I recently turned on ESPN2, during an NBA post-season in which TNT owns all the broadcasting rights. I fully expected to be greeted with some second-tier sports such as women's golf, bowling, or lacrosse (disclaimer: my brother played on the ucla lacrosse team, so I am allowed to make fun of him for it :P). Much to my chagrin, I was greeted by the American tragedy that is the Scripps National Spelling Bee. This is the contest in which a bunch of children, who apparently have nothing better to do than read the dictionary over and over again, get on stage and spell words. Each kid gets up on stage and has 1.5minutes to figure out how to spell some weird word like "gotterdammerung" or "flabbergasted" or some other non-sense. They get to ask the definition of the word, and its pronunciation, its country of origin and other useless shit like that.
As the seconds tick by on the clock, the tension mounts like a horny dog on a faded davenport. The worst part is that the viewers are treated to shitty ESPN announcer gems such as: "oh, that was a clutch spell", "not bad for her rookie year", "heartbreak, anyone would have trouble with those Romany roots". What. The. Fuck.
First of all, WHO GIVES A SHIT. I have a spellchecker for a reason. I can't spell half the words in this post, but my spellchecker makes this problem pretty much moot. This might have been a huge deal about a hundred years ago when people couldn't afford paper, but now this contest is completely outdated.
Second, what for the love of god, is a clutch spell? I can totally understand what a clutch free-throw is (props to Sparks in 2004 for giving that a whole new meaning). I can even understand the power of a clutch date-save: "but baby, I love you" can make a frown turn upside down, because you are gonna get a little bit of that gratuitous BOOM THO. Color me unimpressed with the rewards for a clutch-spell (hint: there are NONE).
Third, these nerds might get into Harvard, but they won't be able to find their way out of a jammed locker in high school. The problem is not with the kids, its with their shitty parents, who haven't given them good set of values at home. As such, I have come up with a random list of seven things that are more useful than practicing for or participating in spelling bees:
1. Running around in a circle, trying to tag yourself out in the eponymous playground game
2. Learning how to drive a car (this will help for number three)
3. Girls (if you are a boy), and boys (if you are a girl)
4. Digging a mud pit in your backyard (good practice in case you join the armed forces or in case you have an emergency mud-bowl some point in college).
5. Eating three-day old, freezer-burned ice cream from your date last weekend that went better than expected, but not soooo perfect.
6. Dating and number 3 a second time
7. Literally *anything* else in you can think of in life
As the seconds tick by on the clock, the tension mounts like a horny dog on a faded davenport. The worst part is that the viewers are treated to shitty ESPN announcer gems such as: "oh, that was a clutch spell", "not bad for her rookie year", "heartbreak, anyone would have trouble with those Romany roots". What. The. Fuck.
First of all, WHO GIVES A SHIT. I have a spellchecker for a reason. I can't spell half the words in this post, but my spellchecker makes this problem pretty much moot. This might have been a huge deal about a hundred years ago when people couldn't afford paper, but now this contest is completely outdated.
Second, what for the love of god, is a clutch spell? I can totally understand what a clutch free-throw is (props to Sparks in 2004 for giving that a whole new meaning). I can even understand the power of a clutch date-save: "but baby, I love you" can make a frown turn upside down, because you are gonna get a little bit of that gratuitous BOOM THO. Color me unimpressed with the rewards for a clutch-spell (hint: there are NONE).
Third, these nerds might get into Harvard, but they won't be able to find their way out of a jammed locker in high school. The problem is not with the kids, its with their shitty parents, who haven't given them good set of values at home. As such, I have come up with a random list of seven things that are more useful than practicing for or participating in spelling bees:
1. Running around in a circle, trying to tag yourself out in the eponymous playground game
2. Learning how to drive a car (this will help for number three)
3. Girls (if you are a boy), and boys (if you are a girl)
4. Digging a mud pit in your backyard (good practice in case you join the armed forces or in case you have an emergency mud-bowl some point in college).
5. Eating three-day old, freezer-burned ice cream from your date last weekend that went better than expected, but not soooo perfect.
6. Dating and number 3 a second time
7. Literally *anything* else in you can think of in life
