WLOCE.com announces that registration is now open for a hot dog eating contest that will take place at the Great Southeast Balloon Fest on Sunday, August 30. The calendar for the festival’s website says that the competition will occur on Saturday, August 30 and Hooters will sponsor a wing eating contest the following Sunday. The purse for the hot dog contest is $850 $875. Dale Boone and Jason Skrzypek are expected entrants.

The balloon festival will take place in Anderson, South Carolina which is near Clemson University. Crazy Legs Conti wore a Clemson pin in this year’s Nathan’s finals.

According to Badlands Booker’s myspace blog, his new line of Hungry & Focused apparel will be released on August 1. A myspace page is dedicated to the line and has pictures of the T-shirt styles which include three new designs in addition to the traditional 6XL logo.

In other competitive eating clothing news, Paul Barlow has posted a ranking of the best dressed Nathan’s finalists. He also has a myspace gallery (requires login).

• Blog entry with a lot of pictures from the Singapore showdown
• IGN pans MLE video game
• Elgin, Iowa corn contest August 2, $100 first prize
• Cincinnati jalapeno cheese coney contest Wednesday, registration closes at midnight
• Skinnyboy reports that Anthony Bourdain’s appearance at the Big Texan will be televised on the Travel Channel on August 4
• Medina, Ohio hot dog contest Saturday
  
• List of all Queens dumpling winners
• Syracuse offensive lineman Ryan Durand challenges Big East clambake lobster record

The website for the Nugget Rib Cook-Off has a page about its rib eating contest which lists the date of this year’s contest as August 27. The cook-off will be held at Victorian Square in Sparks, Nevada (Reno area).

The contest is billed as the World Rib Eating Championship and will take place five days after the IFOCE holds another World Rib Eating Championship at the Ash Creek Saloon in Connecticut.

The Mainichi Shimbun reports that a media event was held to promote the August 9 release of the movie, Kamen Rider Kiva: The King of Hell Castle Natsuko “Gal” Sone, who will play a Medusa character in the movie, appeared with two other actors. Variety of Japan also has an article.

The blog for Dirt Productions reports that principal photography for Nacho Mountain has been completed, although the final contest scene has yet to be filmed. A myspace comment says the final scene will be filmed on August 23. A LehighValleyLive.com article about the movie says that the filmmakers hope to release the movie on the internet in January and also play at independent film festivals.

A facebook page for Takeru Kobayashi has been set up at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Takeru-Kobayashi/17974913485. The page lists an incorrect birthday for Kobayashi of May 24 (Kobayashi’s actual birthday is March 15), so it might have been created by an impostor.

The events calendar for the New York Racing Association reports that a Nathan’s hot dog eating contest will take place at the Saratoga Race Course on August 18. The first prize will be a year’s supply of Nathan’s hot dogs. It is not stated if the contest will be a qualifier for the 2009 finals. Registration will take place at the race course before the contest.

The current poll asks how you rank the top 3 IFOCE members after taking last weekend’s contests into account.

• Cookie Jarvis’ gallery of the Nathan’s weigh-in
• Furious Pete’s report for bodybuilding.com on the Dover BBQ contest
• Sarah Schreitmueller wins (Iowa) Nordic Fest lutefisk eating contest
• Steve Oddo wins Keyport, NJ IHOP pancake eating contest
• Gallery of Seattle donut eating contest / concert

A picture caption for Washington Photo Journal has the top three finishers in Saturday’s Tofurky vegetarian hot dog eating contest held in the Columbia Heights section of Washington, DC:

1. Ian “The Invader” Hickman, 16 veggie dogs in 8 minutes
2. “Raz” (left), 14 veggie dogs
3. “Dag” (right) 8.5 veggie dogs

There was a tremendous amount of online coverage for this contest:

Blog Entries: Prince of Petworth, Shaw Garden, New Columbia Heights (has amounts), Before Wisdom

Galleries: DC Vegan, Joe Tresh, AWiseMan, LettuceTomato, Bullneck, bearshapedsphere

update OveLove has added a blog entry and gallery

• Val Bromann has a blog entry and gallery from the contest in which Pat Bertoletti, Tim Brown and Patrick Vandam competed against Jimmy John’s sandwich makers (Chicagoist report / preview)
• Dickey’s BBQ finals to be held in Dallas in January 2009. San Antonio and Lynchburg, VA qualifiers have been scheduled for September.
• Furious Pete profile (article scan) in the Toronto Sun (condolences to Pete on the recent loss of his grandparents)
• Columnist responds to Juris Shibayama’s letter
• Sonya Thomas lists her favorite bands (Thanks for the compliment Sonya)
• Don Lerman to judge upcoming cannoli eating contest (Also confirmation that Kevin Lipsitz received the Lifetime Achievement Award)
• Record set at Ballard, WA lutefisk eating contest
• Female division winner has best overall mark at Strasburg, OH Corn Festival
• West Virginia Hot Dog Festival report
• Article about Chris Kenney, 11th place finisher at Bartolini’s meatballs
• Statistics on the Dubuque Conuty Fair’s eating contests
• Preview of Sunday’s dumpling eating contests in Queens, NY
• Blog entry about Seattle doughnut eating contest / Saturday Knights concert
• Vineland, NJ pizza contest August 9, $50 gift certificate first prize
• Report about eating contest held at Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota’s restaurant
• Biryani eating contest for Indian familes
• Charlotte Dawson, a judge on Australia’s Next Top Model wins a celebrity meat pie eating contest

(from comment) Full results of the finals of the hot dog eating contest held at Steve’s Snappin Dogs have been posted. The top 3:

1. Phil Soderborg - 13 in 8 minutes, 2nd eating contest after winning qualifier 2 weeks earlier
2. Mike McAvoy - 12.5
3. David Ruskjer - 10

The Denver Post has an article about the contest and Andrew “Skinnyboy” Lane has a blog entry. Contest videos are also available.

update
Denver.yourhub.com blog entry

Jill Stoler has a blog entry about Saturday’s pizza eating contest at Dani’s pizza. The top 4:

1. Gentlemen Joe Menchetti - 9.125 slices in 10 minutes $500, second independent contest win in 2 days
2. William The Champ Milllender IV - 8 slices in 10 minutes $250
3. Joel The Cannon Podelsky - 7 slices in 10 minutes $100
4. Jill Stoler 5.5 slices

(Thanks also Joel Podelesky)

(from Crawfish comment) In other Joe Menchetti news, he is now listed in the WLOCE rankings and his profile page appears on the WLOCE website. THe last time Dale Boone and Joe Menchetti were in the same organization, Boone had Menchetti blocked from competing in the black and white cookie contest, which led to Boone’s expulsion from AICE

Results of Sunday’s satay eating contest in Singapore from the Straits Times

1. Takeru Kobayashi 5.4 kg (first victory over Joey Chestnut in 4 contests)
2. Joey Chestnut 4.1 kg
3. Victor Lim 1.3 kg, top local contestant

Kobayashi dyed his hair blue for the contest.

Other coverage
China Daily article
Kobayashi has several blog entries about the contest

(Thanks Zack, Carey & Crawfish for comments)

update
Asia1.com article
contest video (from comment)
psp3rdgen’s gallery

MCall.com has a report on the competitive eating comedy “Nacho Mountain”, which began filming in the Allentown, PA area on July 19. The main eating contest scene was filmed on Friday. Joey Chestnut, listed as a co-star of the movie on IMDB.com, is not mentioned in the article, but it does report that the final food battle scene will be recorded in August, so he might appear in that scene.

Takeru Kobayashi is not the only Japanese competitive eater visiting Southeast Asia this week. Macau.com has a blog entry about Gal Sone’s event at the MGM Grand Macau where she ate 11 Shark Fin Soups, 6 French courses and 10 desserts. Gal Sone will next travel to Thailand. A show about her trip will air on Japanese television on September 16.

Results from the finals of Jakes burger eating contest held Friday from a Gabe Venit email:

1. Joe Menchetti 10 1/2 $1000 prize
2. Ian Hickman 10 1/4 $100 gift card prize
4. Gabe Venit, might have been DQed

From a Nathan Biller comment:

1. Humble Bob Shoudt 34.5 or 34
2. Tim Janus 32
3. Sonya Thomas 29
4. Hall Hunt 28
5. Rich LeFevre
6. Erik Denmark
7. Nate Biller 13

update Top 4 amounts have been updated with information from SonyaTheBlackWidow.com

update #2 Tulsa World has a contest report.

update #3 Hall Hunt has a blog entry about the contest

According to the online Wall of Fame, As the size of Denny’s Beer Barrel burger increases, the percentage of female finishers does as well:

2 pounds 3 female finishers (Coleen Kasanovich, Holly McCarty, Lori Weiss) / 295 total finishers (duplicates removed) = 1%

3 pounds 4 female finishers (Lori Weiss, Michelle Goldstein, Nichole Yankevich, Stacy Frantz) / 51 total finishers (duplicates removed) = 7.8%

6 pounds 2 female finishers (Lori Weiss & Kate Stelnick) / 2 total finishers = 100%

According to the birthday in Eat This Book, today is Sonya Thomas’ 41st birthday.

If you are sick of the summer heat, you might want to watch a video from last winter in which Tomoko Miyake went to live with a family in Hokkaido that owned a cabbage farm. Tomoko helped with the harvest by digging the cabbages out from the snow.

Tara has a blog entry about the beet eating contest held in Scranton, PA last Saturday to promote the release of “The Office” DVD game. Actress/producer Mindy Kaling participated in the competition. The Ladys of 102 blog has a report about Mary’s belief that she is the rightful third place finisher in the contest.

OnlineGamer.jp reports that a game called “Battle Eating Sushi Gal” will debut. Natsuko “Gal” Sone’s name is not mentioned in the article, so she probably does not endorse the game. The game will be free, but might be for cell phones only. No link is provided for online play.

Erik Denmark has posted a review of the Major League Eating video game to his blog. He is satisfied with his character’s appearance in the game:

My character has a fun look. My hair is super spiked; the bandana is obviously a signature of mine that I am glad they captured well. I like that my character is recognizable as me, in that the features do somehow look like mine (so I have been told) but also, some features are exaggerated, such as my elongated chin in the pre-match screen. I would obviously like my character to have more muscle mass and more capacity but okay reality gets in the way again.

Desiree, the only female entrant in the Singapore qualifiers, has a blog entry with videos about her contest experience. She wound up receiving a wild card slot in the finals this weekend.