A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

ONE MORE TIME, VIA SHONDA RHIMES: Unfortunately, we didn't notice this email earlier today (it ended up in the Bulk file by accident). But if you can return yourself to the halcyon days of 12:15p eastern, earlier today, before Our Hero Samir finished second, appreciate this, because I can't keep it to myself:

It's official. I'm in love. I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love...

...I'm in love with a wonderful boy.

If you want to get all show tune-y about it.

I'm in love with Samir Patel. Yes, Samir is only 11 years old. So I'm not in love in a creepy Mary Jo LaTourneau-go to jail-plan a wedding-kind of way. No. I'm in love with the Speller within Samir.

Like the other most brilliant spectacle on TV, America's Next Top Model, the Bee gives you many pretenders and one clear contender. On ANTM, it's all a lot of ordinary tall leggy girls who need to eat something and one extraordinarily tall leggy girl who needs to eat something -- so it's not that kind of edge of your seat ride that the Bee is. The Bee shows you many, many decent kids -- all nice spellers, all hard workers, all dressed in the same uber-geek style (not a pair of low-riding pants in the bunch). But then it always gives you a rock star.

Samir is a Spelling Bee rock star. All style, plenty of substance, just enough showmanship to make you sit forward on the edge of your seat when he steps up to the microphone. Samir is the stuff of Spelling Bee dreams. Someone over at ESPN will be crying tears of joy when (and I guess I should also say "if" -- but come on, he's not gonna lose this thing) Samir makes his way to the final championship round.

There are others who had potential. Laura Ann Brown from Alabama who is awkward in that "I'm a thirteen year old girl who is almost 5'9' and tortured daily so I spell to keep from crying" kind of way. But she's also tall and leggy and on her way to being the kind of girl Tom Cruise would pretend to date. I adored her for her bad glasses and oddly Amish A-line skirt -- she reminded me of me. But she froze and went out on "tropholytic" -- a word I can neither spell nor pronounce.

There was Horton Hears A Who Boy: an adorable over-pronouncing, over-enunciating wonder who stopped between syllables of his word to turn his head and whisper into his clenched fist as if he had a tiny person in there to talk back to him. He's a future corporate titan. You can just tell. If only he could get that tiny person out of his hand....

We should also keep an eye on Evan O'Dorney age 11. At least he says he's 11 but he looks like a cuddly toddler. He's tiny and precious and he's spelling his ASS off.

And then there are the heartbreakers. Like the sweet Indian kid Nidharshan who went out in Round 5 because he'd never heard of "muesli". You could practically hear him shouting at his parents: See? I TOLD you I should be allowed to watch television!!

Favorite exchange of the day thus far? #7 Levi Foster, age 14. He was given the word "nuchal".

Levi: Can I have the definition?

Bossy But Cute Dr. Jacques Bailly: Of or relating to back part of the neck.

Levi: Can I have any alternate definitions?

BBC Dr. Jacques Bailey: It also means situated on the back of the prothorax of an insect immediately behind the neck.

A beat of silence. Then:

Levi: (deadpan) That's...helpful.

The audience roared.

I can not wait for the next round to begin.

Shonda, is there a chance that one of the Grey's Anatomy doctors will reveal herself to be a former Spelling Bee whiz? A patient, perhaps?