All happy tournaments are alike. Each unhappy tournament is unhappy in its own way.
Every year something doesn’t work out with Bump as I had planned, and the next year I think I’ve solved that problem and a new problem comes in to replace it. Overall, however, despite rain, sleep, snow, hail, dark of night and O’C wandering off permanently halfway through the tournament, things went off pretty well. Mostly.
For reasons I can’t fathom, we got off to a way late start in the varsity divisions, and that’s without MJP. Next year I’ll just do pairings in advance, and that way the tabbers can just make necessary corrections, if any. Given that everyone texts in changes before arrival, and there aren’t all that many, this should get us started more close to schedule.
Next, Rd 3A on Friday night, RD 3B on Sat morning. 5 rounds total, with a runoff, merging the runoff into the second flight of the octos (which is what JV and CP did this time; it’s a little complicated, but easy enough to pull off if you get TRPC to close its eyes for a minute). It will require a bit of a break to set up with MJP, but that time will have been made up elsewhere.
Next, no Novice PF. When we get the numbers back up from the schools that couldn’t make it, there will be no way to host a meaningful division of PF in the grammar school, plus Novice LD. I hate to lose it, but it was a noble experiment, and it’s not that it failed, but there’s just not enough space.
Only one award ceremony, for the novices, because they’re over and they're young and they aren’t going anywhere and it’s really hard to do awards in the bloody cafeteria and nobody really cares anyhow except for O’C. Team awards in rounds, speakers posted and available in the tab room for varsity. That’ll keep things moving and fill a much needed gap in award ceremonies. The froufrou of the traveling awards will be handled...somehow.
Way more limited housing next time, to schools that reciprocate or come from out of state. I just don’t have the team size to support all the requests otherwise.
Tales of great debate adventure, if any, Bump edition, next time.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Friday, November 09, 2012
Debate: Gone fishin'
We lost Vassar (invitational and MHL) and almost lost Bump. Let's hope that the rest of the season is less...stormy.
Thursday, November 08, 2012
Debate: Bump Lives!
So I sent out what I trust is the final Bump email, and the tournament is on, and it will take place in Sailorville. Needless to say, having moved to early November to avoid the bad weather of December, I am now planning on moving next year to early August, where the chance of snow in the region is only about 50-50. I mean, hurricanes and lightning weren’t bad enough, we then had to have a nor’easter? There are still people in my area who don’t have power. The worst situation is those who got it back and then lost it again. I was amazed when I woke up this morning to less than complete desolation. I didn’t know it was possible.
Tonight I’ll do all the Bump paperwork, porting the tournament over to TRPC and printing up the invoices and whatnot. As it turns out, we have lost a wing of the grammar school, primarily due to last year’s vandalism. To say that this pisses me off understates it. As long as I’ve been doing Bump there have been students whose behavior is unacceptable. My response has always been to rid myself of those students, which is one reason why we don’t have policy anymore. Now it looks like we’ll lose Novice PF next year, not because I want to rid myself of Novice Pfffters, but because if we have our full contingent of schools back, we will fill up the grammar school (or what’s available to us) with Novice LD only. Too bad, but I can’t do anything about it. If coaches do not train their students in the art of proper behavior, this is the result. If there’s more damage this year, it will be the end of novice completely. So be it.
I do wonder about scheduling overall, though. I remember back to when I used to do 5 rounds. Then there was some sort of buzz that to maintain a quarters bid, you had to do 6 rounds, so I did. Then, of course, we lost the quarters bid (with virtually no changes in the nature of the tournament), so I’m seriously wondering if I need to bring the 6th round back next year. I’m more inclined to do 5 and a run-off, to tell you the truth. That way, we could eliminate the Yes-Virginia Round at 7:30 and start at a more civilized 8:00 on Saturday, and still end at roughly the same time. We’ll see. This is seriously on the table.
One of the big losses this year will be the announcement of the Jon Cruz Award, Given Annually to Jon Cruz For No Apparent Reason. This year’s winner (Jon Cruz) won’t be there for the award ceremony—
OH MY GOD! Please reread that sentence. Jon Cruz won’t be there for the award ceremony? Mother of Mercy, is this the end of debate as we know it? As you probably know, O’C is attending the G-Man’s wedding ceremony. As I’ve made perfectly clear, the next time Gazzola gets married, let him do it during Big Bronx! Jeesh! Not only is he taking away half my tab staff in the grammar school, he’s also taking away my parent in charge of feeding the assembled multitudes, because G-Man is Zip’s black sheep second cousin thrice removed or something, the relative from the crazy side of the family. Anyhow, the thing is that O’C is only tabbing half the tournament. I have adjusted for this accordingly, as will be made known shortly, beyond just eliminating the JC Award. There are consequences for actions!
Tonight I’ll do all the Bump paperwork, porting the tournament over to TRPC and printing up the invoices and whatnot. As it turns out, we have lost a wing of the grammar school, primarily due to last year’s vandalism. To say that this pisses me off understates it. As long as I’ve been doing Bump there have been students whose behavior is unacceptable. My response has always been to rid myself of those students, which is one reason why we don’t have policy anymore. Now it looks like we’ll lose Novice PF next year, not because I want to rid myself of Novice Pfffters, but because if we have our full contingent of schools back, we will fill up the grammar school (or what’s available to us) with Novice LD only. Too bad, but I can’t do anything about it. If coaches do not train their students in the art of proper behavior, this is the result. If there’s more damage this year, it will be the end of novice completely. So be it.
I do wonder about scheduling overall, though. I remember back to when I used to do 5 rounds. Then there was some sort of buzz that to maintain a quarters bid, you had to do 6 rounds, so I did. Then, of course, we lost the quarters bid (with virtually no changes in the nature of the tournament), so I’m seriously wondering if I need to bring the 6th round back next year. I’m more inclined to do 5 and a run-off, to tell you the truth. That way, we could eliminate the Yes-Virginia Round at 7:30 and start at a more civilized 8:00 on Saturday, and still end at roughly the same time. We’ll see. This is seriously on the table.
One of the big losses this year will be the announcement of the Jon Cruz Award, Given Annually to Jon Cruz For No Apparent Reason. This year’s winner (Jon Cruz) won’t be there for the award ceremony—
OH MY GOD! Please reread that sentence. Jon Cruz won’t be there for the award ceremony? Mother of Mercy, is this the end of debate as we know it? As you probably know, O’C is attending the G-Man’s wedding ceremony. As I’ve made perfectly clear, the next time Gazzola gets married, let him do it during Big Bronx! Jeesh! Not only is he taking away half my tab staff in the grammar school, he’s also taking away my parent in charge of feeding the assembled multitudes, because G-Man is Zip’s black sheep second cousin thrice removed or something, the relative from the crazy side of the family. Anyhow, the thing is that O’C is only tabbing half the tournament. I have adjusted for this accordingly, as will be made known shortly, beyond just eliminating the JC Award. There are consequences for actions!
Quote of the day: Nabokov on editors
"I have also come across a few pompous avuncular brutes who would attempt to ‘make suggestions’ which I countered with a thunderous ‘stet!’”
Wednesday, November 07, 2012
Debate: Say it isn't so!
So the question becomes, what do the gods have against Bump? There was early dismissal today, and therefore no meeting (which had already been postponed from yesterday, and which of course was cancelled last week). No final planning for Bump. No impressing on the Speecho-Americans the importance of the event. No going over the topics with the debaters. No nothing. At least the forecast for the weekend is clear and a little warmer. Assuming there’s no surprise earthquakes (and, given that we don’t use Italian forecasters, any local earthquakes wouldn’t be a surprise), we should be okay.
Jeesh.
There are still people just down the street from me without electricity. I’m wondering if we’ll lose ours again. I was only beginning to appreciate heat and light. I don’t want to live without it again.
Aside from the Bump issues, I really miss early-season meetings. Starting friction being strong, you need to jam in a whole lot of stuff into the novitiate mind as quickly as possible. I’ve got plebes who haven’t even debated yet, much less learned what an argument is, or a turn, or what to do during prep time, or how to cross examine. So much information to impart, so little time to do it. Of course, much of this is written up, but does the average student ever read any of it? Unlikely. Superstars do, and potential superstars, but the average student just sort of looks at you funny when you suggest that they read something. I expect that, and see it as part of my job to overcome it, but I can’t do that if I’m not there at the meetings. And meanwhile my stockpile of crappy prizes is growing exponentially, what with the small team and the aborted meetings and no one to give them to. I’m going to have to get another closet! At least I got some of the Sailors to sign up for future debates. Impressing on them that, if they don’t debate much in December, they might as well join the knitting club, is another thing that’s hard to do long-distance.
This is turning out to be a very frustrating week. We may have Bump patched up, but the damage to the team as a whole is something else altogether. And this holds not just for me but everyone else in the reason struggling with lost days and lost rounds.
Sigh…
Jeesh.
There are still people just down the street from me without electricity. I’m wondering if we’ll lose ours again. I was only beginning to appreciate heat and light. I don’t want to live without it again.
Aside from the Bump issues, I really miss early-season meetings. Starting friction being strong, you need to jam in a whole lot of stuff into the novitiate mind as quickly as possible. I’ve got plebes who haven’t even debated yet, much less learned what an argument is, or a turn, or what to do during prep time, or how to cross examine. So much information to impart, so little time to do it. Of course, much of this is written up, but does the average student ever read any of it? Unlikely. Superstars do, and potential superstars, but the average student just sort of looks at you funny when you suggest that they read something. I expect that, and see it as part of my job to overcome it, but I can’t do that if I’m not there at the meetings. And meanwhile my stockpile of crappy prizes is growing exponentially, what with the small team and the aborted meetings and no one to give them to. I’m going to have to get another closet! At least I got some of the Sailors to sign up for future debates. Impressing on them that, if they don’t debate much in December, they might as well join the knitting club, is another thing that’s hard to do long-distance.
This is turning out to be a very frustrating week. We may have Bump patched up, but the damage to the team as a whole is something else altogether. And this holds not just for me but everyone else in the reason struggling with lost days and lost rounds.
Sigh…
More articles we didn't finish reading
These headlines are all real, directly copied from our RSS feed without editing. When we say we didn't read them, we mean it. They didn't exactly pull us in, for some reason...
- George Lucas says he plans ‘little personal films’ in future
- Cold sore-themed cupcakes
- Britney Spears in talks to pen a novel based on her adventures
- In Defense of Stink
- Fungus as a Building Material
- Jimi Hendrix Clothing Line Coming to Bloomingdale's
Tuesday, November 06, 2012
Debate: The "Oy!" of Tournaments
Oy, indeed.
Sandy has desolated northeast forensics. Granted, that’s small potatoes when juxtaposed against the physical desolation, but that doesn’t make it any less real.
I’m always amazed as I try to chivvy up the Sailors to sign up for tournaments how quickly the season passes, especially for Plebes. There’s a first-timers’ event in October, then there’s one thing after the other, not that everyone goes to all of them, and then, suddenly, it’s President’s Week and aside from a few finals, it’s over. That’s about 4 months of debate, or maybe a dozen realistic debate possibilities. Miss one because you have your grandmother’s bat mitzvah coming up, well, life goes on; miss one because it disappears off the calendar, and what with your grandmother’s bat mitzvah and SATs and PSATs and SITZBATHs and whatever, and the next thing you know, it’s Spring and a young debater’s fancy turns to— Well, we won’t go there.
November in the northeast is fairly quiet. There has been an MHL event forever at Monticello, moved this year to Vassar. And there was Vassar, an attempt to plant another tournament on the calendar on a relatively available weekend. People need as many rounds as they can get, and varsity especially, aside from those on the $ircuit, don’t have much around here that month, so Vassar fits in nicely. Sandy, however, thought otherwise. The Vassar Powers That Be quickly put it into turnaround. It couldn’t have happened, they knew it, and so they said Wait’ll Next Year. And so we will.
I was out of electricity for a full week, and plenty of people in my area are still out. New Jersey schools aren’t back yet, but at least New York seems to be in business for the most part. (Lakeland district is supposed to come back online tomorrow, last I heard.) Even last week, listening to the predictions, I knew that Bump was in jeopardy. There was no way we could get housing, for one thing. We had less than half of it lined up at the beginning of the week (of course, there were still two weeks to go, so no one was terribly concerned), and now most of the housers had no electricity, no email, no phones, no nothing. Housing is an attractive part of northeast debate, because, obviously, it saves money on tournaments; losing housing makes tournaments a lot less desirable. But obviously, housing had to go. That was the first casualty.
So the question next was, would we even have the high school available? For some reason the power on that side of town was steadier than the other side of town, so that looked okay, although good friends elsewhere came forward and offered alternate venues just in case. We were ready to move the tournament to another school as of yesterday, but that proved unnecessary. It wouldn’t have made it any easier or harder for the Bump registrants, it would have just made it different, although it would have been problematic for me trying to provide food and whatnot.
Still, no matter what was done, there was no way to run the tournament on the normal schedule. So we compressed things a little by eliminating the third round on Friday night and starting later on Saturday morning. This will allow people to bus back and forth at reasonable times, or if they’re coming from Manhattan, they can catch the local train to the station about ten minutes’ walk away. That’s not terrible. The only catch is that we go from 6 rounds to 5, but c’est la guerre. Once upon a time almost all tournaments were 5 rounds. We got into this 6 round thing because of TOCs theoretically requiring a 6th round if you had a quarters bid. Why am I letting TOC run my life, especially when obviously TOC doesn’t give a crap about me (witness my pared-to-finals PF bid this year, following the paring to semis in LD a few years ago)? But that’s a question for another time.
Having everyone leave early Friday night means we don’t have to feed them, and I dropped the school fee which pretty much translated to the cost of Friday dinner. Can’t charge people for what you’re not giving them, right? It will be weird getting out early on Friday (normally I’m the last one out of the building, and of course the first one back the next morning, and I’m running on fumes by around lunch time). This means will have the alum dinner Friday night, when I’m actually not too tired to enjoy it. There’s a silver lining for you!
After all the drops and changes, we’re still filling up both buildings. I let schools bring larger contingents, but not crazily so, which means on paper the tournament will actually still look pretty good. But here’s the thing. The tournament is happening because a lot of people showed their support throughout: coaches, the school admin, the team families. Nothing happens in debate because somebody tries to do something. Things happen because the community wants to do something. That’s why I love that debate is part of my life.
Here’s hoping that our friends who were even harder hit get back on their feet soon.
Sandy has desolated northeast forensics. Granted, that’s small potatoes when juxtaposed against the physical desolation, but that doesn’t make it any less real.
I’m always amazed as I try to chivvy up the Sailors to sign up for tournaments how quickly the season passes, especially for Plebes. There’s a first-timers’ event in October, then there’s one thing after the other, not that everyone goes to all of them, and then, suddenly, it’s President’s Week and aside from a few finals, it’s over. That’s about 4 months of debate, or maybe a dozen realistic debate possibilities. Miss one because you have your grandmother’s bat mitzvah coming up, well, life goes on; miss one because it disappears off the calendar, and what with your grandmother’s bat mitzvah and SATs and PSATs and SITZBATHs and whatever, and the next thing you know, it’s Spring and a young debater’s fancy turns to— Well, we won’t go there.
November in the northeast is fairly quiet. There has been an MHL event forever at Monticello, moved this year to Vassar. And there was Vassar, an attempt to plant another tournament on the calendar on a relatively available weekend. People need as many rounds as they can get, and varsity especially, aside from those on the $ircuit, don’t have much around here that month, so Vassar fits in nicely. Sandy, however, thought otherwise. The Vassar Powers That Be quickly put it into turnaround. It couldn’t have happened, they knew it, and so they said Wait’ll Next Year. And so we will.
I was out of electricity for a full week, and plenty of people in my area are still out. New Jersey schools aren’t back yet, but at least New York seems to be in business for the most part. (Lakeland district is supposed to come back online tomorrow, last I heard.) Even last week, listening to the predictions, I knew that Bump was in jeopardy. There was no way we could get housing, for one thing. We had less than half of it lined up at the beginning of the week (of course, there were still two weeks to go, so no one was terribly concerned), and now most of the housers had no electricity, no email, no phones, no nothing. Housing is an attractive part of northeast debate, because, obviously, it saves money on tournaments; losing housing makes tournaments a lot less desirable. But obviously, housing had to go. That was the first casualty.
So the question next was, would we even have the high school available? For some reason the power on that side of town was steadier than the other side of town, so that looked okay, although good friends elsewhere came forward and offered alternate venues just in case. We were ready to move the tournament to another school as of yesterday, but that proved unnecessary. It wouldn’t have made it any easier or harder for the Bump registrants, it would have just made it different, although it would have been problematic for me trying to provide food and whatnot.
Still, no matter what was done, there was no way to run the tournament on the normal schedule. So we compressed things a little by eliminating the third round on Friday night and starting later on Saturday morning. This will allow people to bus back and forth at reasonable times, or if they’re coming from Manhattan, they can catch the local train to the station about ten minutes’ walk away. That’s not terrible. The only catch is that we go from 6 rounds to 5, but c’est la guerre. Once upon a time almost all tournaments were 5 rounds. We got into this 6 round thing because of TOCs theoretically requiring a 6th round if you had a quarters bid. Why am I letting TOC run my life, especially when obviously TOC doesn’t give a crap about me (witness my pared-to-finals PF bid this year, following the paring to semis in LD a few years ago)? But that’s a question for another time.
Having everyone leave early Friday night means we don’t have to feed them, and I dropped the school fee which pretty much translated to the cost of Friday dinner. Can’t charge people for what you’re not giving them, right? It will be weird getting out early on Friday (normally I’m the last one out of the building, and of course the first one back the next morning, and I’m running on fumes by around lunch time). This means will have the alum dinner Friday night, when I’m actually not too tired to enjoy it. There’s a silver lining for you!
After all the drops and changes, we’re still filling up both buildings. I let schools bring larger contingents, but not crazily so, which means on paper the tournament will actually still look pretty good. But here’s the thing. The tournament is happening because a lot of people showed their support throughout: coaches, the school admin, the team families. Nothing happens in debate because somebody tries to do something. Things happen because the community wants to do something. That’s why I love that debate is part of my life.
Here’s hoping that our friends who were even harder hit get back on their feet soon.
Monday, November 05, 2012
More articles we didn't finish reading
These headlines are all real, directly copied from our RSS feed without editing. When we say we didn't read them, we mean it. They didn't exactly pull us in, for some reason...
- Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Princess Dresses at Disney World
- Rod Stewart Was Never a Gravedigger
- ‘Trekkie Dating’ Site Is Pretty Much Exactly Like It Sounds
- Watch Michele Bachmann Flee From a Person With Disabilities Who Wants To Interview Her
- The Late Movies: Watch 6 Full Episodes of The Smurfs
- 10 Reasons Why Speed Racer Is an Unsung Masterpiece
- Can Sex Help Sell Coffins?
Magic via Ted
I'm not exactly up to speed on blogging, obviously. But I've been catching things here and there, and I'll just pass them along.
Debate: Bump update (not exactly a blog post, but electricity is tight around here)
I am waiting for final confirmation, but as far as I am aware, unless there is yet another storm, in which case I am quitting debate and taking up 43-Man Squamish, we will hold the Bump Tournament at Hen Hud. We have lost a few schools, of course, but we’re still filling the place up. We’ve stretched the per-school limits a bit, but not terribly much. It looks to still be a strong tournament.
Registration still closes tonight at 9:00 and fees are set. However, you will be able to make adjustments to your entry online through Wednesday night, provided I’ve clicked all the right buttons. If this is problematic for you, please let me know.
Again, the new schedule is as follows:
Registration 2:30 – 3:00 Friday afternoon. Do not arrive at the school before that time, please.
Two rounds of debate, ending around 7:00. There is no dinner or housing on Friday night, and registration fees have been reduced accordingly.
Saturday, round 3 starts at 9:00. We will hold a total of 5 prelim rounds in the Varsity divisions breaking to octos (given the present numbers) and as many general rounds as we can in the Novice divisions. Lunch is served on Saturday.
For those coming up from Grand Central, it’s a 10-15 minute walk from the Cortlandt station. On Friday there is the 1:50 arriving at 2:41, and on Saturday there is the 7:50 arriving at 8:40. (Please double-check on the day of, and keep in mind that any other station other than Cortlandt is going to cause you an immense amount of grief.) These will work fine, and allow your debaters a much needed stretching of their forensic little legs. There are also cabs available for those who require them.
There are no further judges for hire, so please do not ask because they will not suddenly be falling out of the trees because, alas, there are no more trees in our area.
Because the number of schools is smaller than usual, we have abandoned MJP. Also, there may be fluidity between the pools of LD and PF (when the tab rooms know that a judge can handle both). If on Friday the tab room feels that they can offer strikes in VLD, they will proceed accordingly.
We thank everybody who has stuck with us through all of this. Just so you know, next year we’re planning to be struck by an asteroid; we’d hate to have to hold a boring old regular tournament for a change.
Registration still closes tonight at 9:00 and fees are set. However, you will be able to make adjustments to your entry online through Wednesday night, provided I’ve clicked all the right buttons. If this is problematic for you, please let me know.
Again, the new schedule is as follows:
Registration 2:30 – 3:00 Friday afternoon. Do not arrive at the school before that time, please.
Two rounds of debate, ending around 7:00. There is no dinner or housing on Friday night, and registration fees have been reduced accordingly.
Saturday, round 3 starts at 9:00. We will hold a total of 5 prelim rounds in the Varsity divisions breaking to octos (given the present numbers) and as many general rounds as we can in the Novice divisions. Lunch is served on Saturday.
For those coming up from Grand Central, it’s a 10-15 minute walk from the Cortlandt station. On Friday there is the 1:50 arriving at 2:41, and on Saturday there is the 7:50 arriving at 8:40. (Please double-check on the day of, and keep in mind that any other station other than Cortlandt is going to cause you an immense amount of grief.) These will work fine, and allow your debaters a much needed stretching of their forensic little legs. There are also cabs available for those who require them.
There are no further judges for hire, so please do not ask because they will not suddenly be falling out of the trees because, alas, there are no more trees in our area.
Because the number of schools is smaller than usual, we have abandoned MJP. Also, there may be fluidity between the pools of LD and PF (when the tab rooms know that a judge can handle both). If on Friday the tab room feels that they can offer strikes in VLD, they will proceed accordingly.
We thank everybody who has stuck with us through all of this. Just so you know, next year we’re planning to be struck by an asteroid; we’d hate to have to hold a boring old regular tournament for a change.
General Motors at the '64 Fair
Ah, yes. This was the future I was expecting. This ride famously demonstrated the machinery that could turn a rain forest into a paved road in seconds flat. It also makes you think that, if a hurricane hits, you still won't be out of power a week later.
[Via]... And he's right about the hats.
[Via]... And he's right about the hats.
Friday, November 02, 2012
Riding off into the weekend
With all the talk about Disney buying Star Wars, one of the inevitable questions is if Disney will somewhere build a Star Wars land of some sort in one of the parks. Germaine to that is this article about Star Wars ride concepts. Most interesting is the design and layout of the roller coaster. I mean, this was really thought out, and I absolutely would be willing to run straight to it at rope drop.
Lots of other discussion, jokes, cartoons, whatever have been thrown around the blogosphere. Mostly people are sanguine, or at least most people who are Disney and/or Star Wars types to begin with. We've already seen the synergy for years in Star Tours and Captain EO and, for that matter, the Indiana Jones properties. Disney knows how to work this stuff. There are people off the reservation who complain that Star Wars is dead, which only points out that they've lost interest themselves. My favorite response was one that I hope is true, that unlike Lucas, Disney won't keep mucking about with the movies that already exist, and for that matter, might eventually issue them on video the way they were originally released. That would be really nice, since little Lucas did after the fact was an improvement; even if there were improvements, eliminating a movie from view in its original form, especially movies as culturally influential as these, is just bad thinking.
So in the immortal words of Obi-Wan Kenobi: "Live long and prosper Open the pod door Hal May the Mouse be with you."
Lots of other discussion, jokes, cartoons, whatever have been thrown around the blogosphere. Mostly people are sanguine, or at least most people who are Disney and/or Star Wars types to begin with. We've already seen the synergy for years in Star Tours and Captain EO and, for that matter, the Indiana Jones properties. Disney knows how to work this stuff. There are people off the reservation who complain that Star Wars is dead, which only points out that they've lost interest themselves. My favorite response was one that I hope is true, that unlike Lucas, Disney won't keep mucking about with the movies that already exist, and for that matter, might eventually issue them on video the way they were originally released. That would be really nice, since little Lucas did after the fact was an improvement; even if there were improvements, eliminating a movie from view in its original form, especially movies as culturally influential as these, is just bad thinking.
So in the immortal words of Obi-Wan Kenobi: "
Debate: Bump update
The following is what I have sent to the registered schools. Since all of it is true, and it seems complete, I have nothing to add here.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. They’re even predicting another storm!
We do not wish to cancel the Bump tournament, but the hit from Sandy, which is ongoing in our area, makes it impossible to conduct business as usual. Part of the problem is the inability to predict what the situation will be like next week. One thing that is for certain is that the power outages in our area have brought our attempts to secure housing to a standstill: we simply can’t reach people. Further, given the disruptions being undergone, it is unlikely that people will be able to commit even by next weekend. So, desperate measure number one: housing is cancelled for the tournament.
Most of the teams signed up for the tournament come from a reasonable distance either from New York City or the Hudson Valley. To enable those teams to commute to the tournament on both days, the schedule is changed thus, in desperate measure number two:
Tournament registration Friday at 2:30 to 3:00, followed by 2 preset rounds. Estimate finishing time Friday, 7:00. No dinner will be served. Since we will thus not be spending that money, the school fee of $25 will be waived.
Round 3 on Saturday morning starting at 9:00 am. (Obviously, no requests for flight B will be entertained, because we can’t put everyone in that flight, which is where everyone will want to go.) Lunch will be provided. There will be 5 rounds of both VPF and VLD, breaking at most to octos. This should assure us of our TOC bids. NPF and NLD will have as many rounds as they can fit in.
Desperate measure number three: there is a possibility that we will move the tournament to a different venue, TBA Monday. This could be another high school closer to NYC. When I know, you’ll know.
For folks with or seeking motel reservations, at the moment the area is chaos, with the powerless in situ. This should clear up by next weekend, for the most part. If you decide to motel your team, use the motels on the route 129 strip between White Plains and Tarrytown, as they will be in close enough access to whatever venue we use. PLEASE NOTE: If there is no change of venue and we are forced to rely on Hen Hud, there is a chance that it still might not be accessible, so don’t secure unrefundable reservations.
We expect that following this message there will be drops aplenty. Desperate measure number four is that we will almost certainly clear much of the waitlist for entries covered by judging. (Well, I guess that’s not all that desperate.) More will be known as I know it. If you are going to be one of the dropping schools, please do so sooner rather than later. We have no choice but to stick to the Monday night closing no matter what happens, and you will be held accountable for fees accrued.
All of that said, we are doing our best to make a good tournament happen, and I would imagine that we will change things again as we know more about who’s coming and where they’re coming to. There is even still a chance that it might not happen. I will keep you posted. On the bright side, the tournament is guaranteed to generate more [TAB] emails than all previous Big Bronxes combined, so Jon Cruz: eat your heart out!
Desperate times call for desperate measures. They’re even predicting another storm!
We do not wish to cancel the Bump tournament, but the hit from Sandy, which is ongoing in our area, makes it impossible to conduct business as usual. Part of the problem is the inability to predict what the situation will be like next week. One thing that is for certain is that the power outages in our area have brought our attempts to secure housing to a standstill: we simply can’t reach people. Further, given the disruptions being undergone, it is unlikely that people will be able to commit even by next weekend. So, desperate measure number one: housing is cancelled for the tournament.
Most of the teams signed up for the tournament come from a reasonable distance either from New York City or the Hudson Valley. To enable those teams to commute to the tournament on both days, the schedule is changed thus, in desperate measure number two:
Tournament registration Friday at 2:30 to 3:00, followed by 2 preset rounds. Estimate finishing time Friday, 7:00. No dinner will be served. Since we will thus not be spending that money, the school fee of $25 will be waived.
Round 3 on Saturday morning starting at 9:00 am. (Obviously, no requests for flight B will be entertained, because we can’t put everyone in that flight, which is where everyone will want to go.) Lunch will be provided. There will be 5 rounds of both VPF and VLD, breaking at most to octos. This should assure us of our TOC bids. NPF and NLD will have as many rounds as they can fit in.
Desperate measure number three: there is a possibility that we will move the tournament to a different venue, TBA Monday. This could be another high school closer to NYC. When I know, you’ll know.
For folks with or seeking motel reservations, at the moment the area is chaos, with the powerless in situ. This should clear up by next weekend, for the most part. If you decide to motel your team, use the motels on the route 129 strip between White Plains and Tarrytown, as they will be in close enough access to whatever venue we use. PLEASE NOTE: If there is no change of venue and we are forced to rely on Hen Hud, there is a chance that it still might not be accessible, so don’t secure unrefundable reservations.
We expect that following this message there will be drops aplenty. Desperate measure number four is that we will almost certainly clear much of the waitlist for entries covered by judging. (Well, I guess that’s not all that desperate.) More will be known as I know it. If you are going to be one of the dropping schools, please do so sooner rather than later. We have no choice but to stick to the Monday night closing no matter what happens, and you will be held accountable for fees accrued.
All of that said, we are doing our best to make a good tournament happen, and I would imagine that we will change things again as we know more about who’s coming and where they’re coming to. There is even still a chance that it might not happen. I will keep you posted. On the bright side, the tournament is guaranteed to generate more [TAB] emails than all previous Big Bronxes combined, so Jon Cruz: eat your heart out!
Thursday, November 01, 2012
Debate: Another two bite the dust
There is real agony in canceling a debate tournament. So much aggravation goes into making it happen, in corralling judges and lining up concessions, in making the event attractive enough that people will sign up, sometimes in setting up housing and meals. Even a little one-dayer like an MHL has its angst, although that doesn’t compare with an invitational.
So falls the first (well, O’C is probably calling it the 7th or something, or more likely the VIIth) Vassar tournament. It’s tough enough to have carved out this weekend and got everything set up both on campus and at a nearby school for the MHL, and then to have to stop. I feel for everyone involved, especially Alex and the People’s Champion, the students doing all the work. But, they had no choice. And there’s always next year. Both the invitational and the MHL are Sandy casualties.
The thing is, NYC is pretty much out of commission this week, as are most of the other schools in the region. Everything is simply shut down. Making arrangements for buses is hard enough when you have roads, much less when you’re wondering if you can even make it. Mass transportation remains spotty. On my drive to the DJ I see occasional lights, but at least half of my county seems to be in the dark, and I have yet to venture onto any of the less traveled roads. At least I can come in and charge up and catch up on the world a little bit, but at home we have candles and a stove and hot water, but that’s it, yet that’s more than a lot of people. There is still a question if things everywhere will be back to normal by next week. I’ve already got the willies thinking about Bump, and have adjusted the registration cutoff accordingly. I’m betting that it will happen, but I’m not betting a lot. I just don’t know. It’s as simple as that. The school play would have been this weekend, so we might be sharing the venue—the mind quakes. I just talked to the trophy guy and told him to soldier on. Worst case scenario, we’re ready real early next year.
On the other end of this, I had my young ‘uns ready to debate Saturday, one of them for the first time. Since they’re middle schoolers, they can’t participate everywhere, so missing an outing is painful. Obviously we didn’t meet this week, so that’s also a bummer.
Oy.
So falls the first (well, O’C is probably calling it the 7th or something, or more likely the VIIth) Vassar tournament. It’s tough enough to have carved out this weekend and got everything set up both on campus and at a nearby school for the MHL, and then to have to stop. I feel for everyone involved, especially Alex and the People’s Champion, the students doing all the work. But, they had no choice. And there’s always next year. Both the invitational and the MHL are Sandy casualties.
The thing is, NYC is pretty much out of commission this week, as are most of the other schools in the region. Everything is simply shut down. Making arrangements for buses is hard enough when you have roads, much less when you’re wondering if you can even make it. Mass transportation remains spotty. On my drive to the DJ I see occasional lights, but at least half of my county seems to be in the dark, and I have yet to venture onto any of the less traveled roads. At least I can come in and charge up and catch up on the world a little bit, but at home we have candles and a stove and hot water, but that’s it, yet that’s more than a lot of people. There is still a question if things everywhere will be back to normal by next week. I’ve already got the willies thinking about Bump, and have adjusted the registration cutoff accordingly. I’m betting that it will happen, but I’m not betting a lot. I just don’t know. It’s as simple as that. The school play would have been this weekend, so we might be sharing the venue—the mind quakes. I just talked to the trophy guy and told him to soldier on. Worst case scenario, we’re ready real early next year.
On the other end of this, I had my young ‘uns ready to debate Saturday, one of them for the first time. Since they’re middle schoolers, they can’t participate everywhere, so missing an outing is painful. Obviously we didn’t meet this week, so that’s also a bummer.
Oy.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
No power
Also fewer trees. But nothing too bad. This weekend was cancelled, because nobody's had school and nobody's likely to have transportation. Oh, well. With luck, by the weekend my electricity will be back, and I'll be able to see what I was missing.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Debate: The NYPFL
That's the New York Pagan Forensic League. We shake off the church and go to our roots for All Hallows at Regis. It's a tradition, and no one has yet to call me out on it. How can I stop?
For reasons that are too annoying to detail, I had no students, so I drove down straight with only one stop at Starbucks. Early, zipping along, listening to random stuff on the iPod, of course all of the East Side of Manhattan was blocked off so that people could warm up for the marathon. Warm up for the marathon? I have to get caught in traffic because you can't run in the park like you normally do? And I have to admit I've never been interested in marathons anyhow. Maybe if the Persians were invading, I'd think differently.
I did manage to arrive before 9:00, though, as did all the teams. All present and accounted for, I was told, and we came close to pulling it off without a hitch. Only two schools had judges that didn't show up. Fines were levied, irritation expressed. It really is hard getting pissed off at the same people for the same reasons over and over again, and nothing ever changes. You've got to wonder.
Regis set me up with a computer to do my printing, and it almost worked fine, except it wouldn't read my USB drive. As always, a PC set up to be a PC can't understand a Mac. I guess I could have reformatted it, but instead we used Kaz's panda; she'd left her chicken at home. I'll have to get a panda or a chicken for myself in the future. In any case, things worked fine. And we got all four rounds out and were at the awards before 6:30. We even managed four rounds of a tiny varsity division despite a judge who singlehandedly tried to bring the whole thing down. Where do they get these people from? I won't tire you with the details, but here's how judging is supposed to work: we put out the ballots, you pick them up and judge the rounds and bring them back. There's nothing else involved. Trust me on this.
Now I'm sitting around waiting for the electricity to go out. I'm trying to shake the loose leaves from Bump, the people without judges who are definitely going to drop but are taking their sweet time about it. I want to give those slots to others in a timely manner, but I can't do it if they're still holding on. I keep sending emails and they keep not dropping. I have to admit, the temptation to dump Bump arises every year, and going forward, with no LD alums, it's going to be even more tempting. But you just get so locked into things that it's hard to change them. O'C would probably come up that weekend anyhow for a couple of years before the reality set in. Then again, I'm not the one going to a wedding in the middle of it this year...
For reasons that are too annoying to detail, I had no students, so I drove down straight with only one stop at Starbucks. Early, zipping along, listening to random stuff on the iPod, of course all of the East Side of Manhattan was blocked off so that people could warm up for the marathon. Warm up for the marathon? I have to get caught in traffic because you can't run in the park like you normally do? And I have to admit I've never been interested in marathons anyhow. Maybe if the Persians were invading, I'd think differently.
I did manage to arrive before 9:00, though, as did all the teams. All present and accounted for, I was told, and we came close to pulling it off without a hitch. Only two schools had judges that didn't show up. Fines were levied, irritation expressed. It really is hard getting pissed off at the same people for the same reasons over and over again, and nothing ever changes. You've got to wonder.
Regis set me up with a computer to do my printing, and it almost worked fine, except it wouldn't read my USB drive. As always, a PC set up to be a PC can't understand a Mac. I guess I could have reformatted it, but instead we used Kaz's panda; she'd left her chicken at home. I'll have to get a panda or a chicken for myself in the future. In any case, things worked fine. And we got all four rounds out and were at the awards before 6:30. We even managed four rounds of a tiny varsity division despite a judge who singlehandedly tried to bring the whole thing down. Where do they get these people from? I won't tire you with the details, but here's how judging is supposed to work: we put out the ballots, you pick them up and judge the rounds and bring them back. There's nothing else involved. Trust me on this.
Now I'm sitting around waiting for the electricity to go out. I'm trying to shake the loose leaves from Bump, the people without judges who are definitely going to drop but are taking their sweet time about it. I want to give those slots to others in a timely manner, but I can't do it if they're still holding on. I keep sending emails and they keep not dropping. I have to admit, the temptation to dump Bump arises every year, and going forward, with no LD alums, it's going to be even more tempting. But you just get so locked into things that it's hard to change them. O'C would probably come up that weekend anyhow for a couple of years before the reality set in. Then again, I'm not the one going to a wedding in the middle of it this year...
Friday, October 26, 2012
Riding off into the weekend
Woodies aren't what they used to be. In this post, a couple pair off and show what can be done that is very much state of the art these days. Watch them full screen!
The Voyage vs. El Toro
The Voyage vs. El Toro
Debate: How to tab MJP
(Or at least, this is how I do it, after 2 or 3 years of learning.)
First, make sure all the prefs are correct. I’ve asked that they stay up on tabroom.com after they close, plus there’s already a way of printing them out of TRPC. Makes sense to me to let the teams themselves check things, and we can correct discrepancies. We're still working on this, but it will solve problems when people say they didn't get their prefs. We can either fix fast or demonstrate that it is not the case.
Next, if someone doesn’t pref, go in and blank out all their 1s. The default is a 1, not a blank, but when you’re tabbing, you can’t tell the difference between a real 1 and a didn’t pref 1, but a blank is a blank is a blank.
Do an automatic assignment of the judges. Nothing else. Then go down the pairing and erase (the E button) every judge that isn’t 1-1 or 1-blank.
Print out a list of judges, organized by judge. This will show you who only has one round.
Find a judge for each of the pairings that don’t have one. Try to use up the folks only judging one flight.
After everyone has a judge, auto assign rooms and then fix the flights (some will be AA or BB rather than AB).
In rounds where the brackets matter, start as above, erasing any non 1-1s. Then go to the brackets out of contention and erase the 1-1 judges that are highly preffed; it’s not that the out-of-contentions won’t get their 1s so much as, if there is any choice, they would go first to the in-contentions. (John Rawls would explain this as acceptable, needless to say.) Then start doing assignments by brackets, starting with the bubble and moving up to the undefeateds, then going to the out of contentions. Again, try to double up the judges as much as possible, but if you’ve been to an MJP tournament, you know that a lot of flights are split. This is why.
Hard-and-fast rule: TRPC always offers the prelim judges in a column. Always take the top judge from the column. You are not being paid to think. You are not trying to find the right judge that you think is the right judge, but a 1-1 pairing. That’s all.
Elims are a little different. You take the first judge and place wherever it has the first 1. That is, a judge automatically pops up, and the first pairing where it’s a mutual 1 is pairing 4, so you put the judge in 4. You try to fill up in order, going from pairing 1 to pairing 8 and then back down from 8 to 1 and finally back up again from 1 to 8. This removes any personalization of the pairing. Of course, you may run out of 1s before you run out of need, and you might move a highly preffed judge around when a less highly preffed judge can fill in, but as often as not this is a mug’s game of moving around people all over the map and getting nowhere. That’s why it’s mutual. We do a fair assignment, and when we run out of 1s, say hello to my little friends, the 2s. Still mutual. So are 3s. So is a 1-2, 2-1, 2-2. In the olden days, we put in anyone who hadn’t been struck. Which do you prefer?
First, make sure all the prefs are correct. I’ve asked that they stay up on tabroom.com after they close, plus there’s already a way of printing them out of TRPC. Makes sense to me to let the teams themselves check things, and we can correct discrepancies. We're still working on this, but it will solve problems when people say they didn't get their prefs. We can either fix fast or demonstrate that it is not the case.
Next, if someone doesn’t pref, go in and blank out all their 1s. The default is a 1, not a blank, but when you’re tabbing, you can’t tell the difference between a real 1 and a didn’t pref 1, but a blank is a blank is a blank.
Do an automatic assignment of the judges. Nothing else. Then go down the pairing and erase (the E button) every judge that isn’t 1-1 or 1-blank.
Print out a list of judges, organized by judge. This will show you who only has one round.
Find a judge for each of the pairings that don’t have one. Try to use up the folks only judging one flight.
After everyone has a judge, auto assign rooms and then fix the flights (some will be AA or BB rather than AB).
In rounds where the brackets matter, start as above, erasing any non 1-1s. Then go to the brackets out of contention and erase the 1-1 judges that are highly preffed; it’s not that the out-of-contentions won’t get their 1s so much as, if there is any choice, they would go first to the in-contentions. (John Rawls would explain this as acceptable, needless to say.) Then start doing assignments by brackets, starting with the bubble and moving up to the undefeateds, then going to the out of contentions. Again, try to double up the judges as much as possible, but if you’ve been to an MJP tournament, you know that a lot of flights are split. This is why.
Hard-and-fast rule: TRPC always offers the prelim judges in a column. Always take the top judge from the column. You are not being paid to think. You are not trying to find the right judge that you think is the right judge, but a 1-1 pairing. That’s all.
Elims are a little different. You take the first judge and place wherever it has the first 1. That is, a judge automatically pops up, and the first pairing where it’s a mutual 1 is pairing 4, so you put the judge in 4. You try to fill up in order, going from pairing 1 to pairing 8 and then back down from 8 to 1 and finally back up again from 1 to 8. This removes any personalization of the pairing. Of course, you may run out of 1s before you run out of need, and you might move a highly preffed judge around when a less highly preffed judge can fill in, but as often as not this is a mug’s game of moving around people all over the map and getting nowhere. That’s why it’s mutual. We do a fair assignment, and when we run out of 1s, say hello to my little friends, the 2s. Still mutual. So are 3s. So is a 1-2, 2-1, 2-2. In the olden days, we put in anyone who hadn’t been struck. Which do you prefer?
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