Laodicean is defined as "lukewarm or indifferent in religion or politics", and it's the word that determined the winner of the 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Following Tim Ruiter's miss at spelling maecenas (defined as "a generous benefactor"), Kavya Shivashankar of Olathe, Kansas needed to spell laodicean in order to pull off the win.
Kavya Shivashankar won $37,000, a collection of reference works and bragging rights for the rest of the year.
This is impressive:
Eight or nine years ago I read this great collection of essays on the South; "Noodling for Flatheads" by Burkard Bilger. Bilger wrote of uniquely Southern traditions, such as raccoon hunting, frog farming, moonshine making, or "noodling" (catching big fish by thrusting one's arm down the throat of the fish and pulling it from the water). It's a terrifically entertaining book.
So, when I noticed that Boing Boing posted a video of a couple guys "noodling" for catfish, I went and grabbed Burkard Bilger's great book.
From "Noodling For Flatheads":
tick tick tick
I've never been so aware of my fingers as I have been these past few days. I've found myself admiring them in picture of myself, flexing them in the mirror, taking pleasure in their simple dexterity. Catfish, I've been told, share their love for calm, shady places with turtles, electric eels, and cottonmouth snakes. "In almost any small-town cafe, you can find some guy who says he knows a noodler who lost three fingers to an alligator snapping turtle," says Keith Sutton, a catfishing expert and the editor of Arkansas Wildlife magazine. His father-in-law, Hansel Hill, who has been noodling in rural Arkansas for forty years, had an uncle who once reached into a hold and found a "no-shoulders." The snake's bite left a permanent crook in his right forefinger. Some noodlers wear gloves; others probe holes with a piece of cane...Lee is a purist. Better to reach in with bare digits, he says, "so you know where you're at with that fish."
Over 10,000 folks have done it in the last four years. Donned in protective jump suits, helmets and knee and elbow pads, all those folks have climbed to the top of Cerro Negro in Nicaragua to surf down on special plywood boards at over 50 miles per hour.
It should be noted that Cerro Negro is one of the most active volcanoes in Nicaragua and last erupted as recently as 1999.
Twenty three year old Danny MacAskill from the Isle of Skye took four days to perfect riding his bike along a spiked, iron fence. Not sure how long it took to nail riding up a tree and doing the back flip.
Here's a video of MacAskill riding about Edinburgh.
Looks like "60 Minutes" is doing a profile of Cleveland Cavaliers superstar, Lebron James. An excerpt from the interview with Steve Kroft
Extreme sports taken to the next level.
This guy's serious about his ping pong.
