Bee time!

 And now the big news from the Blob's favorite sporting event that's not a sporting event, even though it's aired on ESPN. 

It's Scripps National Spellin' Bee time, y'all!

(And, OK, so it's "Spelling", not "Spellin'." But this is my Blob and I'll say "Spellin'" if I want to.)

Anyway, the Big Bee went to a lightning-round spell-off, and a 14-year-old from California won. Shrey Parikh correctly spelled 32 words in 90 seconds, beating out Ishaan Gupta and Sarv Dharavne.

"Question, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "Did any Americans compete in this thing?"

OK, first of all, Parikh, Gupta and Dharavne are Americans. They're as American as George Washington, despite all the yahoos out there who think the only real Americans are named John-Boy Winthrop and came here on the Mayflower.

 Anyway, as their names suggest, Parikh, Gupta and Dharavne are of Indian descent. Americans of Indian descent own the Bee, having won 31 of the past 37. They're like ... well, they're like India in cricket, another pursuit Indians dominate.

"Question, Mr. Blob," you're asking now. "Is there a pursuit Indians don't dominate?" 

No. Well, maybe cross-country skiing. The Norwegians are all over that.

Anyway, Shrey smoked the lightning round, leaving Gupta and Dharavne choking on the dust of his correctly aligned P's and Q's. The winning word was "bromocriptine", which was not John-Boy Winthrop's nickname. It's a polypeptide alkaloid that mimics dopamine.

"Question, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "What is a polypeptide alkaloid? And why didn't the spellin' bee people say, 'OK, now spell polypeptide' after Shrey rattled off bromocriptine?"

Beats me. What do I look like, a chemistry major? And I suppose they didn't make Shrey spell "polypeptide" because that would have just been picking on a 14-year-old, and nobody likes a bully.

Steal his lunch money and kick his schoolbooks into the street, that's one thing. But make him do extra spellin'? Unacceptable.

That's u-n-a-c-c-e-p-t-a-b-l-e. Unacceptable.