torpedoed our varsity team. Pffffts that go pfffft in the night, I guess.