"Snigdha Nandipati is up first. Her word is 'meridienne' and she gets it right!"

"She likes collecting coins and reading mystery novels. I love her geeky cheer."

It's time for the National Spelling Bee again, and that means the best place to hang out — other than in front of ESPN — is at Throwing Things, where they are bursting with knowledge... and geeky cheer.

I appreciated the prompt to go set the DVR. I hate when I find out from the news that the spelling bee was on because so-and-so spelled some word. The whole point is to live through the dramatic emotions of young kids who really care about doing something difficult really, really well. I'll watch it on HDTV, pores and all. Are the kids self-conscious about the close inspection they're getting? They never seem like they are, which is cool.

Please don't tell me I should watch one of those movies about the spelling bee. I've seen them and find them tedious, in part because they skip over the tedium that you need to live through to feel the highs.