Saturday, July 26, 2008

Alton Brown on drums

I'm pretty sure this isn't Alton Brown, of Food Network fame, sitting in on drums, but... :)



[This is The Applejacks, who had the hit with Tell Me When]

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Look out!

This 1960s video footage of Italian singer Clem Sacco contains many accidents waiting to happen! See if you agree...

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Urp!

Yesterday was the 4th of July, which means the annual Nathan's Famous hot Dog eating contest on Coney Island.

Here's the start of the contest, as it was broadcast live on ESPN!



And the exciting (?!?) overtime finish:



I'm just amazed that this gets broadcast, let alone has colour commentary.

I'm also wondering if the intepreter in ths shortened clip is really asking, in Japanese, "So, are you loopy, or what?" :)



This reminds me of an interesting book, Eat This Book, by Ryan Nerz, which is all about the world of competitive eating. Believe it or not, there are all sorts of events for competitive eating, where "gurgitators" eat everything from onions to cheesecake to test themselves against each other and the stopwatch.

Mr. Nerz's book is great fun to read, if a little dismaying. Aside from all the odd characters and their stunts (such as eating their way out of a phone booth full of popcorn, he reveals that there is an overseeing body for the "sport", the International Federation of Competitive Eating or IFOCE. Their website has videos of competitions and tables of records.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the scarf-meisters often have obscure technical details in mind. There's the "Belt of Fat Theory", which tries to explain why skinny fellows (such as Mr. Kobayashi) can out-eat stouter types. (The answer seems to be that the stomach muscles and diaphragm can stretch more when they are not encased in fat.)

Since, er, not keeping one's food in is a constant worry, there are handy euphemisms for that sort of thing on the IFOCE trail.

There's "a Roman incident."

There's "a reversal of fortune".

And, my personal favorite, "urges contrary to swallowing".