I’m moving to wordpress http://nambolicious.wordpress.com/
tumblr has ADD. follow my brother instead, he makes art creatures out of garbage.
http://arts-and-crap.tumblr.com/
So this is a repost of my 2nd ever entry, but I figure since the Scripps National Spelling Bee is now only hours away I may as well repost it.
It seems like every year a new video clip goes viral featuring either an indian/asian kid or a pasty white kid with some form of social anxiety at the Scripts National Spelling Bee doing something interesting enough for a spelling bee clip to go viral. Theres always a train wreck right around the corner, but when you get that many socially awkward home schooled teenagers in one room and combine them with an audience, television cameras, and pressure from overbearing parents something is bound to happen, something always happens. So I decided to make a list of the best youtube clips involving the spelling bee. enjoy.
This video shows a petrified white boy who is faced with spelling a word that sounds an awful lot like “niggas”. Usually things like the definition, language of origin, and hearing the word in a sentence can give little clues to the spellers, except in this case the sentence ” the Negus ruled Ethiopia until the coupe of 1974” likely only further convinced this kid that he was fucked. The poor kid, faced with elimination or spelling the one word a scrawny white kid from the South should never be asked to spell. At some point during the most terrifying 2 minutes of this kid’s life he must of looked over at his parents in the audience, but whatever comfort he got from seeing the loving supportive faces of his parents must have disappeared as soon as he noticed the two black men sitting directly behind them. After stalling a bit he accepts elimination over embarrassment, and spells negos, while shaking his head no, just trying to get off stage as fast as he can. His reaction once realizing he spelled the word right says it all.
Next we have potentially the most socially awkward/unaware spelling kid ever. Home schooler Evan O’Dorny is an interviewers worst nightmare. He is the master of one word responses, awkward pauses, and strange noises, proving once and for all that just because you are able to spell a word doesn’t mean your able to string those words into sentences and those sentences into coherent thoughts. But we should give the kid a break, he’s not an actor or a politician, interviews just aren’t his forte*, spelling is. He may not have charm, social skills, or any definably useful characteristics, but goddamn this kid can spell like a champ. So surely he can redeem himself for giving the worst interview ever and spell scombridae. Right? Right? Wrong : (
The next video features a spelling bee legend Rebecca Sealfron. Rebecca paved the way for socially inept home schooled kids around America when she became the first homeschooler to ever win it all. Its hard to describe a girl like Rebecca, words like strange,awkward,and out of sync get thrown around at spelling bees all the time, what Rebecca is goes beyond what words can describe. Let’s put it this way, she was weird enough to get her own Top 5 plays on SportsCenter**. Anyway I’ll just leave you with these two videos, first is her emphatically spellings euonym to win the Scrips National Spelling Bee and the next is the interview that followed.
The next two videos have been relatively huge over the last few years. Both featuring the other kind of spelling bee contestant***, Indian/Asian kids. The first one had his 15 minutes of fame for inexplicably quoting Napoleon Dynamite. Poor kid, after that stunt he was definitely the coolest most talked about kid at the Spelling Bee, only to go back to his school back at home where he was never heard from again****.
The next one is probably the most popular video from the Bee( and without a doubt the cutest thing to ever happen at a spelling bee*****), the kid, gets his word, faints, gets back up, and spells his word like nothing happened.
Random Notes and things I’ve Learned about Spelling Bees.
There are people that actually protest spelling bees. Apparently they believe that it glorifies spelling and according to some increase illiteracy, crime, and dyslexia. As noble a cause as protesting a children’s spelling bee is I have a funny feeling that people won’t be taking these guys to seriously.
* im gonna go ahead and assume you can add girls, sports, making friends, keeping friends, chewing gum while walking, holding conversations, and not getting punched in the face as things not in Evan’s forte.
** Heres a link to an episode of Cheap Seats featuring Rebecca and her top 5 moments on SportsCenter, skip to 4:50 mark, if you don’t want to watch the Sklar brothers.
***the first being of the pasty white variety.
****until this much less popular, much more annoying video of him surfaced a few years later.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90peZ0oqO50
***** as you probably know fainting can make anything cute, indian kids, goats, anything.
I’ve never wanted to cry over a baseball game that I didnt watch with teams I don’t care about until today. Congratulations Armando Galarraga on your 28 out perfect game.
[video]
Carlos Boozer is up to something, I dont know what it is but he is definitely up to something.
sorry for the lack of updates, school and hangovers have been hindering my productivity in life. Not much is new I have my first ultimate frisbee tournament since fucking my back up a year and a half ago, so im extremely excited about that. I’ve been growing my hair out and smoking a lot of weed in preparation for the season, hopefully if all goes well and i can get some newer pics on here. Anyway hope to get a real post in soon. peace.
Hey so for those of you who don’t know me, I am a huge Mike Tyson fan, not so much a fan of his boxing, just of him. Anyway, so anytime there is new news about him I feel compelled to put any current blog posts on hold and post it.
So basically Tyson is getting his own reality tv show on Animal Planet called “Taking on Tyson” about racing pigeons. One thing a lot of people don’t realize about Mike is he loves pigeons, he’s raised them his whole life, and has been known to kiss them on occasion.
you are free, bird, be gone.
And if you’ve learned anything from The Hangover its that you do not fuck with Mike Tyson’s animals. Just check what he did to the sanitation man who fucked with his pigeon Julius’s cage.
“One morning I woke up and found my favorite pigeon, Julius, had died I was devastated and was gonna use his crate as my stickball bat to honor him. I left the crate on my stoop and went in to get something and I returned to see the sanitation man put the crate into the crusher. I rushed him and caught him flush on the temple with a titanic right hand he was out cold, convulsing on the floor like an infantile retard.”
There was also that time when he was 9 and a 15 year old gang member came up to Tyson when he was playing with his pet pigeons and took one of them off him, Mike begged him to give it back but he refused then slowly started turning the pigeons head until it snapped off. Tyson flipped the fuck out and pummeled him. Word got around about Tyson beating up a respected gang member, and at age 9 he became known and respected in Brownsville.
Anyway for more Tyson quotes you can check out my previous post here
And if you wanna see his best videos you can check them out here
In December of 2002 the Yankees did what they do and reached into their wallets to sign Japanese legend, Hideki Matsui, or Godzilla. Not only was he the most respected and popular players in Japan, but he was also one of Japan’s most popular people. How popular? Well for one the former prime minister of Japan volunteered to be the head of his fan club, he also got his own parade in Tokyo just for signing with the Yankees, and once he hit a HR so far the mayor of his hometown declared it an act of God. And all this was before he became the MVP of the 2009 World Series.
Known for his stoic demeanor, his bat, and his extensive porn collection*, Godzilla has an instant hit in NY hitting a grand slam in his first game in Yankee Stadium, and finished second for rookie of the year, though his rookie season came to a disappointing end when they lost to the Marlins in the World Series. He went on to have several good seasons with the Yankees his best coming in 2004 when he hit 298 with 31 HRs and 108 RBI. Unfortunately injuries took about a seasons worth of games away from Matsui. In 2006 Matsui had a particularly nasty injury when he attempted to make a sliding catch.
Despite breaking his wrist he still picked up the ball and threw it back, after the game he apologized to the fans for his injury. The injury ended his 518 games played streak for the Yankees, 1,768 games overall. His strong work ethic, determination, and addiction to porn helped him strengthen his wrist enough for him to return to the field in September going 4 for 4 in his first game back.
2008 was a big year for Matsui, he won a bet with teammates Bobby Abreau and Derek Jeter by getting married first. Here is Matsui proudly displaying his new wife
.
Now I don’t really know what to make of this, but in my opinion there are only three real possibilities. Either he’s trying to project her identity by not showing her real picture, or he is such a fierce competitor that he faked a wedding to win a bet, or perhaps he shares the same feelings as fellow countrymen Taichi Takashita, who grew tired of the three dimensional world, and wanted to become a resident of the 2 dimensional world, though since current technology cannot support such retarded aspirations, had to settle for petitioning to legalize human/cartoon marriages**
Anyway back to baseball, 2009 was Matsui’s last year with the Yankees, hobbled by bad knees and an aging body Matsui was no longer able to play the field, and regularly had to take days off and get his knees drained just for running the bases. He still had an excellent year managing to hit 28 hrs in just 456 at bats. Of course that pales in comparison to what we was able to do in the World Series. In just 13 at bats Matsui managed 8 hits, 3 hrs and 8 RBI, basically winning the deciding game 6 by himself, in his last game as a Yankee, and taking home the MVP award.
This year he will be playing for the Angels and hopefully the California sun will rejuvenate Godzilla’s body, if not though I’m sure he can go back to Japan play a year or two and retire a hero.
* as of March 2008 he reportedly had 55,000 videos. Now assuming that each video is around 30 minutes long, that should be about 27,500 hours which translates into just over 3 years worth of porn.
**really, almost a direct quote.
Japan doesn’t usually get the respect it deserves as far as being considered the premiere baseball country in the world, this despite the fact that they have won the only two World Baseball Classics, the World Series MVP is from Japan, as is former AL MVP and possibly the best contact hitter in baseball history. So my next few posts will be strictly about Japanese baseball players, from the best, the worst, to the outlandish. Let’s start with the outlandish.
Tsuyoshi Shinjo- In Japan Shinjo is an icon, though known more for his dyed hair-sprayed hair, his good looks, and his Ochocinco-esque stunts than his play. Statistically Shinjo did not have a great career, never hitting more than 30 hrs in any season in Japan and totaling only 20 hrs in 3 years in the MLB. All while only hitting a mere 250 for his career. Though he did total 9 gold gloves while in Japan and became the first Japanese player to play in a World Series in America, and in finally won a Japan Series when his Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters won in his final season in baseball.
So why is Shinjo, an above average player, so beloved? The answer is simple, its because he’s so damn entertaining. This is a man who was lowered from the roof of a stadium onto the field for an All-Star game. In fact All-Star games seem to be the perfect platform for Shinjo to showcase his mixture of exciting all out play and bizarre sense of humor. In one All-Star game he used a rainbow colored bat and wore an LED belt that said “Nevermind what I do!!!Fan is my treasure!!!” During another All-Star game he used a golden bat, and in another he stole home.
He is also known for his stunts with his uniforms. He’s once famously reprimanded by the league for wearing his old Tigers jersey while playing for the Fighting Ham, and for wearing a collared shirt under his uni. And he has on several occasions worn ridiculous masks during warm ups.
Here is Shinjo with a frog hat on.
Here is Shinjo with a mask of a face eating a face, eating a face, eating Shinjo.
I have no words for this picture, just love.
Since retiring Shinjo immediately announced his intentions to pose nude with his wife*. He also won Japan’s version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” which I’ve never seen but I can say with 90 percent certainty that it somehow involved a very painful obstacle course. He has also came out of retirement to get the last out of a SoftBank Hawks game as a pitcher. Anyway here’s the video… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOxP8YQ1NYA
What’s awesome about Shinjo in this video is 1. He’s not a pitcher, 2. Where most people have a number on the back of their jersey he has a picture of his face, and 3. After he gets the batter to ground out, he gets the ball and throws it into the stands, next goes his gold colored glove, then he runs around high fiving everyone, teammates, umpire, and fans, all for getting the last out of a meaningless game.
I will end this section on Shinjo with a conversation he had with his manager Katsuya Nomura.
After asking Shinjo why he didn’t steal more bases given his excellent speed Shinjo replies with ” because I have no interests in it” then added he didn’t want his legs to get bigger because they wouldn’t look as good in his jeans.awesome.
*although a quick google search of “Shinjo nude” yielded page after page of hentai** and sadly no Shinjo
**for those of you who don’t know what hentai is, its basically anime porn that frequently features penetration by a tentacle. and no that is not a typo.
