Debate: Thank you. And you. And you too. And even you, you spalpeen.

Please disregard any previous version of this blog post. Because we have a personal animosity toward bloody Congress Legislative Hoo-Ha, we decided to stiff it yet again.

Greetings,

You are hereby ordered for induction into the Armed Forces of the United States, and to report to—

Oops. Wrong “Greetings” letter.

Let’s try again.

Greetings,

I want to thank you all for making it through the New York City Invitational [note to self: fill in correct roman numeral here; double-check with Brother Kevin]. We were so pleased to host you this past weekend that our buttons burst, which is better than the year the urinals burst in second floor boys' room.

Ballots from the Individual Events and Legislative Hoo-Ha were available at the conclusion of competition in those events. Ballots from Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Public Forum Debate, and Policy Team Debate will be available online later this week, even though 60% of them merely say “oral,” and 30% of them don’t even say that. The remaining 10% are elaborate commentaries from adjudicators in direct contradiction of their paradigms, but you knew that already. Results from all events are either presently online or will be online by whenever the tab staff gets out of rehab. Thank you for your patience!

I would like to again thank those poor suckers who hosted the Saturday preliminary rounds in the Individual Events. Little did they know what they were getting into. And I would like to again thank the incredible students and parents of our Speech & Debate Team for their hard work this weekend, except for that one kid, he knows who he is, but we’ll take that out of this message and deal with him directly.

Congratulations to James Tiberius Kirk High School of California, the winners of the Andrew Lipton Chicken & Vegetable Cup-a-Soup. They were the overall champions of the tournament and thus won this delicious and highly nutritious traveling sweepstakes award.

Congratulations to this year's Underachievement Award winners, who have asked to remain anonymous so that they won’t have to wear that damned pin everywhere they go from now on.

Congratulations to Matt Dunay '09, the Alumnus of the Year, who unlike many other alums, actually went to the school.

Congratulations to the champion of Lincoln-Douglas Debate and the winner of Richard B. Sodikow, who will be shipped directly to her home in a plain brown wrapper. Congratulations as well to the reserve champion, who will step in if for any reason the champion is unable to complete her reign this year, and to the top speaker and winner of the Rocky Colavito AL Outfielder Award, which just goes to prove that this couldn’t have been typed up without ready access to Google.

Congratulations to the champions of Public Forum Debate and the winners of the After You No After You Trophy. One of them was also the top speaker—big surprise there, eh?—winning the Heisman Trophy and putting the noses of a lot of college football players out of joint. Congratulations as well to the reserve champions, who will be stored in a closet next to the debate room until their sell-by dates expire.

Congratulations to the finalists in Policy Team Debate, who will tussle over the The Rosie Ruiz Subway Series (yeah, you’re going to have to look that one up, probably) Championship Debate to be held this coming weekend. The winning team will receive whatever is left of Richard B. Sodikow after the LD champion is finished with him.

Congratulations to the champion of Legislative Hoo-Ha and the winner of the Indiana Jones Golden Gavel. Congratulations as well to yet another reserve champion; we’re still trying to find a place to store this one, but given the confusion at the awards assembly, I wouldn’t be expecting the Ritz, if you know what I mean.

Congratulations to the champion of Dramatic Interpretation Debate and the winner of the Justin Beiber Award. (At this point we’re going to stop congratulating reserve winners because we’ve run out of funny things to say about them.)

Congratulations to the champions of Duo Team Interpretation Debate and the winners of the Stuck With a Damned Partner Even Though I’m A Speecho-American Award.

Congratulations to the champion of Extemporaneous Speaking Debate and the winner of the I’ll Be Glad When This Election is Over Award.

Congratulations to the champion of Humorous Interpretation Debate and the winner of the Bronx Kneeslapper Award.

Congratulations to the champion of Original Oratory Debate and the winner of the It’s Tough to be a Bug Teenager Trophy.

Finally, congratulations the champion of Prose & Poetry and the winner of the Oh My God, Another One Is Doing “The Raven” Award.

The XLIIIrd (that just doesn’t look right—Kevin?) annual New York City Invitational will take place on October 18, 19, and 20 next year, or not, as the case may be. We hope to see all of you back again, which means a lot of you will have to forego college and do a fifth year of high school, but hey, nobody ever learns anything in college anyhow, so you won’t be missing anything, and thirty years from now you’ll look back at this experience and say to yourself, “Was that the weekend we went to the Bronx? Or was it Brooklyn? Whatever.”

O’C