As Fourth of July nears, Kobayashi has jaw arthritis!

In what may be the greatest upset since the 2002 Lakers-Kings playoff series, Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi has been diagnosed with jaw arthritis less than two weeks before the annual Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest (THE hot dog eating event of the year). News reports quote Takeru as saying, "My jaw refused to fight any more." Despite experiencing pain during training, Takeru continued to eat and now can't even open his mouth an inch (that's 2.5 cm for you metric folks out there). Sadly this year's contest was shaping up to be the most exciting one in years, what with the sudden appearance of dark horse Joey Chestnut who broke Takeru's world record for eating hot dogs earlier this month. I think you should consider eating a hot dog this evening in honor of Takeru, the Hot Dog world's [potentially] fallen hero and hope for a miraculous recovery - I know I will. If he doesn't compete, I'll lose a mint on all of those commemorative Kobayashi-Chestnut matchup t-shirts, decorative bandannas, and miniature pewter spoons I planned to hawk at the event.

A Seersucker Concert Addendum

I forgot to mention the funniest part of the concert. Chris and I were settled into our balcony seats (not the best location, but not too bad) waiting for the concert to start when this dude comes stumbling down the next aisle, taking the seat directly behind us. He was wearing a slightly off-center baseball cap and a t-shirt with an unbuttoned seersucker dress shirt in multiple colors over it. His pants were also seersucker, BUT a totally different loud pattern of seersucker from the shirt. For all the tumbleweeds and crickets reading my blog out there who may not be familiar with seersucker, I have pasted a picture of some samples of it to the left. As you can see, the reason I'm noting his ensemble is because it was LOUD. And so was he. Did I mention he had a tumbler of rum and coke from the theatre's bar in his hand? Yeah, he reeked of it. Even before the concert began, he started shouting out random, drunken things. When it did finally began and Wilco took the stage, before each song began he would shout out "Wishful Thinking" several times at the top of his voice. What especially cracked me up about this is because "Wishful Thinking" is such a quiet, quiet, thoughtful song and this man was definitely not. During the first five songs or so he decided to garble the lyrics at the top of his lungs. Several times Chris and I both expressed we were on the verge of punching the man out. But then it grew quiet... I assumed he must have finally passed out from all the booze. Instead, he disappeared for the ENTIRE concert. When the lights came up in the theatre I asked Chris if he thought the guy had been kicked out. He conjectured that he was passed out in the bathroom somewhere or at the bar. Sure enough, when we exited the balcony there was seersucker dude, completely red-faced and sloshy, standing by the bar and yelling to his friends. Sigh. What would we be without wishful thinking?

Human Plows

I attempted this position in yoga tonight. I looked exactly like the woman pictured to the left only I wasn't wearing an aqua bodysuit, my toes were resting on a chair, my shoulders were on blankets, and my yoga instructor was in the background commanding us to make sure we were rolling our "side thighs" to the ceiling while keeping our knees and "backchests" straight. I don't think this is a relaxation asana. Especially when you can't figure out how to roll your side thighs or what a backchest is exactly.

Wilco at the Murat Theatre, Indianapolis June 15, 2007

In February of 2005 I got to see Wilco on my university's campus and they opened with "Hell is Chrome" - a really haunting song whose almost-cheerful opening piano chords betray the lyrics and Jeff Tweedy's resigned, but achingly beautiful voice that follows (apologies for all the hyperbole, but it's deserved!). That song set the tone for a wonderful concert over two years ago and I finally got to see the band again last night. The show was really good but it seems like Wilco has changed in the last couple of years - this is a completely unfair complaint but last night nearly every song they played just sounded... too happy (even the wrenching ones - like "Jesus, Etc." and a really amazing, newly orchestrated version of "Sunken Treasure") . Maybe this is a reflection of their new album or the addition of Nels Cline to the band, but it seems like they have shifted towards a new focus on longer instrumental jams that display the guitar talents of Cline and away from a band who had/still has at its center an amazing singer/songwriter whose lyrics resonate so intensely. Then again maybe it was just an off night and the vocals were set too low compared to the instrumentation... they still play well, long, and with so much energy. Unfortunately no cover of "Don't Fear the Reaper" last night either - instead we got a macrame owl with a goofy light display on it :)

A "Gay" Bomb. Ummm, what?

US military pondered love not war

The US military investigated building a "gay bomb", which would make enemy soldiers "sexually irresistible" to each other, government papers say.
Other weapons that never saw the light of day include one to make soldiers obvious by their bad breath.

The US defence department considered various non-lethal chemicals meant to disrupt enemy discipline and morale.

The 1994 plans were for a six-year project costing $7.5m, but they were never pursued.

The US Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, sought Pentagon funding for research into what it called "harassing, annoying and 'bad guy'-identifying chemicals".
The plans were obtained under the US Freedom of Information by the Sunshine Project, a group which monitors research into chemical and biological weapons.

'Who? Me?'

The plan for a so-called "love bomb" envisaged an aphrodisiac chemical that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among troops, causing what the military called a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to morale.

Scientists also reportedly considered a "sting me/attack me" chemical weapon to attract swarms of enraged wasps or angry rats towards enemy troops.

A substance to make the skin unbearably sensitive to sunlight was also pondered.

Another idea was to develop a chemical causing "severe and lasting halitosis", so that enemy forces would be obvious even when they tried to blend in with civilians.

In a variation on that idea, researchers pondered a "Who? Me?" bomb, which would simulate flatulence in enemy ranks.

Indeed, a "Who? Me?" device had been under consideration since 1945, the government papers say.

However, researchers concluded that the premise for such a device was fatally flawed because "people in many areas of the world do not find faecal odour offensive, since they smell it on a regular basis".

Captain Dan McSweeney of the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate at the Pentagon said the defence department receives "literally hundreds" of project ideas, but that "none of the systems described in that [1994] proposal have been developed".

He told the BBC: "It's important to point out that only those proposals which are deemed appropriate, based on stringent human effects, legal, and international treaty reviews are considered for development or acquisition."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/4174519.stm

Published: 2005/01/15 06:38:30 GMT

© BBC MMVII

That's the look of sheer joy.

Joey Chestnut broke the world record for hot dog eating yesterday by eating 59.5 HBDs (hot dogs and buns) in 12 minutes. The previous record was set by the Tiger Woods of eating contests, Takeru Kobayashi, who ate 53.75 HBDs in 12 minutes last fourth of July. Chestnut is also the champion at eating jalapeno poppers (118 in 10 minutes) - a contest that I like to refer to as the "Flaming O-Ring Challenge."

“These guys’ numbers have just been going up at a tremendous clip,” Ryan Nerz (representative for Major League Eating) said. “I always thought there was a limit — a limit to the human stomach and a limit to human willpower — but I guess not.”

The true test for Chestnut comes on the fourth of July when he faces Kobayashi at the premiere hot dog eating contest of the year held by Nathan's Famous on Coney Island. In speaking about Chestnut's chances, xenophobe and chair of the International Federation of Competitive Eating, George Shea, argued, "the Fourth of July has been stolen from Americans because of Kobayashi's dominance and now America has someone who they can get excited about."