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.

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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.)

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• 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

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• 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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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updated Dec 12, 2009

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
2008 India, engineer at Nokia Siemens of India chokes after making a pastry eating bet at a company party.
2009 Kaliningrad, Russia Boris Isaev chokes in pancake eating contest
2009 Hyderabad, India Bandu Joshi dies after stuffing 6 laddus into his mouth

Of the above 13 deaths, 7 (Russia, India 2007 & 2009, Japan, Regina, Taiwan, North Carolina) occurred in scheduled conventional eating contests. It is not mentioned what medical personnel was on site at those events.

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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

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• 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

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• 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

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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.

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• 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

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Nic Fry noticed that the IFOCE rankings have been updated. The previous rankings are still available in the Google cache. The top 8 remain almost the same. Tim Janus and Bob Shoudt are now tied at #4 and Rich LeFevre and Hall Hunt flip-flop at #7/#8. Brad Sciullo is not ranked despite winning the cannoli contest, so speculation that he has been suspended for doing the Belly Bruiser challenge might be correct. Patrick Vandam jumps to #11 from #45 and Dave “US Male” Goldstein ascends to #28 from #44. Some other changes:

New: Mike Fitzgerald (#24), Nic Fry (#30), Mike Springer (#40), Andrew McKirdy(#44), Cameron McKirdy(#45), Scott Zukowski(#46), Mike Landrich (#50)

Returning: Eric Booker (#13), Ron Koch (#35)

Dropping Out: Chip Simpson(#9), Justin Mih (#22), Marco Marquez (#23), Pat Bruss (#24), Loren Yarbrough (#33), Andrew “Skinnyboy” Lane (#35), Pete Miernicki (#36), Jim Hamrick (#42), Kevin Carr (#43)

update Here is a link to the urbanhonking.com article about the IFOCE policy against restaurant eating challenges by Liz K from February 2007

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I will teleblog the competitive eating segment on the E:60 episode currently being broadcast. It appears the competitive eating segment will be the last to air and start around 7:40-7:45 pm eastern.

The episode will be rerun on ESPN2 at: 10/23 8:00 PM, 10/27 3:00 PM and 10/27 11:00 PM (all times eastern), but the segment will be available on e60.com.

update The competitive eating segment and the reporter roundtable are now available on ESPN.com. There is a also a page where viewers can submit videos to comment on the episode.

The teleblog is available after the jump
Read the rest of this entry »

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• BeautifulBrian.com has a commentary on the personalities of the top 50 IFOCE members
• Furious Pete is seeking input about a 3 minute eating stunt
• Tonight’s E:60 episode to have footage from the Nashville Krystal qualifier
• Gallery of the recent Washington, DC cupcake eating contest
• Picture of Joey Chestnut at the Edmonton minor league hockey game
• Joey Chestnut to receive a commendation from the San Jose City Council
• Ukrainian salo (pork fat) eating contest
• Brad Sciullo’s Belly Bruiser completion makes the Japanese news
• Gal Sone’s television appearance where she sampled and ranked all the items on Saizeriya’s menu has boosted that restaurant’s business despite the recession

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• BeautifulBrian.com has a commentary about Brad Sciullo
• Video of Famous Famiglia pizza eating contest
• Joey Chestnut mentioned during San Jose city council meeting
• Picture of Badlands Booker and Erik Denmark at the Nashville Krystal qualifier
• Boston area hot dog contest Oct 25 says it will offer $200 in cash prizes
• Report on Antioch, IL hot dog contest

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ESPNMediaZone has a press release about Tuesday’s E:60 that will be televised on ESPN at 7pm eastern which will have a segment about competitive eating:

In a sport replete with colorful personalities, E:60 correspondent Jeremy Schaap takes an in-depth look at competitive eating and addresses some of the sport’s salient health and social issues. Highlights include interviews with some of the greatest eaters in the world such as Takeru Kobayashi, Joey Chestnut, Juliet Lee, Crazy Legs Conti and Tim “Eater X” Janus.

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• Nov 8 IFOCE Fort Pierce, FL pizza contest officially announced and registration is now open (from Crawfish comment)
• Beer drinking contest between Joey Chestnut and Pat Bertoletti
• KDKA wants pictures of eating contest trophies. They also have a slideshow of competitive eaters.
• Central Michigan University hot dog eating contest
• Philly.com blog entry about Steakbellie’s and Wing Kong’s records
• Gallery of the Ohio State “Chicks Eat Chicks” women’s wing eating contest
• Kana Kanisawa does an event to promote her second gravure DVD

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• BeautifulBrian.com has commentary on Sonya Thomas and Juliet Lee
• BeautifulBrian.com also has a poll on who should be the IFOCE commisioner
• George and Rich Shea highlight video clips
• The Brad Sciullo article is picked up by the Associated Press
• Quinnipiac University bans on-campus eating contests, citing the death of an unnamed student competitive eater (I am unaware of any deaths in collegiate eating contests)
• Cancelled lumberjack eating contest receives bad reviews from Jill Stoler and others.
• WalletPop on how buffets trick patrons into consuming less food
• David Letterman says the format of the next presidential debate will involve competitive eating in his monologue.
  Rich LeFevre to attempt 120 ounce steak today

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Cookie Jarvis’ home page announces that he will be on WBAB between 6am and 10am on October 17. The radio station has on-line streaming of its programming.

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Steakbellie announces that he will appear on BBC Radio 2 on Friday at 1:45 pm eastern to talk about setting the haggis record last week. The station can be listened to online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/.

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• A black & white gallery from this year’s Nathan’s finals
• Barlo’s Pizza in Indianapolis will award at least $300 to someone who finishes a 29 inch pizza in under 2 hours
• Andrew “Skinnyboy” Lane wins Colorado Springs musubi contest
• A comparison of Krystal with White Castle. TN and KY have both restaurants.
• IHOP to offer all-you-can-eat pancakes for remainder of October (from Skinnyboy)
• Video from b.good’s Garlicky Greens contest
• Picture of Badlands Booker at Nashville Krystal qualifier
• Volunteers wanted to handle publicity, sponsorships, food safety
  and legal aspects of a Chicago hot dog eating contest
• Brenda Lashley, winner of a sauerkraut eating contest, makes “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” book for naming her son after her favorite brand of sauerkraut.

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Juliet Lee has updated her WriteNow page with news of her trip to New York City to compete in the Famous Famiglia pizza eating contest and record her appearance on Guy Fieri’s “Big Show” on the Food Network.

Juliet also recorded a segment for ESPN’s E:60 news magazine program, which is expected to be televised on October 21.

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The new poll asks where you think “Furious” Pete Czerwinski should be ranked in a unified ranking of all North American competitive eaters.

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