In which we probably should point out that the bagels and noodles were not served together

The Not Regis debate last weekend was a piece of pie. Or easy as cake, if you prefer. 

The things that never fails to not amuse are A) the inability of schools to check in on time; B) the thought that these schools have that emailing my personal account will suffice while I am, in reality, putting together pairings and did, by the way, post a help email/text# for the tournament that I do look at; and C) even running late, and doing it bass ackwards, they still don’t get their info correct. Would it surprise you that it’s always the same schools? It shouldn’t. The Usual Suspects, regardless of venue and genre, are usual for a reason. 

 

Other than that, aside from a couple of flaky judges, everything ran fine. As one would expect. Most importantly, lots of novices got a chance to get rounds, many for the first time. And we were open to anyone in the region. You’ve gotta love the NYCFL. I know I do.

 

In other news, there’s lots of other tournaments. This coming weekend is the Tim Averill 

Not-Dead-Yet Memorial, or the tournament formerly known as Manchester, AKA the Home of the Albino Bagel, AKA the One Piece of Bacon Invitational. I’ve been working with them behind the scenes, which is becoming something of a thing between me and my general Mass colleagues, or my Mass General colleagues, if you prefer. The thing is, I do this every week, so at least I think I’m pretty good at it. I can bring to tournaments an easy level of expertise forged in the cauldron of endless other tournaments. (Translated into English, I know how to use tabroom.) The MSDL has its quirks, though, meaning that the Massachusetts audience has incorporated those quirks into their debate lives. So it goes. It will be fun, nonetheless.

 

Princeton has had the heat turned up. I spent Monday and Tuesday clearing waitlists. Way fewer bogus entries than at Rather Large Bronx, for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. In any case, I like the way things came out. As expected, VPF is still ginormous, but everyone pretty much got a good number of starter slots. Better than IRL, to tell you the truth. 

 

Columbia is on deck, opening next week, if memory serves. We’re going to try to add some CX, plus the pandemic side salads of JV and Nov divs in LD and PF. Sadly, however, I won’t actually be on the Gem campus (or the Barnard campus, truth to tell) and will therefore not have access to the Jewish/Chinese bagel/noodle restaurant. 

 

Sigh.