Yeah, so this afternoon I’m leaving for the land of the orange, mockingbird, sabal palm, porpoise, key lime pie, and West Indian manatee. Yes, I mean Florida. (Wikipedia tells me those are all official symbols of Florida. Wait, West Indian manatee?!)

Ah, the Panasonic Academic Challenge. Such a misunderstood tournament. See, at Panasonic, it’s not really about top-notch quizbowl. It’s about decent quizbowl against the best players in the country, spending time between matches in the Magic Kingdom, and getting a lot of free meals courtesy of Panasonic. See, everyone gets all upset about the quizbowl itself not being ideal. But honestly, it should be thought of as a TV game show, minus the TV show part. Yes, it’s a national championship, and I even think that becoming champion reflects upon the strength of each state’s top players. For the most part. (Caveat: due to having six teams in the finals, and all the matches being drawn randomly, some good teams don’t do so well, and some bad teams do better than they should.)

But really, it ain’t so bad. It’s Panasonic trying to do something good for high school academics (and perhaps more importantly, to show they’re doing something good for high school academics). This year is the twentieth anniversary of the tournament, so they’ve been around since about the beginning of many high school quizbowl circuits nationally.

Well, off to Panasonic! May Team Illinois do as well as we can, and may that be to win! Twenty-nine states…