ultranow

yay it's national spelling bee time again!

is that how to spell yay?  for a complete tv schedule and speller bios go to spellingbee.com.  it is fierce ferocious!  just remembered fierce is out ever since christian on project runway overkilled it.  options are ferocious or just fe-ro-ci-a.  i'm rooting for seattle's elizabeth zhang.  i stumbled across the regional bee on a local cable station and watched her calmy decimate the competition.  i love it when the winner is the one who actually got the toughest words and wins by spelling a word she's clearly never heard.  it's just geek showdown paradise.  though last year's winner who i swear had no reaction to winning was such an anticlimactic geek poser.  a real geek is like rebecca sealfon from 1997.  you've seen this before right?  if not, hold on to something because she's going to geek you like you've never been geeked before.  i still remember sjp on rosie talking about her and mb seeing rs on the bee and loving it.  and yes motherfuckers i have a post category for spelling bees.

and espn's snotty but worthwhile take on her, a la mystery science theater 3000.

spelling bee mania

it's nsb time, which means national spelling bee time.  oh my goodness.  they're part way through round 4 and everything from this point on will be broadcast.  this is exciting for 200 reasons.  here's 3:

1. because it is a quest for perfection that will inevitably fail for all but one (unless there's a tie) and would eventually fail for that one kid too if he or she or it were forced to continue spelling words even after winning and this is an excellent life lesson.
2. because smart kids get center stage without having to throw footballs which would be a strange thing to do on a stage but you get what i'm saying.
3. because the national spelling bee is all i have.

and now my favorite words from each round so far along with my guesses as to the definitions:

round 1 (the written round): sprachgefuhl - adjective, looking like a fool after a plate of spaghetti has been thrown at one's face

round 2: conchologize - verb, to eulogize a beloved snail while holding up its empty conch shell

round 3: tangemon - noun, a tangerine demon hybrid, or an evil fruit, or elton john while dueting with eminem

round 4: lipogrammatism - noun, the practice of psychokinetically removing all incidences of the word "like" from a person's vocabulary unless like is used to compare two things, such as in the phrase "star jones looks like a garbage bag" or if like is used as a verb, such as in the phrase "do you like him or do you like him like him?"

here's the tv schedule.   it's on primetime network tv for the first time ever.  so watch away.  tivo away.  vhs away.  glue yourself to the imagery and sounds of the thrill of d-e-f-e-a-t and the agony of d-u-h-f-e-i-t.  personally i'm rooting for samir patel because i saw him on the bee when he was in 3rd grade and he came in 4th place which was crazy and he said things to the judges such as "is it just my imagination or am i getting all the french words?"  perfection.

state of the union address hangover cures

need to cleanse your palate after bush's drivelicious teleprompterrific state of the union lie-fest?

• pay military men to appear in your own homemade pornography which will end up getting them and you investigated. this is surprisingly easy.
• fall asleep on the bus and end up in a magical suprise universe where the president is a bunny and a bunny is the president.
• write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper complaining that brokeback mountain isn't sexually explicit enough, specifically that there should have been [insert new word for unknown implausible sex act here].
• watch double happiness starring the on cusp of superstardom sandra oh. damn it's good and a solid reminder that no matter how messed up the world is, there's plenty each of us can work on within ourselves to make our individual worlds better. sandra oh is so present in every role, like a meryl...like a sally...like a...sandra oh.
• start studying now for the national spelling bee. it's this kind of obsessive intellectual focus that will make the outside word invisible, except for all the words which describe the outside world. if in your next life you come back as a genius spelling child, you will need to have started studying in this your previous life to have a chance at winning the nsb. what, you think you're going to pull these national spelling bee winning words out of your ass? well maybe 1940's winning word "therapy" but not 2004's "autochthonous".
• pay complete attention to everything the government does and says and does but doesn't say that it does but really does do. hold government accountable and view the media with a critical eye. and think that the fact that bush mentioning the just passed away coretta scott king in his speech is so horrendous because of who he is and what his administration does and how tokening it is and that she isn't even buried yet so doesn't have a grave to roll over in but she would if she could. so the best thing to do is live more by her ideals of peace and justice and liberty for all.
• and if none of that works, clearly you must douse yourself in overwhelming amounts of american idol, dancing with the stars and skating with celebrities. it doesn't really save the world but it kills enough brain cells to get you through the night.