A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

CONSIDER YOURSELF INFORMED: Among the third-timers returning to the Bee this year is Rahul Malayappan of Danbury, Conn. I note this because Rahul and his father Ramesh maintain Rahul's Hive, a spelling-centric blog, which was a joy to follow last year and remains one now. Among the posts is a nice update the status of returning spellers (including links to the local articles on their regional Bees) and a rather strong takedown of a newspaper columnist's complaint that kids who have only been in America for "16 minutes" are doing so well in the Bee. Bookmark it.

Also, a note on a rather interesting rule change: as opposed to previous years in which all 22 Canadian regional winners qualified for the Scripps National Bee, for 2010 only the Canadian national champion will compete in Washington. You can read about Laura Newcombe's journey to her second Canspell title here, but the sad part for regular readers of our coverage is that it means an end to one of our favorite traditions, the annual Canadian Bloodbath Round -- whichever rounds sees the most of our NttN fall, a round we've described in the past as:

"The worst Canadian disaster since Glass Tiger broke up," "the worst Canadian disaster since Thicke of the Night," "must be like what it was like when the Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets left the country," "like when Neil Young moved to Topanga Canyon," "like when Vince Carter started mailing it in so that he could get traded to New Jersey" and "like Eric Lindros insisting to the Nordiques that he wanted to play for the Flyers," "the worst day for ONttN this year, even more so than Steven Page's leaving Barenaked Ladies" and of which Shonda said in 2008:

"The Canadians fall, the Canadians fall, the Canadians fall like trees. It's a Spelling Bee Battle Field -- these poor Canadians rushing to the microphone only to be beaten back with a horrifying ding. Were they not prepared for the rigors of TV? The joy of ESPN? Because these words did not seem particularly hard to me. But just like that, we have lost SIX CANADIANS IN A ROW. ALL THE CANADIANS ARE GONE. It's tragic. Oh, Canada..."