The usual nonsense

Mostly it seems as if publishing results on tabroom requires a lot of banging around at random until something marvelous happens, or not, as the case may be. CP no doubt sees it otherwise, but that’s the difference between users and programmers. He wants me to do what I’m supposed to do. I want to do what makes sense to me. These two may or may not intersect. So it goes.

I’ve got a lot of people getting antsy about Gem rooms, including me. And then there’s judges… Oy.

Last week, it was difficult to get into Sailorville. They have new rules of access, which is all well and good during the day when people are around, but not so good at night when half the time we’re lucky if we can find a custodian to unlock our classroom. So for the f.f., we’ll move to the chez. I still feel strange about this year, with so few meetings and people still joining the team (one new plebe audited a round or two at Byram) and the debaters on the team not exactly giving their all for forensics. Core how-to material that I would have covered months ago for LDers remains untouched and, more sadly, above the heads of the intended audience. Sigh. The thing is, there are many ways of learning debate, but underlying all of them is the need to actually get out there and debate in the first place. People can tell you stuff, but it doesn’t register until you have experience to measure it against. “What to do in CX” is only marginally meaningful until you’ve some CXing in the first place.

I should have been the speech coach. They’re going great guns working on their Dec pieces. Oh, wait a minute. Dec pieces. Maybe not.

At least Bigle X will be normal, or what substitutes for normal nowadays. I have one whole PF team and one whole novice LDer scheduled (two thirds of whom were sick last weekend), plus a triumphant return of OK to the judge pool, and fellow travelers People’s Champion and the Panivore. I hesitate to refer to them as alums, in that both work for different schools and one of them is listed as an alum of that school. (I won’t mention any names, but it’s Struver.) I applaud their mercenary instincts, however, and it will be nice to have a familiar face on the bus other than Jake the Stolid, my sophomore who has been through thick and thin as my PF bastion, weathering more partners than Spinal Tap had drummers. As for the tournament itself, it is refreshingly straightforward, especially since I’ll be doing PF again. We usually somehow manage to roll out a single flight or two, which nicely speeds things up, plus there’s that good ice cream place a short walk away and Reins deli on the way home. And nobody complaining to me about anything, because I’m simply not in charge. Yo! Palmer! Fix this! That's what I like to hear.