Down Goes Patel!

It's official, folks: Samir Patel, the perennial favorite who always just misses at the Spelling Bee, has just been eliminated from the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee. The word he missed was "clevis."

Samir spelled "clevice". There was the ding, then the gasp, and then it was true. Samir was down. The entire ballroom gave him a standing ovation as he exited but I don't think he noticed. He was too freaked out, he had that haunted look in his eye, that look Michelle Kwan has when she speaks of the Olympics. It's over for him. Either he'll be fine and get to be a regular kid now or he'll never recover and have nightmares about the Bee for the rest of his life.

Yeah ... we'd keep our distance from Samir for the next, oh, 10 years or so. The good news: Hey, Samir, those boobs you just started noticing are everywhere? There are more of those coming. So just hang in. B-O-O-B-S.

Samir Is Down! [A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago]

(They're still live-blogging the whole thing over there.)

(UPDATE: Much excellence from DC Sports Bog about this.)