There is an Eater X page on myspace listing his home state as Alabama and his height as 6’1″, facts which are not found on myspace.com/eaterx There is also a myspace.com/joeychestnut, but this page does not appear to be impersonating the San Jose State student.

Philly.com reports that Wing Bowl creator Angelo Cataldi was also a victim of a myspace impersonator.

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Thanks Brian Seiken – Crazy Legs Conti has compiled a list of competitive eating websites written in the inimitable Crazy Legs style.

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While the official opening of futureofeating.com remains in the future, Joey Chestnut fans can make do with his myspace site.

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The AICE news page announces that Adam Leffler intends to compete in their upcoming contests, making official his breach with IFOCE. Adam, who announced his retirement after December’s Atlantic City meatball contest, did not leave IFOCE on the best of terms according to this page on Brian Seiken’s website. In addition to joining AICE as an eater, Leffler says that he also hopes to work in the management side of that organization.

Comments are not allowed for this post. If Brian Seiken (or anyone else) would like to comment, he can put it on his home page or blog.

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The surge in popularity for the winner of the Gluttonous Queen contest, nicknamed “The Gal”, can be tracked by searching for her name (ギャル曽根) in Japanese blogs using technorati. There were almost 200 mentions of “The Gal” in Japanese blogs the day after her victory was televised. She currently has 439 mentions in Japanese blogs which is quite impressive when you take into account that her competitive eating career only started last fall. In comparision, Kate Stelnick has 244 mentions in blogs, most coming in January 2005 (and there are more blogs in the US than in Japan).

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(From beautifulbrian.com) Ryan Nerz has set up a web site promoting his recently released book at eatthisbook.com The website has a gallery, a calendar of Nerz’s appearances, an interview with the grilled cheese sandwich slandered by Tim “Eater X” Janus and a blog where you can expound on your hypotheses about the entities producing this website. The release party for “Eat This Book” will be on April 20 at a currently undetermined time and place.

According to his calendar, Nerz will appear on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central on April 18 at 11 pm eastern.

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The University of Kansas student newspaper has a good article about competitive eating focusing on Pat Bertoletti. A gastroenterologist is also interviewed who says he would like to study the stomachs of competitive eaters in the hope of finding a treatment for dyspepsia.

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Atlantic Magazine has an excerpt of “Horsemen of the Esophagus” by Jason Fagone in its May issue about the goldenpalace grilled cheese contest from early 2005 in Venice Beach. Only the first two paragraphs can be viewed online by non-subscribers.

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Today is the official release date of “Eat This Book” by Ryan Nerz, and Liz has already read it and posted a review.

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Aside from last fall’s “gluttonous monarch” contest, the only other events that “The Gal” has participated in documented on the internet is a series of television appearances from from February and March. Each Wednesday afternoon Nippon TV broadcasted an eating challenge from a different restaurant in which “The Gal” usually competed against Nobuyuki “The Giant” Shirota. Shirota won all of these contests except one, where “The Gal” outate him by 182 items to 173. “The Gal” was generally close in the challenges she lost. If “The Gal” can match the 80%-105% of Shirota’s amounts she obtained in the challenges in Nathan’s, she should be able to eat 30-40 hot dogs (Shirota ate 38 hot dogs in 2004)

The Gal’s TV challenges

Feb 1 13 ft. 11 lb. sushi roll: Shirota 42:50, The Gal 52:45
Feb 8 Yamada 13 bowls, The Gal 12 bowls in 30 minutes- ties Shirota’s previous record
Feb 15 Yamada 190 sushi pieces, The Gal 183 pieces in 30 minutes, both break Shirota’s previous record of 176
Feb 22 The Gal 182 items, Shirota 173 items – items look like hot dog buns but are not disclosed
Mar 1 Shirota 330 strawberries, The Gal 283 strawberries in 30 minutes
Mar 22 Shirota 13 beef bowls, The Gal 11 beef bowls in 30 minutes

(Google translates Shirota as white rice field)

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I have been able to track down information about the Japanese television series about female competitive eaters I wrote about earlier this week. The show, Oogui 2006, is broadcast on TV Tokyo and the second episode will be televised Sunday night. (The program debuted on Tuesday.) The program’s home page is http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/oogui2006/ (Google translation) If Japanese competitive eating can command 2 hours of broadcast television in prime time Sunday night, it cannot be doing that badly.

In the contest, seven competitors are chosen from two qualifiers and then a series of contests are held which eliminate the last place finisher until only the champion remains. A similar event open to both genders was held last fall. Three qualifiers in the women’s contest also qualified for the open contest: Miyuki Iwata, Tomoko Mikaye, and Natsuko “The Gal” Sone. I am assuming that no slots in the open contest were reserved for women. Those three are the favorites for the women’s contest. Iwata is generally considered the top Japanese female competitive eater after Takako Akasaka (she lost the 2005 Tokyo Nathan’s qualifier by just one hot dog), but “The Gal” has more “upside” because she is only 19 while Iwata is 32. (I hope to write individual posts about the above three competitors later this week.)

Japanese Blog entries about the contest can be found at: Everyday of the R sea bass gluttony (Google translation) and Much & Fast (Google translation)

Click below for screen captures from the contest and additional information

Read the rest of this entry »

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For the first time in over six months, the IFOCE rankings have been updated. Congratulations to all the newly ranked eaters.

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Jason Fagone has set up a web site at http://jasonfagone.com/ offering information about his upcoming book, Horsemen of the Esophagus. Fagone will have two book signings in Philadelphia in April and another in New York City in May. He intends to place information on his website that did not make the final revision of the book.

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There are several upcoming movies about competitive eating in addition to the two books that will be released next month. Two documentaries were filmed at Wing Bowl 13 and a fictional movie about the Wing Bowl is in production. The new poll question ask which of these books/movies are you most eagerly anticipating.

Staying on the topic of competitive eating books, Brian Seiken announces that Ryan Nerz will be holding two book signings in New York City. There will also be a release party for “Eat This Book” at a currently undetermined location and time.

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The New York Times has an article about Saturday’s Edible Book Festival in which Ryan Nerz’s upcoming book gets a brief mention.

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Despite the fall in popularity of Japanese competitive eating, it still apparently commands a prime time audience on broadcast television. In her myspace blog, Jen describes a currently running Japanese television series starring female competitive eaters. An eating contest is held in a different town each week and the food changes with each episode. This week’s contest involved seaweed in Okinawa. The show is like American Idol in that the worst performing competitor gets booted off the show. It would be interesting to see how the winning total in next week’s sausage contest compares to Sonya’s 35 bratwurst in 10 minutes.

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Thanks Jon Bertoletti. Pat Bertoletti appears in a commercial on the USA television network website. The ad is part of the network’s “Show us your character” campaign.

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Several podcasts of the Paunch Stevenson show have some competitive eating content in general and Sonya Thomas in particular.

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Liz of Urban Honking received a copy of “Horsemen of the Esophagus” several weeks before its official release date after meeting with author Jason Fagone. She has posted a review of the book on her blog. The main figures in the book are Coondog O’Karma and Bill “El Wingador” Simmons. IFOCE eaters were discouraged from being interviewed by their organization. IFOCE also commissioned the publication of Ryan Nerz’s book “Eat This Book” so that is why two competitive eating books are being released next month.

Correction 3/28 4:21 PM: Liz met with the editor of the book and not the author.

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Dave Shoffner has started a new blog at http://megamunch.blogspot.com/ Like SuperSizedMeals.com, the main focus of the blog is the preparation and attempted consumption of abnormally large meals, but there is also some competitive eating content. The blog’s initial entry describes Ashley’s consumption of a one pound burger from Fuddruckers

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AICE has dropped numeric rankings and has implemented a new system similar to movie and restaurant rankings (4 stars = top class.) There are listed criteria that an eater needs to achieve to obtain a particular ranking level. According to the AICE news page for March 23, one of the goals of the new ranking system is to take into account an “eater’s value as an entertainer” and not just his/her contest results. There are four levels in the rankings, 4 stars, 3 stars, 2 stars and honorable mention. Kobayashi is the only non-AICE eater in the 4 star classification.

(Comments are turned off for this post and comments about the AICE ranking system will not be allowed on other posts.)

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The March issue (print only not available online) of Spin Magazine has a near full page article (on page 40) about Eric “Badlands” Booker’s rap CDs. The article is not in the reviews section, so there is not an in depth analysis of the tracks, but the author does claim that Booker is a worthy student of the school of East Coast Rap. Booker says that the topic of competitive eating is not a gimmick; he is rapping about his everyday life when he busts rhymes about eating contests. Charles Hardy’s anti-AICE guest appearance is mentioned as one of the tracks. The April issue of Spin will be out soon so your time to check that article out is limited.

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If you would like to see the start of the original version of the Boston Herald article that inaccurately reported that Sonya Thomas competed in the March 16 corned beef and cabbage contest, it can be found on the GoldenPalace website. No attribution is provided for that page and its second paragraph matches the second paragraph of the current version of the Herald’s article. Two videos of the contest are also available.

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From wackbag.com – registration required to view post.

A hard boiled egg eating contest held at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York City was supposed to have been broadcast live on the Opie & Anthony show on Saint Patrick’s Day. Like the egg nog drinking contest held on air in December, the contest would have featured Pat “from Moonachie” Philbin and Badlands Booker, but would have also been open to the general public. That event could not be held because due to problems with state and/or local government. A lack of a permit was one reason given why the contest could not take place.

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On Wednesday the House Financial Services Committee approved a bill that would ban credit card companies from processing payments for online gambling. If the bill passes the full House and Senate, it could have a detrimental impact on the funds available for competitive eating contests. The online casino goldenpalace sponsored 7 of the 10 contests sanctioned by IFOCE held in the first quarter of 2006.

Updated 10:30 – goldenpalace.com changed to goldenpalace to reflect that the listed sponsor of some events is goldenpalace.net – Thanks Bob Shoudt

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