So we are at the Cornell Tournament this weekend, back judging in CEDA East. Its been a long time since we were judging collegiate debates and I had begun to slip back into the high school debate mentality. Maybe its not the high school debate mentality, but rather my own particular experiences in Minnesota. By that I mean having lots of people I know at debate tournaments, not having to deal with a billion+ students and generally just feeling comfortable. This is my second full year judging debates in this region and while I think that most of the people around here know who I am, I'm still not entirely comfortable in these parts.I also think its notable that in terms of the quality of debate, these kids would get crushed by Minnesota. I mean, seriously, I don't know if anyone at this tournament, in any division, would even have a chance to get out of the Southern district.
This team from Vermont is running The Scream Kritik. They pretty much ran this argument in every debate last year and I kinda wanted to hit them back then. It has apparently begun to rear its ugly head again this week. The argument itself is not completely ridiculous, its an idea of statism, the alternative for which is to express frustration through screaming against the state. I am not sure if the author of this shit really intends people to audibly scream about their oppression or is using the scream as a metaphor, though my intuition is the latter. The folks from Burlington, however, have selected the former. This means that each negative speech is punctuated, several times, by ear-shattering screams. Like seriously, they freaking bellow, and not like shouting "Damn you STATE!!" (fist shaking) they just scream, in the way you might textually represent as "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!" This seems silly to me, but even if its right, can't you just do it once, maybe at the "alternative " section of your argument. Do you need to do it every time you mention that the alternative is to scream ("Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!" ) in each of the negative speeches. By the 2nr I've got the idea already. (TIME PASSES) No longer in the scream debate, now I appear to be embroiled in a headlong contest regarding the positive and negative aspects of an immediate nuclear war, spark baby.
I like that Faulkner-esque insert of (TIME PASSES) in the above paragraph, I've got a bombasss stream of consciousness blog going on up in here. I've had this Ludacris song in my head (Get Back) for like 2 days now. I picked it up watching the MTZ Hitz the other day, stayin in touch with the kids. It is teaming up with Lindsay Lohan's "Over" to contend for my new favorite song, a slot most likely still held by Ashlee. You know how funny the talking goat is by the way, I hadn't listened to that shit in years until the other day and it really is comedic gold.
So last Wednesday or Thursday night Hippo went into the bedroom closet and managed to get really dirty. My suspicion is that she got shoe polish or something on her, becuase she was all grayish black on the left side of her face. Anyway, we tried to wipe her off with a washcloth and then thought about just letting her take care of it in her cattish ways, but ultimately determined that the stickyness combined with the discoloration was not good and decided to thoroughly wash her off, which meant her first bath, of sorts. Not surprisingly, Hippo was not especially keen on the idea of taking a bath. Katie thought it would work best in the sink, rather than the tub, and holy ass was she wrong. At least in the tub she didn't feel all claustrophobic. Anyway, we should have taken a picture but I was all occupied by making sure that hippo didn't hate me. It was hilarious, she was about 1/3 of her normal size and looked like a long haired skinny chihuahua. The funniest part was that we were trying not to get her head really wet, so the fur on her face was still totally puffy. I'm certain this will happen again at some point and I will make sure Katie has the camera ready.
So at the Econo-Lodge which was our home away from home for the weekend (I could pretty much, at this point, by the way, make an exhaustive survey of Econo-Lodges in the upstate New York region, "Econo Lodges of Upstate New York: Wireless Internet, Frozen Waffles, and/or Pert Plus") the "continental breakfast" came up completely weak style. Don't get me wrong, the wireless came correct, but it was coffee and one of those plastic pastry cases full of cinammon rolls and muffins. It didn't completely wrap its mouth around sheep-genitals, but it lacked the usual charm of cereal and certainly the sophistication of toaster-delectables. Anyway, today they added to the cinammon rolls one of my all-time favorite breakfast treats: bread-bag powdered sugar donnettes. If you don't know what I am referring to, first off, you poor unfortunate ass, and secondly, think of a long plastic bag (bout like a bread-bag (whoop-whoop) but full of mini-powdered-sugar-donuts instead of (whoop-whoop)). These are specific, they aren't just the regular Hostess powdered donettes, they transcend that earthly state and through the medium of the bread-bag (whoop-whoop) gain some sort of cool dryness that smacks on your tongue like the English forest-fire-prevention-representative.
I'm now watching last week's edition of Point Pleasant. Its Marti Noxon's new show, on Thursdays at nine on Fox. That is incredibly weak of the Fox-crew of course, but since they always intend to destroy their best programs (qua Wonderfalls and Firefly), not much of a surprise that they didn't move House to play it after American Idol or something. The show is pretty good through 3 episodes, a very Buffy-like set up of good and evil. I thought it had some chance to resonate with people (the few who weren't watching the Apprentice or CSI) due to the popularity of the whole Desperate Housewives evil emerging in innocuous places thing. Unfortunately, however, Katie tells me the reviewers trashed it. Beyond the generally high quality style of the program, it also features the comeback of one of America's greatest loved actresses: the chick who played Diz in Starship Troopers. Let me tell you, she doesn't play second fiddle to Carmen Ibanez anymore, not even in Johnny's heart. My bet is they cancel it in 2 more weeks, so enjoy this year's installment of Fox licking its own scrot while it lasts.
Peace,
MB-K
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