Just Bee-cause

"Bees" have always been a topic of conversation equally among the Generalists. The Generalist here, Aristocrates here, and Puff here. (By the way, I can't believe I didn't think about my post after reading Puff's.)

Anyway, today is a big day. The Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee is today and even though preparing for the State Spelling Bee was one of the worst experiences I've ever had (yea whatever, clown me later), this event always manages to entertain. I mean generally you have kids who genuinely look uncomfortable in their own skin, kids who do dead-on Napoleon Dynamite impressions that leave the commentators in the land of the lost, and of course, you have one of my all-time favorite clips when Askhay Buddiga collapsed on stage, only to immediately get up and bang out the word. (His hands never come out of his pockets when he's falling; no one runs to his aid and helps him up; the other kids look completely unfazed; and like a robot he gets up and spells the word as if nothing happened. I love it.)



I'll watch when I get home (I've got Connor winning) but I've been following the hilarious live blog and the biggest news is that Samir Patel - the Peyton Manning of the Spelling Bee before Peyton won the Super Bowl - went down in the 5th round. That's like when the Colts lost at home to the Steelers two years ago. But wait...he's challenging the pronunciations of the word "clevis." It's the equivalent of a questionable call deciding a game. The problem for my guy Samir is that unlike Peyton, he can't come back next year. Ooooh, the drama!

(Wikipedia update: I swear Samir's fate was posted on his Wikipedia page in what seemed like real-time.)