Just to throw my two cents into a whole bunch of recent threads all at once (so forgive me if I forget your names)... 1) Canon expansion: Although I don't consider myself qualified and/or motivated to expand the canon in most subjects, there is one exception: music theory. As it is, the only stuff that consistently gets asked is musical forms (esp. fugue and aria). For example, I remember exactly one and a third music theory questions from Yale's (excellent) tournament: a chord types question that I wrote. (The "third" was a part of a Rameau tossup that mentioned his theory treatise Traite de l'harmonie...) I must say that I appreciate some recent efforts of NAQT (Have I said too much? I'm sorry.), but seeing how music theory is as much a part of the study of music as history, more can (and should) be done. Personally, I'd like to see more music period, but that's just me. And of course, music theoreticians are seldom (if at all) asked about (what I wouldn't do to hear a Heinrich Schenker tossup)... BTW, I'd positively salivate if I were to play on that Sunshine State packet, though I think I'd have the good sense not to *write* (or edit) something like that. 2) Bonus formats: I think I'll join with the chorus of people in saying that computation boni (and tossups, for that matter) are wholly inappropriate for collegiate play... However, I must take exception at the recent trends to curtail certain bonus formats such as the 5-10-15 and 30-20-10 (though I recognize that both should be used in moderation.) While the merits of putting impossibly hard questions in the 15 are debatable at best, the fact remains that the 5-10-15 serves as a refreshing change of pace from the monotonous, drab, boring, and vastly overused 10-10-10. Many recent packets I've heard had 90% or more 10-10-10s. Variety is the spice of both life and bonus formats. By the way, why do people seem to be souring on the 30-20-10? It seems like a sound format to me. I don't recall a single instance of a 30- 20-10 at ACF Regionals (though I probably shouldn't complain, since our team didn't submit a packet)... And yes, the 15-15 is a bad format, for reasons so eloquently cited in an earlier post. 3) the poll: I didn't vote, though if I had, I would definitely not have called Samer worst anything. Yes, there were delays, and a few of the questions were sketchy (the visual language id bonus- a 10-10-10, BTW- comes to mind), but bringing together sixty-odd teams and twenty or so packets from oodles of sources is an impressive feat, and it's a credit to Samer and his staff that it went as well as it did. It boggles the mind to think of all that must go into running Penn Bowl... 4) undergrad trash and chronology: As a member of a permanently all- undergrad team, I have to thank Princeton for putting on this tournament. My teammates have come to hate traditional trash tourneys, with the rampant proliferation of dinosaurs: it's frankly no fun being a team of young'n's routinely getting your ass kicked by the likes of Nam and Kidder. (My teammates also lament the recent push away from geek trash, which is the specialty of everyone but Jeff, but that's another potato.) While I, a *seventeen* year old, personally know far more about the sixties (and earlier, if you're talking pro football) then the eighties (or, in some respects, even the nineties), I attribute this simply to being a bad trash player. Princeton, you're doing the circuit a great service, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise (though, as mentioned before, we could do without the strict limits on geek trash). 5) DeJesus' statskeeping: I actually tried something like that for SNEWT, before giving up halfway through when I realized I din't have the time. I think I still have the scoresheets somewhere... 6) To the third-place finisher of ACF Detox: While I applaud you on choosing just about the best team name possible, I'm afraid you bungled it a little bit: the quote is actually, "Oh No! I think you shanked my Jengaship!" Chris
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