Erik Denmark has posted a blog entry and gallery from the February 23 jalapeno eating contest in Laredo, Texas.

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Kotaku illustrates post about MLE game with picture of Gal Sone, who will probably not be in the game
Joystiq thread about MLE game
AICE sets up page about Collegiate Nationals
PittsburghLive.com article about pierogi contest to be MCed by Crazy Legs Conti
Somebody purchased SurfAndStillwell.com and might put a website there.
MegaMunch has a post about his office pizza contest
Come for the baseball stay for the food – Pittsburgh Pirates start all you can eat ticket (via the Big Lead)

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A myspace page for Beautiful Brian’s CD project has been set up at http://www.myspace.com/theonlybandintown The band name is “The Pickles”. “Black and White”, a song apparently about the explusion of Dale Boone (who is not mentioned by name) from the IFOCE and AICE can be heard in its entirety. The entire album will be available on the myspace page for 24 hours after all tracks are completed.

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Kenny & Ziggy’s New York Delicatessen, Houston, TX, 8 minutes

1. Joey Chestnut – 78
2. Patrick Bertoletti – 76
3. Juris “Dr. Big Time” Shibayama – 40
4. Nathan Biller – 30
? Rubik – 14
? Elizabeth – 9

Juris Shibayama reports that the balls were about racquet ball sized in a small amount of broth and were cooked, but cold. He also says that Joey donated $500 (1/2 of his cash prize) to the MD Anderson Cancer Center and he donated $250. Patrick Bertoletti also donated an unknown amount.

update
Galleries: llamarama, smugmug (has a lot of pictures of Elizabeth)
Contest video

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A video of last summer’s pumpkin eating contest between teams from the United States and Japan is available at hoosoo.tv

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BeautifulBrian.com reports that Ray “The Bison” Meduna claims that the Laredo jalapeno prediction appearing on IFOCE.com was not the prediction he sent to IFOCE:

After reading the final column which appeared on CEN on Feb 25th , Ray Meduna was obviously quite upset. “I didnt say anything about doughting me at their own peril or that crap. I was set up by Livingston and Rich and i am disturbed by this. Meduna knew Bertoletti was the favorite and basically write about why he thinks Erik is good with hot foods.
Meduna would like the competitive eating world to know that the column the IFOCE wrote on his prediction was doctored by Rich Shea because Meduna claims he wrote an entirely different article.

I will post the original prediction on this website if it is emailed to me.

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Wicked Local has an article and video from today’s bacon eating contest at Atwood’s Tavern in Cambridge, MA. Kevin “Kissyface Babyfoot” Davis won the contest while wearing a Nathan’s hot dog contest T shirt.

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Tim Brown answers 10 questions on IFOCE com
Indian traveler will spend a week in Chennai to see if Dale Boone can help him get started in “Kollywood” film industry, Dale Boone advises him to watch out for poisonous frogs
Don Lerman hires 25 people to handle his fan mail
Article about March 7 Lake Tahoe sushi / extreme food contest
Video footage from 2006 NYC grilled cheese eating contest
More on Canada’s tallest man 18 pound burger attempt
Request for videos of diners eating 4 HDB in less than 2 minutes
Kana Kanisawa & friend purchase a lot of food from Seibu Department store then eat it (Part 1, Part 2)
Pictures of Tomoko Miyake’s convenience store meals from yama3 (See above)
Japanese pancake eating contest for women only – first prize is a million yen and a trip to Hawaii

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AICE news has a press release about the television schedule for the Collegiate Nationals. The coverage will start with a one hour special on the entire Collegiate Nationals May 25 on CBS. If footage from the eating contest appears in this program, it will probably be the first time competitive eating has appeared on national broadcast television since the Glutton Bowl on Fox in 2002 (with the exception of some short contests on morning shows). The Collegiate Nationals will receive 15 days of coverage on CSTV starting May 26, which will hopefully allow the eating contests to be seen in their entirety.

Text from the press release is available after the jump. I do not know what format the press release on the AICE website is in, but it is not in HTML, PDF or Word format.
Read the rest of this entry »

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1up.com has a screen capture from the upcoming MLE video game showing Tim “Eater X” Janus and El Toro competing against each other. The score shows El Toro leading Eater X 10 hot dogs to 8. The game will debut as an exclusive to WiiWare, Nintendo’s upcoming downloadable game service for the Wii. WiiWare is expected to debut on May 12, but the MLE game does not have a price or projected release date. The game will use the Wii remote to simulate the action of eating competitively.

See also awn.com, ign.com Exophase.com has the full press release.

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A website about the “Battle of the Bone” wing eating contest sponsored by a Phoenix sports radio station has been set up at http://battleofthebone2008.com/ There will be 23 weekly qualifiers starting on March 19 held at Native New Yorker restaurant locations. The finals will take place on August 27 and the first prize will be a 2 year lease of a Honda Element. The 23 qualifiers are probably the most any contest has ever had.

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The Windsor, Ontario (Detroit area) Star reports that a burger eating contest will be held on Saturday for teams of 4 eaters from both Canada and the United States to benefit charities. Teams will attempt to eat Bunda’s Big V8 burger from Bubi’s Awesome Eats. The V8 burger has 8 pounds of meat and reportedly weighs 18 pounds in total. WDFN.com has more details about the event.

Bubi’s Awesome Eats has a standing offer of $1,000 to the first person to consume a Bunda’s Big V8 burger along with the bun and 4 of 7 possible toppings in under 90 minutes. Some of the possible topppings include eight tomatoes, 24 ounces of ketchup and 30 ounces of Bubi’s sauce. No diner has succeeded in that challenge in the five years it has been offered. Last month, the restaurant had Canada’s tallest man, 7 foot 7 inch Jerry Sokoloski, attempt the sandwich. He finished about 15% of it. A gallery and video of the attempt are available.

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1up.com has an interview with Bill Swartz, the head of Mastiff, the company developing the Major League Eating video game. Swartz says that the idea for the game was originally Mastiff’s:

We were looking for a product. We wanted to do a game with a under-appreciated IP that was still known by a large number of people. And the last thing we wanted to do was to try and be a mini-Activision or a mini-EA. I didn’t want to do robot soccer or baseball with penguins. And it’s [Mastiff Production Woof] Tom [Gaubatz], to his credit, he said, “Why don’t we do Major League Eating?” I called them up, frankly not knowing that much about it. I talked to them. And as we started this project, I fell head over heels in love. Major League Eating could be the best thing that has ever happened to me — as a human being, as a sports fan, as a game developer.

Bill Swartz also states that Joey Chestnut will appear in the game. He does not confirm any other names, but says there will be two beautiful female characters.

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The Houston Chronicle has a preview of Sunday’s World Championship Matzoh Ball Eating Contest. The contest will probably have the best field since the Krystal Square Off finals despite a relatively modest purse of $1,500. Joey Chestnut and Pat Bertoletti are expected along with Chip Simpson, Juris “Dr. Big Time” Shibayama and Dave “SykoBozo” Cagle. Nathan Biller has also said he will compete.

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AICE News lists the top four seeds for the Collegiate Nationals:

1. Christian “Muscox” McCarthy University of Kentucky
2. “Furious” Pete Czerwinski McMasters University Hamilton Ontario Canada
3. Carey “Powerhouse” Poehlmann Montgomery Community College, Blue Bell PA
4. Brian “Eaten” Keaton” University of Maryland

update Pete Czerwinski has a poll on bodybuilding.com whether he should be called “Furious” Pete, “Iron” Pete (given to him by Arnie Chapman) or something else.

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Here is a list of all the deaths in eating/drinking contests I am aware of:

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

Of the above 7 deaths, 3 (India, Japan, Regina) occurred in scheduled conventional eating contests. It is not mentioned what medical personnel was on site at those events.

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Miami Herald columnist endorses Ryan Nerz’s call for a jalapeno eating contest between Obama and Clinton to determine the Democratic nomination
Maori wins New Zealand pizza contest
Frederick Kaufman (A Short History of the American Stomach) podcast on Seattle Public Radio
Munch Madness 2008, Connecticut team “bar bite” contest w/ 4 qualifiers, first prize is 4 Opening Day NE Patriot tickets (from Jill Stoler’s blog)
Emmanuel wins Chicago Wing Fest (see picture above)
PaulieSaurus Pizza prize now over $350
Cereal Mega Bowl challenge equal to 1 box of cereal in now closed Asheville, NC cereal restaurant
Kyoto tofu contest, won by Hiroko Kurita
Podcast of “Furious” Pete’s appearance on Frank Pastore’s radio show in which they discuss their 72 ounce steak marks (from AICE news)
Denver meetup group Feb 29 Slyder contest to award $100 gift certificate

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Lyrics for 2 of the sample songs on beautifulbrian.com are available after the jump:
Read the rest of this entry »

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In his myspace blog entry from February 20, Pat Bertoletti announced his plans for the upcoming Sunday night:

This week saw me getting a tuxedo for the escoffier(my idol and the greatest chef of yesterday) society dinner on sunday. I am going as steve dahls date( the greatest talk radio personality this city has seen). I thought about giving him a garder and emailing asking what time my mom should drop me off for pre prom pictures. I hope I can eat and drink because I will hopefully be coming back with another jalapeno title under my belt( laredo tx on saturday) . The tux is going to look great with the mohawk spiked up. I’m pretty sure having that hair will insult more chefs than I can imagine but that’s why it’s going to be such a good time.

Pat Bertoletti talked about his experience at the dinner on Monday’s Steve Dahl show. A podcast and log of the show are available. Pat’s segment begins at the 13 minute mark. Dahl calls Bertoletti a “knucklehead” after he hangs up.

Pat Bertoletti also sponsored a high school science project titled, “Music and Speed Eating” which analyzed how eating speed was affected by the tempo of music.

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Philly.com reports that the Phillies training camp and the world of competitive eating continue to intersect a week after making a fake trade for a “Kobayashi”:

Moments after learning that his big off-season acquisition would require knee surgery and probably won’t be ready for opening day, Pat Gillick huddled in his office with Charley Kerfeld, one of his top lieutenants, yesterday afternoon.

The laptop computer was open, and Gillick was reading aloud when a reporter entered the room.

Scouting report?

Uh, not really.

Gillick was captivated by the story of a Michigan restaurant that had a 134-pound burger on its menu. Apparently, it took three men to flip the sucker.

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A link to the list of eating challenges has been added to the blog header. There are now over 100 challenges in that list.

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Freep.com reports that Mallie’s Sports Grill & Bar in Southgate, Michigan unveiled a 134 pound hamburger on Saturday. The restaurant will apply for Guinness world record status for the sandwich as the largest commercially available hamburger. The current holder of that title is Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub’s 123 pound burger. A picture of the Guinness certificate is available at Denny’s home page.

The burger will sell for $350 and must be ordered a day ahead of time.

Freep.com video clip

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Beautiful Brian has a commentary on Chestnut vs. MLE and a CD update
Hall Hunt does eating contest at Rays Fan Festival and eats 13 hot dogs in undisclosed time (Kobayashi attended last year’s Rays Fan Festival)
Picture of Kobayashi before 2007 Nathan’s finals, used on wikipedia page
Frank Pastore mentions the breaking of the 72 oz steak record on his blog (from supersizedmeals comment)
Picture of 37 inch pizza from Big Lou’s Pizza in San Antonio
Dude a Palooza has male oriented events including eating contests
Liz K buys a house (gallery)

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AICE News announces that the finals of the Collegiate Eating Championship will take place at the Wave House in San Diego on April 19. Three collegiate eaters with impressive eating resumes will receive byes, others can enter the finals by competing in a qualifier on April 18. “Furious” Pete of bodybuilding.com will probably be one of the three eaters to receive a bye. Entrants must be currently enrolled in at least three college credits. Foods have yet to be determined, but will be items popular with college students. Jack in the Box is the primary sponsor, so the contest might feature food from that chain.

The contest will be held as part of the Collegiate Nationals sponsored by CSTV. The Collegiate Nationals will consist of four multi-sport events for college students to be held this spring. The other San Diego events will be beach volleyball, flowboarding and a battle of the bands.

CSTV has been acquired by CBS and will be rebranded as the CBS College Sports Network in March during the NCAA basketball tournament. It was not announced if the eating contest will be televised on CSTV. I believe this is AICE’s first deal with a television network.
CSTV has its headquarters in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, like IFOCE / Shea Communications.

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The Daily Mail reports that Adam Deely died after getting five fairy cakes lodged in his throat in a cake eating contest at the at the Monkey Cafe in Swansea, South Wales. The competition was not medically supervised or even planned; it was held after a party concluded and guests decided to clean out uneaten food left over from a buffet spread.

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