Aftermath

Debating at a major tournament has to be pretty draining, but at least you get out before the tab room and you arrive in the morning after the tab room. In other words, the people who sleep the least on a tournament weekend, aside from the tournament directors who leave after and arrive before even tab, are the yabbos at the computer. Like me and Kaz on LD and Stefan and Nicole and Sarah on Policy. I don’t know about any of the others, but the minute I got home yesterday I fell asleep. I set a timer to wake me up in half an hour, at which point I got up and started dinner and then I lit a fire and read the papers and did the puzzle and then we ate and shortly thereafter, after reading O’C’s various requests for paperwork (he even saves the wrappers from the deli sandwiches in the Bronxology archives, so every other document having to do with the event is obviously on his to-get list as well, unlike the rest of us who, aside from saving the results pdf, toss out the entire thing, including the lost and found items, about an hour before the final round is started), I tucked in for the night. I was, in a word, pooped. It’s nice to know that the next three weekends are walks in the park, one-day affairs with novices and JVers. It will allow me to recharge the old batteries for Bump (which is still oversubscribed—would you people PLEASE drop some entries!). Autumn used to be a lot easier, but nowadays, it’s the Yale-Monti-BBv3.0 triangle, with Bump for dessert a few weeks later, followed almost immediately by the Tiggers, who need a bit more hand-holding than the average bear. Then things lighten up. Finally.

At one point in the tournament this last weekend, I got pissed off at something or other, as I tend to do at all tournaments (and which, of course, I immediately regret). I find it interesting that my emotional level is so high at these events. At the DJ, my emotional level is roughly set at comatose. I read and write and edit, all very quiet, intellectual pastimes. I mean, I also schedule and organize and manage and all that sort of thing, and occasionally I am forced to cock an eyebrow, but only one at a time (although, if necessary, I can do one or the other or both, as warranted). But the tide seldom rises particularly high, and we seldom see a whitecap out on the waves, and most of the winds are warm and balmy. Meanwhile, at tournaments, the adrenaline level for everybody is set to boil, and all the winds are hot and barmy. Maybe that’s why I like doing this. It puts a little sizzle in the old existence. I mean, I can’t imagine not doing it. So, yeah, it poops me out, but I like being pooped out. What the hell else would I have been doing in my spare time?

Some interesting questions arose over the weekend. I want to talk about the nature of strikes and rankings on TVFT. Some people obviously have a strategy in mind with these, and it would be nice to sort it out. The thing is, plenty of superlative judges are ranked low by schools that obviously know they’re superlative. An interesting anomaly, obviously for political reasons (as I’ve mentioned here when talking about the RR). We should clarify this. (Also, for the record, strikes should not preclude a ranking: I might strike an A judge for reasons having nothing to do with my estimation of that judge’s skill as a judge.) Max Katz (a name that strikes me as being terribly misspelled) brought up an interesting point on flying pigs that deserves its own posting here. Also the issue of when a ballot is final needs to be addressed, as this came up a couple of times in different contexts (and has arisen at other tournaments recently as well). All in good time, my pretty, all in good time…

By the way, I’m sorry that we didn’t do TVFT last week, but O’C claimed to be too busy. Yeah, right. Getting a pedicure, probably. What else did he have to do last week? Jeesh.