*caution debate rant*

So Linfield- it was oh so much fun. I was doing cx and poetry- poetry sucked but that's ok because at least one of the finalists was awful and Whitney and Nathan didn't break even though they both probably should have. The subject kind of gave away what was even worse. First of all- Oregon teams need to go to local college tournaments!!!!! (there was really only tualatin and west view of the cx teams and a lot of novices) I don't care if February is a busy month- I wanted some quality education. We hit and lost to both Alan/Ferris and John/George (JoGeo didn't even know that they were debating until the second round so it was probably worse for them but oh well) which was ok because we deserved to lose those rounds. But the judges were awful- total of three legit judges (Owen, Russell, and Eric) and after the second round we could only get one legit judge for the rest of the tournament! One of the judges was very bad. He said no tag team- I assumed that tag team was when you help your partner during cross-x so I ask to see the mpx card and then at the end of the round he was like- if the neg had mentioned it I would probably vote on it. And then there were other reasons that he was bad but those were case specific and I don't want to give away our new aff (south- you actually have to hunt for it- I'm pretty sure it's posted in some Owen-affiliated place). Blah, blah, blah. So finally we get to semifinals but tab is like no we just want the top two seeds to debate finals (the two WV teams) so Owen goes and complains that with 9 teams 4 is best and because the third and fourth seeds are tualatin it works out perfectly. They realize that Owen was right and fix it promptly. Quite a while later- the round goes off- we've had the two good judges we could have so of course coms judges that claim to be ok with speed and generic- debate good sentiment. We got killed. They ran a Hamas disad which we have no spec anything to and a crazy T (detain w/o charge is only possible if detain w/ charge is an option) that would have been easily avoidable if I just read the normal detain block but Aaron has me read authority- I am utterly confused in my 2AC and so I stumble a lot and also I spend way too much time on T. This would have been all ok and just a learning experience except Owen was watching the round. Owen goes ballistic on Aaron because he wasn't helping when I didn't know what I was doing on the Hamas DA and I think there are other reasons but don't remember them. And of course- because I am the tool- he doesn't address the fact that I am the one that screwed up in the 2AC. This bothered me immensely and made me feel even worse. So after the round I basically have to yell at Aaron to convince him that he is not at fault and that he is a decent debater. This led to a whole debate and Whitney bonding experience where we learned that everyone but Brendan is insecure with some aspect of themselves. Owen then comes and goes on a pretty funny rant about how we aren't allowed to eat at Stanford and he is going to take our beds (sleep in them all at once) and make us sleep in the car because only winners eat. Then we learn that Brendan and Alex also lost their sems round (sad- I had hope for them). So we all hang out and go to Monkeyburger for milkshakes and fries. Now that everyone's bad mood has dissipated the talk goes to politics (YAY). Speaking of food- the Mexican Restaurant gave us free ice cream! Now, we get on the bus to look at all of the snazzy ballots and cum sheets where I learned that Aaron and I were the third seed which does not work because Alan and Ferris should have been the first seed because they were 4-0 and JoGeo were 4-0 with a bye. They somehow got JoGeo's total points to equal 227.99 which could only happen if they did something funky with the speaker points during the bye. And no, I am not surprised that tab messed up. Then we go to Shari's and fun Owen stories ensue. Supposedly, Owen remembers every argument in every debate round he has ever been in but we weren't able to check that because we only know of rounds that he remembers. And then when he and Pointer were coaching Lewis and Clark they wanted to go for a good cop- bad cop stance but then realized that neither of them wanted to be the good cop so they had a bad cop- worse cop. Owen was the worse cop. Other 'highlights'- my purse broke so I either need to spend money on a new one or duct tape it; I lost my pens so now I literally have one color which means that it's pen scavenger time.