As the National Spelling Bee rages on, I have an honest confession: I was once a semi-serious competitive speller.  I was a lock to win my school's spelling bee every year, and I definitely aspired to go to the National Bee (this was before it was televised and overrun with Indian kids who are way smarter than I ever was).  You can see the lingering effects of my past in the over-edited text of this blog; posts often get tweaked three or four times as I correct typos.  It's also why I'm going to punch Tunison in the balls if he doesn't start copy editing his work better.

Point is, nothing about the spelling bee is particularly worthy of sports coverage.  It's a bunch of kids with freakish skills for rote memorization and word etymology, working against cruel chance.  It's not a bad way to learn an appreciation of language, but speaking from experience: kids, go outside.  Trust me on this one.  You don't want to end up like me.

Oh yeah, and here's the only spelling bee "highlight" that will ever be worth watching.  At least until some kid pisses himself onstage. /crosses fingers