There now seems to be a national movement afoot to break the contestant codes at NatNats. Like CatNats, for some reason the people in charge prefer everyone to go by numbers rather than names. This is always a curious process at small venues where everyone already knows who everyone is, and you have to wonder what is gained by the illusion of anonymity. Given that the usual suspects inevitably rise at the national events, those become virtual small venues, so one wonders what is gained there as well. I mean, it sounds good I guess, that no one will be in the slightest way swayed by knowing whom they’re judging, but how often is that the case? We’re not that big a community, and while NatNats may be humongous compared to other events, it’s still going to have the same old familiar cream rising to the top, for the most part. Even I usually know the players without having to have a scorecard, although I will admit that occasionally I’ve judged someone unfamiliar to me at a $ircuit event and afterwards someone has told me that so-and-so is the number one rated debater in the known universe, a fact of which I was completely ignorant. (As a rule, one does inevitably and for obvious reasons pick up so-and-so in those anonymous situations, but my favorite incident of this nature was back in the Dark Ages when so-and-so, a senior who had won the previous year’s NatNats, was in a bid-level break round. So-and-so was one of those debaters who liked to argue with the judges, and he just couldn’t believe—at great length—that he hadn’t won. It was a 3-0 against him. How much more convincing did he need? To be honest, if we had known who he was, it would have been 5-0 against him, he lost so badly.) If you are going to NatNats, check out these code-breakers. I’ve seen postings from both Georgia (I’ve published that to the Feed) and NDCA, and I gather they’re all connected. Unless you want to remain under the radar. By the way, they’re predicting a high of 99F in Las Vegas for today. Tomorrow it will creep up to 101F. You’re the one who wanted to go to Vegas, bub. Try to find an air conditioner, regardless of what name you travel by.
Meanwhile, there are issues with next year’s calendar that we’ve been working on. First of all, the traditional CFL on Halloween weekend, simultaneous with Manchester-Under-the-Sea, cannot transpire this year because of a conflict at the venue. So a couple of changes, first, a debate CFL earlier in October, on 10/4, including a varsity division (why not?), and secondly, I’ll have no earthly reason not to visit Manchester for the first time in ages. O’C and I are trying to convince Jonathan P that novice divisions in debate would be a good idea for him, rather than JV (sophomores can go varsity). We’ll see what happens. It is a bit early for novices, but then again, only because we have MHLs. I like the idea of throwing novices into the tank and seeing how many survive the sharks. Then again, how many sharks are there during their first month? In any case, I probably won’t need to corral the usual poor parent chaperone for the Manchester, so there’s one less begging session I’ll have to put the Sailors through.
There’s also some moving on the Mass front that conflicts with the Northeast Championships. That’s more complicated to solve (taking minors across state borders being a federal offense), so I’ve got to get shaking on that. An early resolution of TNC is important to keeping the numbers up. And we do want Mass Chumps to be part of the overall Chumps picture.
At least we all do talk about this stuff nowadays, as compared to creating calendars in secret and hoping they don’t conflict. Sometimes things are beyond our control, but they shouldn’t be beyond our knowledge. Of course, when I have an issue I prefer vilifying people in my blog to actually talking to them, as CP would be happy to report. He’s now referring to me in his blog as Admiral Menick, so I must be getting through to him. Of course, the usual term is #^$*@ Menick, which I guess means I haven’t annoyed him enough yet. But there’s a new year coming, and plenty of time to catch up. The way he’s been beating me in Scrabulous allows me no alternative; there ought to be a rule that you can’t use a word in the game that you haven’t used in conversation sometime in the last seven years. Being good at crosswords is no great leg up for Scrabble, either. I always think I should be winning all my games without any sweat. Good luck with that one…
1 comment:
They're predicting 99 here too, but with humidity. I'd rather be in Vegas.
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