Speaking fluent Bietzish; the Debater Wears Prada (not); Hi-ho, Land of Lakes!

Bietz tells me that he doesn’t really understand Nostrum. I don’t know what to say to this. Jules suggests that maybe he and the Mite should consider offering it both in English and in translation to whatever language Bietz speaks (presumably some combination of Californian and Minnesotan) but this seems like going awfully far just to win over one person. I think they should simply publish Cliff’s Notes, which would help not only MB but also any future students who need to pass AP Nostrum Studies to get into a decent college. Whatever. I’m just the narrator.

Speaking of narrations, if you’re following TVFT you should probably be looking at the comments on the blog site. Bubb posted a bunch of stuff, proving that, if nothing else, Bubb was listening to us as well as CP. O’C and Bietz maintain that plenty of people listen to us other than Bubb and CP, but I have no way of verifying this. View stats of the blog wouldn’t necessarily say anything, and I’m not sure how to get hits from iTunes, although there must be a way, and the truth is that I just wasn’t really planning on looking. I take an agnostic position on the whole thing. Some people will listen, some people won’t. I don’t expect it to replace Conan O’Brien Jay Leno any time soon, but it’s probably got more followers than Jay Leno Conan O’Brien. Maybe we should do video. When we first start up on Skype, I always see O’C via his Mac webcam; the shocking thing is that he wears sweater vests even when he’s home alone. What a fashion statement! Then again, this was fashion week in NYC. Maybe he was just going along with the flow.

The next event on the agenda is Lakeland next weekend, which you probably already know all about, given that it’s going to be about the size of Cleveland. Conveniently priced (i.e., free), as far as Policy goes it’s amazing, and it’s no shirker on the LD side either. O’C and I will be running our side of things at a middle school down the road from LHS, which is good, because last year Stefan kept announcing things to the policyfolk over the school loudspeaker like, “You should now be in your 2NR” and so forth, which I’m sure kept the Policians moving along smartly, but which confused the LDers no end. O’C and I got a kick out of it, though. You gotta love the voice of God at a debate tournament. Stefan has also set out some new strict rules for those lovable teams who believe that their judges need not show up for all the rounds. Bravo! The VCA knows well my opinion of this practice: it’s nice to see that I’m not alone in this. Every round of a debate tournament needs to be judged, so your judges need to be available for every round. End of story. Don’t have the judges to cover? Don’t bring the debaters.

Anyhow, I don’t know about you but I’m off to a weekend without a debate moment in it (except for some debate stuff I’ve got to do). Mostly it will be relaxing and reading a little for the DJ. Nice.