BeautifulBrian.com, and all URLS on it, now brings up a generic AOL page about the demise of hometown.aol.com. In September, three of the most frequently updated websites by current or former IFOCE eaters were BeautifulBrian.com, SonyaTheBlackWidow.com and MosesNews.com. All three websites are currently down or have dropped competitive eating as a topic.

A list of contests this upcoming weekend in the eatfeats database follows after the jump:
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The Telegram of London has a column about gluttony illustrated with a picture of Takeru Kobayashi at the 2003 Nathan’s finals which lists the six types of sinful eating according to St. Thomas Aquinas. The column also reports that the Body Mass Index was developed in the 1840s by the Belgian mathematician Adolphe Quételet and that in 1806, a 728 pound man, Daniel Lambert, charged a schilling to visitors who wanted to chat with him. (Lambert died three years later.)

The online newsletter for Andrews Air Force Base has the following item:

Beat the Black Widow

AAFES and Anthony’s Pizza are hosting a pizza eating contest today at 11:30 a.m. in the foodcourt of the base exchange. Sonya ‘‘Black Widow” Thomas, competitive eater, avid walker and Andrews Burger King manager, is slated to be on hand performing demonstrations and to serve as a judge for the contest. Prizes include AAFES gift cards. For more information call Anthony’s Pizza at 301-568-2200.

It is not clear whether the date of the contest is October 30 or 31.

Dick’s Last Resort will be holding a Freaky Food Eating Contest on Halloween. Wearing costumes is required to compete. The contest appears on the event calendars for the Boston, San Antonio, Dallas, Chicago, San Diego and Myrtle Beach, SC locations. (It is not listed on the Las Vegas calendar.) The winner will receive $500 cash, while 2nd and 3rd place will win $200 and $100 gift cards.

The food items to be consumed at the San Antonio contest will be 4 dog biscuits, a hunk of bleu cheese, a pickled pig’s foot, a pickled egg, 10 sardines and a large glass of buttermilk.

• BeautifulBrian.com has a farewell address
• Cherry Pie & Cherry Pie Eating Contest winner costumes for sale on craigslist
• Skinnyboy has posted his health report
• Billy “the Fridge”, winner of a Seattle donut contest has joined WLOCE according to its myspace page
• Will Millender has posted a report about the Goya bean eating contest he wrote for his English class to his myspace blog

Morganton.com has an article about Dale Boone finishing a 3+ pound burger at Doughboys Pizzeria Café in Morganton, NC. After completing the sandwich in under 30 minutes, Dale was allowed to name it “Dale’s Daniel Boone Burger”. The article says that a diner who finishes the burger in less than the 27 minutes it took Dale Boone will receive the right to rename it. The possibility of renaming the burger was not mentioned in the original article about it.

• Gallery from the Famous Famiglia pizza contest with 200 pictures
• Jason McCormack has videos of July’s BBQ eating contest in Tulsa and his recent pie eating contest victory
• Beautiful Brian to attend the Coney Island benefit honotring George Shea and might sing songs from “Stick to Blogging” at that event. He also has his thoughts on Kate Westfall’s departure
• Jesup, GA spaghetti eating contest report

Paul “Pork-Slap” Arcaria has proposed a meeting at J & R Steakhouse in Long Island, NY some time in November. Email saltwaterpaul[AT]yahoo.com if you are interested in attending.

The new poll asks if you think if Sonya Thomas will return to the IFOCE or if she will choose another course of action. SonyaTheBlackWidow.com has now been down for about a month after she announced she did not receive a slot in the Famous Famiglia pizza contest.

The video clip of the roundtable meeting of E:60 reporters and producers on ESPN.com is considerably longer (8:37) than the segment that was televised. The meeting consists mainly of a discussion on whether competitive eating is a sport. Jeremey Schaap cites competitive eating on the Versus network (which has never televised eating contests, as far as I am aware) as evidence of its popularity. He also says he has never seen such passion as he saw at last month’s cannoli contest and was genuinely moved by Brad Sciullo’s crying at the end of that competition.

According to the comments in an R Suzuki blog entry, the Japanese version of the Major League Eating Wiiware game was not released on the announced date of October 14 and no official new release date has been made public. The game does not appear in the list of Japanese WiiWare titles on Wikipedia.

A video from the pizza eating contest held during the grand opening celebration of Generous George’s Pizza in Herndon, Virginia has been posted to youtube. The caption says that Ian Hickman won the contest by eating 3.5 pizzas in 10 minutes.

Charleston.net has a column about Brad Sciullo finishing Denny’s Belly Bruiser burger which calls for an end of the megaburger “arms race”.

update Results from the Dickey’s Big West Regional Pulled Pork Eating Championship have been posted:

1 Sgt. Tom “Goose” Gilbert, MA 12.5 Sandwiches $500
2 Jeff “Beast Man” Butler, AZ 10.5 $250
3 Matt “Bone saw” Campos, AZ 9 $100

I have updated the list of eating/drinking contest deaths with the fatality in the recent Taiwanese contest and a 1983 contest death.

1983 North Carolina Marine dies in donut eating contest at the Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station
1999 Chicago, a 12 year old school girl dies playing “Chubby Bunny” in an unsupervised classroom. The goal of “Chubby Bunny” is to say “Chubby Bunny” after stuffing one’s mouth with as many marshmallows as possible.
2002 Japan, school boy dies in cafeteria after attempting a stunt seen on a televised eating contest.
2004 Canada man dies after choking in chicken wing eating contest held at Regina bar.
2004 Japan, housewife dies in bread eating contest in Fukusaki, Hyogo Prefecture
2006 Canada, woman dies in “Chubby Bunny” contest held at Ontario fair
2007 Sacramento, woman dies of water intoxication after competing in a bladder endurance contest sponsored by a radio station.
2007 India, man (believed to be epileptic) dies from breathing complications in an idli eating contest
2008 Wales, man dies in unplanned post party cupcake contest to use up left over buffet food. Articles about the contest do not make it clear if the contest was a mouth-stuffing contest or a speed eating contest
2008 Taiwan graduate student dies after victory in a steamed bun eating contest

Of the above 10 deaths, 5 (India, Japan, Regina, Taiwan, North Carolina) occurred in scheduled conventional eating contests. It is not mentioned what medical personnel was on site at those events.

To have a World Series related post, I looked up the attendance for the July 12, 1977 Philadelphia Philles game during which Lynda Kuerth set a Guinness bunless hot dog eating record to compare with other listed CE attendance figures. Ms. Kuerth’s mark of 23 frankfurters in 3 minutes and 10 seconds was listed in the Guiness Book of World Records until at least 1988. Retrosheet lists the attendance of the 5-4 Phillies victory over the St. Louis Cardinals as 32,618. (Interestingly, the game only took 2:07 despite 9 runs, 18 hits, 10 walks and 7 stolen base attempts)

Other competitive eating attendances:

• GJoe says that the hot dog eating contest held during the 2005 Fiesta Bowl had the largest crowd in competitive eating history. The attendance figure for that game was 73,519
• Police reported that the attendance figure for the 2007 Nathan’s finals is 50,000
• 35,000 attended this year’s Nathan’s finals according to the NYPD (Gersh Kuntzman says the actual attendance was closer to 5,000)
• Wing Bowl attendance before tickets were required was listed as 24,000 - 25,000 at least that many were turned away from the 2005 Wing Bowl

In other Phillies related news, I can attest that “The Truth Hurts”, who posted anti-Philadelphia comments in another thread, is not Brian Seiken, who has not engaged in pro sports smack talk on his website or this blog as f

• Val Bromman has a blog entry and gallery from a sandwich eating / Big Wheel riding contest judged by Pat Bertoletti and Tim Brown
• Buffalo Wing Festival contest gallery from Matt Ventre
• Kobayashi has some pictures from Paul Barlow from the Birmingham Krystal qualifier on his blog
• Oyster Bay NY, oyster eating contest report
• Evansville, IN donut hole eating contest for charity

Valerie of the Being Red blog has a picture of her costumed as a hot dog for Halloween last year while a male friend dressed as Kobayashi with several stains on his shirt.

A list of eating contests this weekend follows after the jump:
Read the rest of this entry »

• Gallery of Famous Famiglia pizza contest with French captions
• Kobayashi meets fashion designer Diane von Furstenburg
• Student wins Don Lerman style hot dog hat after eating 9 HDB in 3 minutes
• Bubba Yarbrough leaves IFOCE for the WLOCE according to comment
• Dale Boone finishes unnamed 4 pound burger in Morganton, NC and names it “Dale’s Daniel Boone Burger” according to WLOCE.com
• BeautifulBrian.com has commentary on the new rankings
  
• Video of Cookie Jarvis at the WBAB studios last week

In February, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Kyle Kendrick believed he was traded to Japan for “Kobayashi Iwamura” before he learned the transaction was fake. Kendrick’s Wikipedia page says that the names of the fabricated player came from Takeru Kobayashi and infielder Akinori Iwamura of the Tampa Bay Rays, who are currently opposing the Phillies in the World Series. Kendrick did not pitch effectively enough in the regular season to make the post season roster.

The Taipei Times has sad news about a steamed bun eating contest:

An eating contest at a local university ended in tragedy on Wednesday when a graduate student died after participating in a steamed bun eating competition.

Huang Te-hsiang (黃德祥), dean of the student affairs office of Dayeh University in Changhua, said yesterday that a 23-year-old student, surnamed Chen, from the Graduate Institute of Bioindustry Technology could not stop vomiting and fell unconscious after he began to feel uncomfortable during the school’s eating competition on Wednesday.

update ETaiwanNews has more information. An autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death.

• Santa Clarita, CA hard boilded egg eating contest Sunday, $250 first prize
• George Shea to be honored at Coney Island benefit November 3
• Mini-documentary about the Garlicky Greens contest
• Video of 3 pound burger attempt at the Cottage Cafe in Traverse City, MI
• Yogurt Eating contest for breast cancer research

The Mouthpiece Sports blog has an interview with Brad Sciullo about his successful completion of the Belly Bruiser challenge. Brad finishes the interview in the following manner:

It’s opening some eyes. This is great for all competitive eaters. Everyone of us is going to benefit from this because this raises the bar. I’m guaranteeing you that from this day forward bigger numbers will be put up — numbers like no one’s ever seen. Things that make this look ridiculously easy because everyone’s going to realize that this is possible. That someone like myself — who isn’t as good as the top-ranked eaters — can do this this is going to send everyone into a frenzy. And it’s going to be great for the sport in general.

And what’s next:

I’m either going to go back to Denny’s and eat every one of their burgers on their menu in the same day, which will equal about what that burger weighed. I’ll eat the two-pounder, the three-pounder, and the Ye’ Olde 96er in the same day. Or I’m going to do a pizza competition.