In researching eating challenges, I discovered the database of diners who finished the 48 ounce steak at Don Shula’s Steakhouse. The website claims that over 32000 people have finished the 48 ounce steak. If all those diners are in the database, it would be much larger than eatfeats. (Eatfeats has about 3000 eaters and 6000 contest results)

The website reports that Taft Parker has consumed the 48 ounce steak over 175 times.

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A website about the Wing Bowl 13 documentary “Swallow Your Pride” has been set up at http://www.swallowyourpridefilm.com/ The site has a trailer and a page with “eater cards” about the six competitors featured in the film.

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As of 4:53 pm eastern, “Competitive Eating” was #8 in the list of top search terms on the front page of yahoo.com

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Kenji Aoki, maintainer of one of the more popular Japanese competitive eating websites, has started a blog at http://ameblo.jp/oogui-diary/ One of his recent entries reports on a contest held for winners of Food Battle Stadium contests won by “Essen”.

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Domenico “the Sicilian” Alesi has restarted blogging at http://domenico-thesicilian.blogspot.com/ His first post is about what fruits and vegetables would be good in an eating contest.

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A backlog of videos and galleries appears to be developing on the official Wing Bowl sites. The Wing Bowl 16 page on 610wip.com has been stuck on 12 successful qualifiers for quite a while (the gallery for “Dr. Big Time” has yet to appear on it) and I do not think the videos page on philly.com has been updated this week. The only successful stunt this week I am aware of is “Big” Brian Subich qualifying by eating 3 “Fat Bitch” sandwiches, which are foot long cheesesteaks topped with chicken fingers, cheesesticks, mayo, ketchup and french fries in 7 minutes and 53 seconds.

I have not been able to obtain the winner of January 8 Wing Off in Glassboro, NJ. Please inform me if you are aware of that information.

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The blog and database have been inaccessible for approximately the past 6 hours due to a server upgrade by bluehost, eatfeats’ web provider, but they now appear back online. (I do not know why the server could not have been upgraded starting at midnight to minimize the inconvenience)

Here are the links that were on the page announcing the blog was down:

Jill Stoler has a trip report from Japan on her blog
Hungry Sisters have posted their 2008 goals in competitive eating
610WIP.com has a gallery of Philly Guy aka Sticky Pete’s Wing Bowl qualification attempt
Takeru Kobayashi has a blog entry about his trip to the doctor to deal with his "jawthrithis"

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Juris “Dr. Big Time” Shibayama has started a personal website at http://doctorbigtime.com with a page devoted to competitive eating.

There have been a lot of recent changes for Japanese websites. Sakura Takahashi has moved to miotakahashi.net Tomoko Miyake, Saori Nakayama and Kana Kanisawa have all moved their blogs to new URLS (See sidebar for links)

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Andrew “Skinnyboy” Lane has added a counter to the sidebar of his blog counting the time elapsed since the most recent IFOCE contest with open admission was announced. He believes this last occurred when the grits contest in Bossier City, LA appeared on the IFOCE schedule on September 11. The counter is currently at 110 days.

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Here is the blogroll for the team of Japanese eaters competing against AICE eaters this week in case anyone wants to follow the contests by looking at Japanese blogs. I do not believe any entries about the competitions have been posted yet.

Natsuko “Gal” Sone
Tomoko Miyake
Taku “Artist” Izumi
Saori Nakayama
Kana Kanisawa
Hatsuyo Sugawara (no blog)
Takuya Yamamoto

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A new blog called Wet The Buns has been launched with the following introduction:

For a long time, I have been intrigued by competitive eating… not as a participant and not really as a spectator… I am more interested in its shear [sic] stupidity. I find it ludicrous that it’s considered by many to be a sport… yes, they actually have a governing body (The International Federation of Competitive Eating… www.ifoce.com) complete with rules, regulations, rankings, and record-keeping. And it’s even more ridiculous that this shit is televised.

Anyway, one night while eating (not competitively) with friends, the conversation turned to the Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest. One friend questioned how the competitors could consume so much bread in addition to the hot dogs. Without thinking, I replied “When in doubt, wet the buns” in reference to a technique used by the competitors where they dunk the buns in water for easier consumption. It all sounded so ridiculous, that the phrase stuck… a catchphrase, of sorts, representing all that I find stupid.

So, that’s what this site is all about… those things that I find stupid.

Before commenting on the stupidity of others, it would probably be advisable to learn the difference between sheer and shear

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The Washington Post has an interesting article on the rise of Japanese blogging. The article reports that more blog entries are written in Japanese than in English, even though there are about 8 times more Anglophones than Japanese speakers. Japanese blog entries are more likely to be based on everyday life than on the opinions or expertise of the writer.

Kana Kanisawa’s blog, which consists of over 8600 entries which are phonecam pictures with brief captions, exemplifies this characteristic.

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The appearance of JulietLee.com has been updated and the new WriteNow page on julietlee.com describes how that site is produced. Juliet also responds to her critics.

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BeautifulBrian.com has a report on Joe Menchetti’s behavior at the Black & White Cookie Contest, a preview of the Opie & Anthony egg nog drinking contest and a summary of the year in competitive eating.

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The online Wall of Fame at HeartAttackGrill.com has been restored. There is also a new picture of record holder Joey Chestnut on the home page.

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The links in the blog sidebar have been updated. If you have an unlisted competitive eating related link that you would like added, or if your link was removed and you would like it reinstalled, please email the URL. Only links which have been inactive for several months have been removed.

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“Sweet” Jill Stoler has started a blog at http://missgluttonsbliss.blogspot.com/

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HungrySisters is a new blog describing its focus as: “food, especially (but not necessarily limited to): Dairy Queen, Tacos, and the fine art known as competitive eating.” The sisters traveled west from their home in North Carolina to go to the Krystal Square Off finals and wrote a trip report about it.

The next morning we were ready for the festivities to begin. We ate breakfast at this awesome cafe connected to our hotel. Sadie and I both ordered Chocolate Chip Pancakes. After breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and walked to the riverside where the contest was to take place. We arrived about 2 hours early, but we didn’t have anything better to do, so we watched the Krystal People set up the area for the contest. While we were waiting, we met Crazy Legs Conti!!!! It was the coolest thing ever. It was our first encounter meeting a real-live competitive eater; one who we have seen on TV many, many times. Very exciting!!!

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A new book, “Short History of the American Stomach” will come out early next year. A description of its contents follows:

The extremes of American eating—our separate-but-equal urges to stuff and to starve ourselves—are easy to blame on the excesses of modern living. But Frederick Kaufman followed the winding road of the American intestine back to that cold morning when the first famished Pilgrim clambered off the Mayflower, and he discovered the alarming truth: We’ve been this way all along. With outraged wit and an incredible range of sources that includes everything from Cotton Mather’s diary to interviews with Amish black-market raw-milk dealers, Kaufman offers a highly selective, take-no-prisoners tour of American history by way of the American stomach. Travel with him as he tracks down our earliest foodies; discovers the secret history of Puritan purges; introduces diet gurus of the nineteenth century, such as William Alcott, who believed that nothing ought to be mashed before it is eaten; traces extreme feeders from Paul Bunyan to eating-contest champ Dale Boone (descended from Daniel, of course); and investigates our blithe efforts to re-create plants and animals that we’ve eaten to the point of extinction.

The author, Fredrick Kaufman, has a blog at AmericanStomach.com A profile of Dale Boone from a 2003 issue of Harper’s Magazine can be downloaded from that website. A transcript of a NPR interview in which Kaufman compared cooking shows to pornography is available. The release date is February 4, 2008, the same weekend as Wing Bowl 16.

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Tomoko Miyake has revamped her website and changed its URL from miyaketomoko.com to tomokomiyake.net The website has a flash introduction, but still can be accessed via HTML links, enabling translation with the Google translator. A cartoon Tomoko wearing various national costumes appears on the new site’s pages, which is appropriate for a website making its debut near Halloween.

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“Joey Chestnut” is currently (3:50 pm eastern) the #8 search term on the front page of yahoo.com

A screen capture is available after the jump
Read the rest of this entry »

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BeautifulBrian.com was mentioned in a thread about televised competitive eating on a Japanese language message board: (automatically translated / original in Japanese)

921: 名無SHI good! @ Broadcast live during the board: 2007/10/29 (Mon) 09:12:11 ID: Y0p8EXo +0
Krystal Square Off IV finals of Animation
http://hometown.aol.com/beautifulbrian43/krystal.html

Joey 103 units / 8 minutes in the championship? And Takeru Kobayashi’s record (97) is one disappeared?
Water-saturated it is not as it is a cormorant, eating a lot of territory.
Especially glasses spilling his food is terrible.

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A page about tonight’s MLE Chowdown has been set up on the Spike TV website. The page has videos of the top 10 commercials and profile pages of some of the competitors who are listed as (current IFOCE ranking in parentheses):

Joey Chestnut(1), Takeru Kobayashi(2), Pat Bertoletti(3), Tim Janus(4), Rich LeFevre(8), Hall Hunt(9), Juliet Lee(10), Erik Denmark(12), Arturo Rios Jr.,(13) Allen Goldstein(14), Tim Brown(15), Micah Collins(17), Eric Livingston(21), Juris Shibayama(23), Chris Abatsas(25)

Bob Shoudt was listed in the original press release, but apparently did not compete.

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Sonya Thomas’ website is now back up. Her news page makes no mention of an absence from the Krystal finals and only says that information will be “Forthcoming”

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An anti-Joey Chestnut website has been made at http://cluckujoeychestnut.com/ which makes the following prediction:

2008 Wing Bowl February 1, 2008, Wachovia Center. Watch as El Wingador beats last years Champion Joey Chestnut..

The logo can be found at http://cluckujoeychestnut.com/wing_bowl

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