A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

C-O-M-M-E-N-C-E: This morning, the 293 contestants in the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee will each sit in front of a computer for a 50-question exam, of which 25 will count. One point per word, combined with a possible +3 points for each of the words they'll be called upon to spell on stage tomorrow, and from that maximum possible of 31 points the top ~50 spellers will proceed to ESPN on Thursday. You can try last year's version of the written test here, and only thereafter can you peek at our analysis of last year's version. Tell us how you did.

[Live video of tomorrow's rounds is only available on ESPN360.com, though there's also the text-based version on the Bee site. Folks have asked me if there's a way to work around restrictions on access to the ESPN site, but for a number of reasons that's not the type of info we'd discuss here.]

In the meantime, and throughout these days, Twitterfolks to follow include @scrippsbee, blogging spellers Tussah Heera and Hannah Evans (along with her older brother, Five-Timer Matthew Evans, tweeting @yesiamawordnerd), speller-dad Loren Halvorson as well as the all-important #bee09 hastag, and do get to know your Philadelphia-area spellers. We'll have today's written test posted as soon as it's available.

e.t.a. CNBC's Darren Rovell surveys his favorite bio tidbits of the spellers. ("He is the puppet team leader at his church."; "He is quite the advocate for coffee, ramen noodles and burritos"; etc.) Also, see blogs of spellers Santos DeBarros, Anja Beth Swoap, Amy Gormley, Julia Denniss, Rahul Malayappan (who's 8!).