I was an awesome debate judge

Somehow, I have re-discovered Placebo's Pure Morning (I can't remember what exactly led me to it, but I think I've listened to it ten times just today). It's a pretty awesome song, with one of the best opening lines of any song ("A friend in need is a friend indeed/A friend with weed is better" Makes me laugh every time). But it also took me back through the mists of time when I was a teenage debate judge.

Yes, in my freshman year of college, I offered to be a judge for Orem High at a couple of debate tournaments. It was pretty simple: there were no qualifications to be a judge and you got paid. Seemed worth it to me. Plus, having been a thoroughly mediocre debater in high school and seen the power wielded by judges, I had always wanted to try it out. To paraphrase somebody somewhere during the Civil War and possibly in other wars, there's nothing quite like God on earth than a debate judge at a debate tournament. The secret about debate is that you really just want to impress the judge, regardless of how sound your arguments are. To try and get that edge, debaters will often ask the judge what they are looking for (to be the first one to ask the judge "what's your paradigm?" is an important opening salvo. Makes you seem confident and makes it seem like you know what "paradigm" actually means. Every once in a while, though, there are the judges that snap back at you for trying to get an edge and then you're in a hole). My paradigm was unabashedly awesome for Lincoln-Douglas debates. 1) You can do whatever you can to get an edge. Be mean to your opponent. Show no mercy. Seduce them. I don't care. Whatever flusters them and makes them weak. 2) Anyone who uses lyrics gets full speaker points as long as the lyrics are used to make a point. Even if you suck at debate, you get full speaker points. (There was also the old joke when I was in debate that if you had a male judge and you were going against a hot girl, you really had to destroy her to overcome the initial bias. Turns out, at least when I was judging, it was a reality. I can remember in at least one debate, I broke a seeming tie based on level of hotness. That's pretty awful, when I think about it. This is a good reason why you should not have 18 year olds judging 17 year olds.) Anyway, there was one debate where one girl who was getting killed suddenly pulled out "And as Placebo says, 'A friend in need is a friend in deed.'" Full speaker points young lady! Way to pull out the Placebo lyrics! I remember the other girl, who was the better debater, tried some lyrics, but they were forced, didn't work with the argument, and might have been from someone odious like Celine Dion. No full speaker points for her.