Debate: Beans, Kinda and Dec

We were supposed to do Bean Trivia last night, but there was a gas leak at the school and the place was shut down. They opened it this morning, took a few whiffs and shut it down again. Given that there are no days left to have the event, we're chezzing it up.

A lot of little Dec girls may never recover.

Anyhow, as you’re reading this, I’m officially kicking off the Christmas version of Bean Trivia, and O’C and Kt are standing by as lifelines. The categories? First ladies, the Great American Songbook (or as Michael Feinstein calls it, the Rod Stewart Songbook), Comics in the local paper (because I know they’re not reading the news, but maybe Beetle Bailey will ring a bell), Transvestites, Lindsay Lohan (who would make a really good policy topic some year, because there’s new info every day), Famous Dogs, Universal (a no doubt welcome change from Disney), Famous Dates, Original Sources (e.g., the play from which Hello Dolly was derived) and maybe one or two others that I’m forgetting. Plus there’s Which One Doesn’t Belong and Why, and Name a Bunch Of, both of which allow for extra points. And on top of that, there’s side betting on the lifelines, who in addition to the above-mentioned includes our beloved speech coach. If you guess accurately whether or not they’ll guess accurately, you can win a few extra beans. And what is the prize for all of this? Well, there’s some serious crap, as usual, but at the very top, numero uno, king of the heap, A number one: the largest bag ever to be imprinted with Hello Kitty material. I mean, really large. You can fit two novice Speecho-Americans and a Fiat in there. I don’t know why I’m giving it away. There has to be some good use for it around the house.

Policy turnout for the Regis Kinda Kristmas Klassic this coming weekend is looking fairly bleak. Kaz will be on-hand, but if these numbers persist, we might suggest she be off-hand, which would make her life traveling to her Midwest family home that much easier. (Note that I don’t exactly specify where in the Midwest. I can’t keep that stuff straight. Wisconsin? Minneapolis? Newark? It’s all the same to me once you cross the Hudson.) As for myself, I wouldn’t mind a nice manageable tournament. I’ve got a full boat going down, though, so at least I have a reason for being there beyond wanting to run over to the fancy deli for last minute stocking stuffers. But an easy tournament is so much nicer than a hard one. Throwing a few cards would be fun though. Haven’t done that in a while. Anyhow, the other divisions look robust enough, considering the date.

The two months after the turn of the new year are, as always, packed to the gills. The odd Sailor has been signing up here and there, especially for UPenn, but there it’s mostly novice Speecho-Americans who don’t actually understand the concept of signing up for college tournaments. Then again, offering Dec? I guess it’s worth it at some level, even though I want to eliminate it going forward at the Gem to make more room for something else. UP is still building, and Dec probably brings in a lot of locals, so who can complain. It’s not going to bring in my yokels, though, unless they’re ready to double-enter and spend the hotel money premium. I posted a fish or get off the pot message to them; things should clear up by tomorrow, when I’m securing the hotel rooms.

And, going back to Bean Trivia, I leave you with this parting reminder of a Great Moment in Forensics.
Q. Name the Muppet beloved by Miss Piggy.
A. Hermit the Crab.

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Debate: Whoda thunkit

Tonight's bean trivia event was postponed because of a gas leak at the high school.

A gas leak? Bean trivia?

Do the math.

Debate: Catching up

Take off one weekend, and you feel like you’ve never been to a tournament in your life. I communicated with O’C at Blake a couple of times, although it was hard to get his attention because he thought that Walter Mondale might walk by at any moment. Curiously enough, he (O’C, not Mondale) forgot to secure the medals for the Newark MHL, which is something like [fill in your own metaphor here; the best I could come up with was either the Pope not bringing the holy water or Queen Elizabeth II forgetting her underwear, neither of which makes a lot of sense]. But apparently the Jerseyites managed to soldier through. Since one of the Sailors earned his first piece of tin on Saturday, I’m rather disappointed that he couldn’t immediately don it and look like he just won the Croix de Guerre, but you can’t have everything. Curse you, O’C!

I’m going to TVFT on Wednesday if it kills me. Palmer claims last week he thought it was on a different day, and meanwhile he’s kicking and moaning because I didn’t save the data from Wee Sma’ Lex for the ages. Who knew it was of archival quality?

Just to keep my hand in, I set up the January MHL on tabroom today, which is the same weekend as Columbia. Still waiting to hear from the Gems to confirm room numbers. I’ll bug them shortly. This coming weekend is the Regis Kinda Christmas Klassic (or Regis Chinda Christmas Chlassic), which will probably be pretty small, given that there was the MHL last weekend plus it is after the break officially starts. More judge food for the rest of us, in that case.

Otherwise, not much going on. Nice restful weekend, with poker on Friday, NYC trip and show and nice dinner on Saturday, then tree decorating on Sunday. Gearing up for the holidays, which should be pretty busy, apparently kicking off with a bout of slot machines with O'C and Matt Dunay’s mother. One never knows where one is going to end up next.

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Debate: Who doesn't remember the Oogs, eh?

Pajamas Wexler has reported to me that some poor misguided student from Lacking Pork, following a poorly aimed bolt of forensics inspiration to its logical conclusion, recently used an episode of Nostrum for a prose piece. Something to do with the Oog family. It rang no bells at all, so I went and read it, and it still rang no bells. It’s about the history of advertising, going back to prehistoric times, where apparently there was less advertising than there is now, although there were already plenty of people around who just watched the Superbowl for the commercials. Apparently the piece did pretty well. One never knows, does one…

There was no TVFT last night. I’m not quite sure why, but when I got to Skype, all was quiet. The only person I talked to was the British lady who tests to see if your connection is working. I need to get me a new batch of TVFTers.

On the plus (?) side, none of Tuesday's Sailor newbies responded with the mandatory signup email, not even the one who looked just like a debater, so maybe I won’t have to worry about that after all. Of course, it might just be the overwhelming burden of having to send an email. Kids these days… When I was their age, we sent emails all the time, and—by the way and Oh my God—spelled out every single word, and because there were no computers we carried them by hand five miles in the snow uphill in both directions. How did we get so quickly to a spot where sending an email is an archaic vestige of the stone age and an impossible burden beyond what a coach can reasonably expect of a student? It’s not like I’m asking them to click on the flashing gif on my Geocities account. Jeesh. What would these people do in a world of C. Colin Backslash, the original computist?

It seems strange not having to do a tournament this weekend. I look at the MHL registration longingly and my fingers get itchy wanting to scissor up some contestant cards. It’s a pretty good turnout, overall, although the JV divisions always shrink a bit as the year progresses. As ought to be obvious to anyone with the ability to read between the lines, I would like to apply some of the thinking of Academy to the MHL, to wit, tossing in some tutorials and the like. Maybe that’s where the idea will end up. Who knows? Byram, for all the hoo-ha, doesn’t look much different from last year in terms of numbers, which means that for all my bloviating I haven’t made much of a dent. My feeling is, if we can make just one noticeable difference in one venue, it’s a step in the right direction. I really do worry about small tournaments disappearing. The idea that someone will come and take over those weekends simply transfers the problem to a different venue, so unless that new venue has some intrinsic benefit over the former one, it’s all much of a muchness.

I'll probably slow down over the next couple of weeks as the holidays settle in, but I will continue to post the odd this and that. It's the least I can do, and I mean that with all my heart.

Video: Someone watched all of Atlas Shrugged so that you wouldn't have to

The funny thing is, even at 3 minutes and a few seconds, it's one of the most boring things you'll ever see.

Video: One good reason not to invite Yoko Ono to karaoke night

Debate: Newbies, disease-ridden adolescents and the tragically inept

So that was weird. Last week there was an assembly on extracurricular activities at Sailorville, at which Zip apparently wowed the crowd, leading to three new plebes at the meeting last night. Who expects new faces at this stage of the game? Assuming that at least one of them was appalled enough at the night’s proceedings to disappear for all eternity, that still means that one or two will return. What in tarnation am I supposed to do with them starting in January? At the moment, the ad hoc plan is give them a special session or two on the basics, have them watch at Bryam, and point them to compete at Newark and Scarsdale. That, of course, assumes that they have some live coal in their intestinal boiler rooms. If they are more like the traditional Sailor, there will be much hemming and hawing on their part and much gnashing of teeth on my part, and they’ll sit out the year wondering if there wasn’t something on TV Tuesday night that would get them out of this. We’ll see.

We didn’t have our practice round because of illness. Why do teenagers always seem to be at death’s door? As a species they are shockingly unhealthy. On the way to Ridge, for example, Pickles complained that he almost didn’t come because he was sick, and I told him to give me ample warning if he was going to vomit, since I find vomiting in my car less than congenial. On the way back, George Whose Name is Robert told me he was so sick that he almost stopped competing, and I gave him my same vomit speech. Neither GWNIR nor Jiminy Cricket were at the meeting last night, but at least I didn’t have to give her the vomit speech. [Cue the off-my-lawn music.] Now when I was a kid, they hadn’t invented sickness yet. Not only did we have to walk the proverbial snow five miles both ways, but we did it with a raging fever, backwards and in heels. (I thought I’d throw a Ginger Rogers reference in there for the dance fans among the VCA.) We were made of sterner stuff back in my day.

I seem to have been bombarded lately with questions from people incapable of reading. I’ve mentioned this recently, but it just won’t stop. RTFM, or in this case, substitute website for manual. What is most irritating is stupid questions from people who have done it before about doing it again. It’s the same. It will ever be the same. Please, don’t email me about it. That’s why they invented O’C (who, by the way, has entered into a special twilight zone of wandering away that is profound even for him; whatever he’s up to, he’s really up to it). I do have a little more patience with newcomers, but even they ought to read the invitation sooner or later.

Aaaargh!

Coachean Feed: the 6th Amendment, indirect limits to freedom, what exactly is a person, economics and prison, anti-gay movements

More links of interest to the debate community.

• The sixth amendment? The one about how everyone is entitled to a fair trial? How quaint, in a world where there are no trials anymore. The Sixth Amendment Rights to Fairness: The Touchstones of Effectiveness and Pragmatism
  
• Indirect limits to freedom are still limits to freedom: What is Freedom? (10): The Ability to Do Things
  
• When does an animal count as a person? Not just a protected species, but a person due the rights protections of any other person.
  
• Another article that dances around Jan-Feb: Foreword: Criminal Justice Responses to the Economic Crisis My bet is that you won't regret having too much data in rounds.
  
• Meanwhile, back at the ranch... There are those of us who worry that SCOTUS will make gay marriage unconstitutional, or immoral, or some damned thing fueled by Scalia-esque homosexual agenda arguments. Will someone please tell him that he's safe, and that there isn't a homosexual in the universe that wants to have sex with him? In other countries, they are not quite as blessed as we are, able to joke about things: Nigeria pushes “Jail the Gays” bill.
  

The last Steve Buscemi video you'll ever want to see

Assuming, that is, that you wanted to see this one. Remind me not to look up Diana Krall videos again any time soon.

A nice little treat: great animation

12 Essential American Cartoons

Absolutely—a fine selection. If you haven't seen some of these, stop everything now.

Sinatra

Born on this date in 1915, as a young lad Frank had the guts to partner up on the dance floor with Gene Kelly. He pulls it off too. (Then again, Kelly had the guts to sing along with Sinatra. He doesn't do too badly either.)

Debate: Planning this and that

I’m getting eager for the Academy Debate intro at Byram Hills. We put together an agenda at Ridge from earlier discussions, and sent it out into the world. We still need the seniors to fill the training slots, and I’m looking for volunteers, but there will be a Bronxwegian pool to draw from if all else fails. I want to lead some of this stuff myself. It might be a problem being in three places at once though. Still, I wouldn’t mind giving it a shot. The thing is, our competition on this weekend is the Sunvitational, which is good insofar as it won’t draw the primary field from a local event, but bad insofar as a few key people like O’C, for reasons I can’t understand, think a well-run tournament in Florida in January is somehow attractive. What are these people thinking? Curse you and your climate, Schappaugh!

We’ve also been murmuring among ourselves about the Modest Novice and possibly expanding it through December. There are plusses and minuses to this. This conversation will no doubt extend shortly. And speaking of extending conversations, we’re definitely recording a new TVFT Wednesday. The vast TVFTean Army rejoices!

I’m just about through clearing off the first wave of Columbia. I was actually asked what my waitlist strategy was, and it turns out I do sort of have one. No more than 5, outliers first, then locals. I would imagine that, aside from the heavily subscribed debate categories, just about everybody will get in, but it’s no big deal for a school from down the street to fill slots a few weeks out, as compared to someone who needs hotel rooms in Manhattan. I’m rather surprised, by the way, that they offer Declamation. That seems so… naïve. I mean, it’s a college tournament. There are better things they could be doing other than wrangling in freshmen and sophomores. We’ll have to talk about that for next time.

As always, there are the few schools who are starting out in forensics that are attracted to a big college tournament when they really should be practicing their chops more locally. I can’t talk them out of coming, but I’ve got to wonder why anyone would plop their entire year’s budget on a college trip where they’ll get whipped as compared to half a dozen shorter, closer trips. It has been ever thus, though. People didn’t turn the Harvard tournament into what it is today (which I can’t really speak to, having not attended in ages) for any other reason than that it was held at Harvard and not at the Hendrick Hudson Mail Order University for the Criminally Insane and the Women Who Love Them. High school administrations, from the loftiest to the looniest, are impressed by big names. Come to think of it, so is my mother. I tell her I’m going to the Bronx and she looks at me like I really need a new night job. I tell her I’m going to Yale and she thinks that’s exactly where I belong and why has it taken me so long to realize it? As I say, it has been ever thus.

Otherwise, these are peaceful times, with me not doing anything forensical this upcoming weekend. Tonight we’ll have a practice round at Sailorville, our last business meeting of the year, unless maybe we get together to make up some lost time over the break. I’ll get to watch my debating novices (as compared to my show up and stare at Menick novices) in action. Should be interesting. I hope.

A little fun video

Debate: Ridge-a-Roni

I find it interesting that Ridge has moved about a half hour closer to my school than it used to be. Much closer than I remembered. That’s a good thing. I’d much rather have a short drive to Ridge than a long one.

It was nice to do a high school again. 5 prelims, endless elims. At first we were in a room with good comfy chairs, but it was way too many of us and we quickly drifted over to our normal venue in the Media Center. (You would call this the library, but that’s not a tony enough name for the folks in Basking Ridge.) You can fit kazoodles of tabbers in this place and not even notice them very often, except when the policy folk get overexcited, which does happen occasionally. LD and PF tab never get overexcited. We don’t know the meaning of the word.

Things went fine for the most part, except for confusion over who owned which judges. PF liked to think that they were theirs, while we liked to think that they were ours. PF was being run by people who had taken vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. LD was being run by me and O’C. It was a bloodbath.

On the plus side, we had a “Jack.” Every tab room needs one, a major domo who is always there and who can solve every problem. Jack is a good name for such a person, and in this case, happened to actually be his name. We would just shout out “Jack!” when something was askew, and there was Jack, skewing it back up. Ridge happens to be slightly larger than the Pentagon, without the internal order of roomage, so it’s a major miracle to get from one area to another. I’ve been there enough now to have only gotten lost once, but it was for eleven hours, it being that kind of place. As I say, big and confusing.

I tried to keep CP around for various purposes, since I was using the notification system again (despite Ridge’s crappy wireless; I ended up plugging in my MiFi and paying the $5 for a day, which meant that when it ran out on the second day, it was either pay another $5 or let it go: I let it go). Unfortunately, he was the quality in the pool, probably ranked by everyone there as a 1, including the people who didn’t rank. So we didn’t see him much except at the short gathering Friday night at the motel, attended by everyone in the universe. I had brought nuts and cheese, which were quickly devoured. The other people were just nuts and cheesy. What can I say?

O’C didn’t wander off too often, although at those times when he insisted on blasting out “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” we were all wishing that he would wander off. JV was on burger patrol. There was one team that refused to use the other team’s coin for the PF flip because they had cursed it with negative energy. (Shouldn’t that be con energy?) The guys who had looked all professional last week running the Tiggers looked like normal human beings again judging PF this week.

And so it goes. This weekend I’m off. Yes, off. There had originally been no tournament on the schedule, so I made other plans. When a tournament came back on to the schedule, it was (thankfully) too late to change those plans. Whoopty damn do, as Clarence Thomas might put it.

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Debate: 'Tis the season

I remember from the old days Mad magazine’s snappy answers to stupid questions feature. One that sticks in my mind is a picture of a fish store with a big sign saying “Fresh Fish,” and a customer asking, “Is the fish fresh?” As for me, I will be instituting a new FASQ feature in my email. It will direct people to a web page that says simply, “The answer to your question can be found on the tournament website. You could look it up, or I could look it up for you. Let’s try option number one.”

Do you think that would work?

Why do people turn to me to give them directions, for instance? There’s Google maps, there’s MapQuest. There’s even Apple’s IOS map app, which works a lot better than anyone gives it credit for (every time I’ve used it, it worked fine). There is, however, no MenickMap app. Of course, the best use of a MenickMap app would be at tournaments, when people call the tabroom to tell us that they’re lost, and to ask how to get where they’re going. This happens way less rarely than you would expect. That it happens at all is remarkable, come to think of it. They really will call and say, “I can’t find the X building.” What do you say to that? “Well, they haven’t moved it, so the fault lies with you, not with them?” Sarcasm is probably wasted on anyone who calls to tell you they’re lost. And I’m talking adults here, not students. When students get lost, they tend to simply keep going until they’re so lost, they’re not heard from until an hour and a half after their scheduled start time. At least they have the courage of their (wandering) convictions: they don’t give up.

By the way, we didn’t level any fines in LD for not-picked-up rounds at the Tigs. Most people picked up right away, or showed up merely a minute late. Well done, all. One school didn’t pick up on Sunday morning, though. There is that other kind of fine, the non-fiscal one, the one that remembers who was there and who wasn’t when it’s time to clear the next waitlist. Didn’t pick up your ballots Sunday at Princeton? Why would I expect you to pick them up on Sunday at Columbia? Enjoy your weekend off.

Then again, there are some people out there whom I love. The judges who hang around the judge area and when you ask them to run down to another building to replace a judge who may or may not show up, their response is, “Hand me the ballot, boss,” as they disappear down to that other building, ready, willing and able. These are rare people, but they are there. And they’re there again and again. The good people. Come to think of it, most people are good people, but they don’t make for as interesting a blog. The ones who came to me and asked not to have to walk so much? Much more interesting. I told one person that we only had one room in this same building, sorry about that, and that one is reserved for a guy in a wheelchair. I offered to get him if she wanted to wrestle him for it; she failed to see the humor in that. No doubt she went to the other building, got lost, and called us to complain about it. At which I sent one of our saints down to replace her.

I can feel Festivus coming. Why else would I be airing all these grievances?

Books: Lee Child/Jack Reacher

Ira Gershwin

Ira was born on this date in 1896. He wrote songs with Harold Arlen and Kurt Weill and Jerome Kern. He also worked occasionally with his piano-playing brother. And if anyone has ever written better lyrics than these, I am unaware of it.

The way you wear your hat
The way you sip your tea
The memory of all that
No, no, they can't take that away from me

The way your smile just beams
The way you sing off key
The way you haunt my dreams
No, no, they can't take that away from me

We may never, never meet again
On the bumpy road to love
Still, I'll always, always keep the memory of

The way you hold your knife
The way we danced till three
The way you changed my life
No, no, they can't take that away from me
No, they can't take that away from me