It's b-a-c-k

That's right! Tonight ABC will air the finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee! My hope was to get some type of press credentials (perhaps by showing them last year's live blogging of the Bee) to attend in person, but I wasn't even aware that the Bee was today until Isaac told me this morning.

And it looks like it would have been a good one to attend. There has already been a spelling controversy, as favorite Samir Patel was ousted after misspelling "clevis" as "clevice." Apparently his mother lodged an appeal, because "clevice" is a real word and she claimed was pronounced similarly enough to "clevis" that Samir could have been spelling the word correctly. Denied.

I'm a little confused as to why Samir was the favorite. He didn't make it to the final six last year. Are none of those spellers back to compete? Were they all aged out? Were they just flashes in the pan?

Hopefully Mike and the Mad Dog (this year's commentators) will address these questions at 8 p.m.!