Ntuple Indemnity

This comes a little late, but punctuality is a secondary concern when appraising something on the magnitude of this past weekend’s major Nick-occupying event, that being the University of Waterloo’s Summer Tournament. Known as the Debate Death Trudge, the concept behind the Waterloo tournament is this: begin debating on Saturday morning, rinse and repeat until Sunday morning. This time around it consisted of no less than fifteen round-robin debates in mercifully shortened Canadian Parliamentary times (5-6-6-8-3), the fifteenth round a hidden quarterfinal, followed by a breakfast banquet at Mel’s Diner (an offshoot of the same restaurant that launched George Lucas’ career) and a break to semi-finals.

There were other assorted twists, such as matchups for “specific knowledge rounds” where arguments predicated on factual expertise, conventionally disallowed out of fairness, are permitted concerning topics to which both teams consent. Where it gets really interesting is when said consent does not imply equal parity of knowledge, leading to situations like Round 6, where a certain Flames-jersey-wearing Government team argued that Harry Potter let Cedric Diggory take the Triwizard Cup, only to discover that the Opposition had never read The Goblet of Fire, let alone memorized it to the point where the structure of the Ministry of Magic and the legal complications of the Bartemius Crouch inquisitions are small beans of the Bertie Bott’s Every-Flavoured variety. The Opposition team of “Greg Allen’s Older Sister Is Hot A” (Crossman/Kotrly) not only won the round by means both inexplicable and totally legitimate, but went on to claim victory over the entire tournament and pick up a Nintendo Entertainment System apiece.

The very notion of debaters staying up and doing rounds in the wee hours of the morning produces amusing results. At no other tournament can one profess to witness the enormity and depth of silliness characteristic of Waterloo DDT, particularly once it heads into the double-digits. By then, adjudicators are just as fatigued, and oh, do they ever respond accordingly. It still has to be determined if they were scoring by attempted content or just sheer entertainment value, but I imagine the former is difficult when people are crossing the floor midway, going off on wild tangents about their parents and Bob Dylan being sell-outs while on the subject of Scrabble, drawing diagrams of scandalous polygonal relationships in multiple dimensions, reading Economist articles verbatim, laughing for half a speech or justifying political mergers by quoting Dylan Thomas.

Everything was tackled, nothing was sacred, and by the end of it all, the only real survivor was the enigmatic Carl, who somehow remained a good guy – despite being sent to Abu Ghraib prison and given the standard treatment. But don’t take my word for it – see what everybody else got out of it.

Last weekend I attended my first CUSID National Debating Championships, hosted this year by the McGill Debating Union. The competition itself was less than stellar in terms of my own performance, but overall, the event was well run. Alberta won the Nationals bid for 2005, so hopefully we run it as well. From an entirely biased perspective, I would still call the elimination of Alberta Law (Wanke/Adhihetty) in the quarter-final opposing Carleton one of the more egregious decisions I have witnessed, but as someone who finished with a 2-4 record I have no right to talk. Unlike the “Nick vs. Portland and pretending to know jack about economics” of UBC’s Pacific Cup two weeks previously, Nationals was “Nick vs. Marionopolis and pretending to know jack about where Marionopolis is located” – and somewhat less successful in that respect.

On another front entirely, I won the election for the CUSID Executive Director on a status quo, “I promise not to break anything” platform. Unbeknownst to myself, this was a direct contravention of the delicate equilibrium maintained under Murphy’s Law, which responded in force with the revocation of service to CUSID.ca. Without divulging anything that is not already in the minutes, Concordia took issue with a potential enforcement stipulation of the proposed Code of Conduct Bylaw, which subsequently passed. Concordia alumnus and CUSID.ca web space donor Gordon Buchan then withdrew his support for CUSID. The entire issue is complex to the point that nobody really has a clear understanding of it yet, though outgoing CUSID President Konrad Koncewicz has more than a little to say about the concerns regarding club sovereignty.

Has anybody else noticed that the acronym “CUSID” is redundant for the ostensive sake of being pronounceable? It stands for the Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate. First of all, one would contest that it is strictly bound to universities alone; secondly, the redundancy lies in “University” and “Intercollegiate”. It would follow that the ‘U’ is up for elimination, the result being “CSID”, pronounced “see-sid”, but not to be confused with CSIS. Debaters are only spooks in the literal sense.

If you have noticed the conspicuous absence of any entries in the past week – and if you are one of the handful of people who lurk here without telling me – three things: a) I know you’re out there by way of third-party information, b) the “Annotate” link is there for a reason, and 3) you are probably wondering what I thought of The Matrix Revolutions.

Regarding the film, I have drawn the conclusion that I cannot formulate an adequate assessment until a second viewing. My initial impression is one that lacks fulfilment. This is a movie that needed to provide both plot resolution and thematic resolution, and save for the best exchange of dialogue in the entire trilogy during the final fight, the second was distractingly incomplete. Plot-wise, there was the appropriate balance of denouement and ambiguity. Theme-wise, some ideas were swatted away rather than provided with appropriately soft landings.

The film was enjoyable nonetheless, though the intelligence and visual audacity exhibited by The Matrix Reloaded was not improved upon. The biggest problem with Revolutions is that next to the first two films, it feels all too conventional.

The laziness-business dialectic axis prevents me from elaborating any further at this time, so do not take this as a full review.

Another release that deserves some comment is the debut of Cartoon Network’s Clone Wars series of shorts by Genndy Tartakovsky, perhaps the flag-bearer of this generation of expressionistic animation, a generation without a Friz Freleng or Chuck Jones at the helm. The first episode is on the Cartoon Network website, but is inaccessible for anyone outside the United States. File-sharing is a Canadian’s best friend – except hockey, that is.

Chapter 1 is, more than anything, a tease of what’s to come. So far, it looks good. The best part about it is that it does not yet show any signs of falling victim to the stock conventions that make the Expanded Universe so unbearable. It’s slick, it’s stylish, and even though it isn’t at all like the style of the films, it possesses a dynamism that somehow feels right. Chapter 2 is due out tonight, so we will see how this develops.

As for what occupied me all weekend: I was debating in the University of Alberta’s home tournament, the Hugill Cup, Friday through Sunday. That’s right – Sunday. For a variety of reasons, among which was the ineligibility of a rubber duck named Bismarck, I made it into one of the two semi-final rooms and won an exquisite set of coasters. Unfortunately, I botched my secret mission from uncharted space to break into public speaking finals right in the very first round. Next time, Gadget, next time.

Check out the results. And if you see one of Misters Crossman or Tse, buy him a well-deserved drink, and ask him to show you that snappy champions’ pocketwatch.

I learn a lot from every tournament, but this one in particular.

First, hitting Kevin Massie and Mike Saposnik in the very first round under the following conditions: a) they are on Closing Government, b) you are on Closing Opposition, and 3) they are having a wild time bringing church/state separation into a resolution that the CA openly admitted was designed for quick adjudication – means you should make it a back-half round and take a second. I took a third.

Second, if you are not sure whether you are talking to your billet or just someone who looks astonishingly identical to him, allow your partner to find out the hard way – especially if said partner can actually tell the difference between two black leather jackets.

Third: Even if you are one of the only two people in the Great Hall who appreciate the live presence of the super-duper Gordon Webster Quintet at the kind-of-black-tie banquet, talk to the band anyway and discover just how cool they are.

(Corollary to Three: The reminder of my continued swing-dancing deficiency was indirect, but unsettling.)

Fourth – “Seventy-five cents for a kick in the stomach is better than just a kick in the stomach.”

Fifth: Preschool class presidents should form a federal political party.

Sixth – it’s particularly enheartening when you make an obscure Homestar Runner reference in your public speech room, and Everybody, Everybody gets it. I topped my room that round.

Seventh, a complete Sunday brunch of bacon, eggs, sausages, cranberry juice and breakfast tea between break rounds is of incomparable value.

Eighth, given just how rusty my British Parliamentary skills are, I’m almost glad I am no longer debating, but rather judging at Singapore Worlds.

Ninth – the fact that fifty percent of the CUSID West teams in attendance won the tournament, as opposed to zero percent of Central, indicates that the west really is getting in, and that Greg Allen is going to need a new trophy room very soon. I think their performance was bolstered by a voice like a deep river.

Tenth – Hart House seriously knows how to run an amazing tournament; no wonder they hosted Worlds back in 2002. If they look to pull off something this good again next year, I will be in attendance. Given the whole shebang about Ottawa’s and Toronto’s BP tournaments being back-to-back, this is not necessarily a solid expectation, but even if it’s run in CP I’d consider going.

I’ve been mentioned in a number of different newspapers over the years, sometimes overtly, other times in a very sideways, “but we wouldn’t want to bring any attention to him, would we” sort of way. Of the latter category, my favourite mention is in The Ubyssey (Feb. 28, 2003), and concerns an especially entertaining debate tournament I attended last February. If anyone happens to have the hard copy of this article, let me know.

Here’s the relevant excerpt:

Suddenly, it’s Sunday and Bring in Da Noize, Bring in Da Funk has broken into the quarter and semifinals. I miss the morning rounds again, but watch the novice finals while Mike and Rahim madly prepare a final case. The novice round is a riot.

“This house would force North America to adopt a world standard Scrabble dictionary.” Kevin and Mike Kotrly groan and shake their heads. Only one novice team is funny and, predictably, they win. In front of a much larger crowd, the Sunday rounds are more like performances, and comedy is often what saves or sinks a team.

She didn’t mention that we actually lost in a unanimous 5-0 decision.

For the record, if the NSA were to hold a SOWPODS referendum tomorrow, I’d vote No. In principle it’s a decent idea, for many of the reasons Jim Geary covers far more extensively than I could. (Doesn’t make a very good debate case, unfortunately.) My objection is admittedly out of pure selfishness, as I’m plowing my way through the OSPD fours and can’t be bothered to sink back down to the twos and threes just yet until my word knowledge is a little more solid. At least let me hit 1400 first.