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Monday, July 28, 2008 - 02:39 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

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The Masters Of Mastication

They Like To Eat

I never thought that I'd spend an afternoon watching people eat, but since occ wanted to scope out the competition and needed a few lackeys as backup, that was exactly what happened.


It's the big leagues! (main photo credit occ)

Not knowing better, we punctually arrived at Robertson Quay at 4pm, to be greeted by local competitors doing their thing as a warm-up for the main event. Two burgers in ten minutes was par for the course if the MC's shouts were anything to go by, which truth be told would be slightly disappointing. Heck, even I could scarf down a couple in double quick time if I were sufficiently hungry.

With occ understandably disinterested at this level of mediocrity, we whiled away the time playing Dai Dee over 7-Eleven Slurpees/Big Gulps, sitting at the table of a yet-to-be-opened food establishment, until it actually opened and a smiling employee dutifully smiled at us. The stars of the show finally turned up at six-plus, and we actually walked right by the legendary Takeru Kobayashi (official site) while moving to higher ground, though none of us was aware that it was him at the time.

His rival for the day would be Joey "Jaws" Chestnut, who bested him just three weeks ago at the hallowed Nathan's hot-dog eating championship (and last year too). Oh sure, there were a few Singaporean challengers up there, but they didn't have much of a prayer; No shame in that, though - they were up against the true greats.


Kobayashi on the left, Chestnut on the right, impressive announcer (who seems to be the same one as at Nathan's, or at least they share the same hat) in between (main photo credit occ)

The announcer deserved his own trophy for his bagful of puns - I don't remember many, but some of these that I found on the Web wouldn't be out of place:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, it's really close... it's a real dog fight! They're the Four Horsemen of the Esophagus!"

"The emotions are raw, but the hot dogs are cooked!"

"He's the Clay Aiken of Bacon!"

The actual ten-minute event wasn't a close-run thing, as Chestnut, despite being foreordained by Nostradamus himself, couldn't keep up with Kobayashi's satay-swallowing pace as they ran through 1kg skewerless containers of the barbecued meat (N.B. The title "Masters of Mastication" is something of a misnomer, as true pros don't waste much time on chewing). Kobayashi was unstoppable with his patented "Kobayashi Shake", and he eventually polished off nearly five-and-a-half kilograms of satay (not including the fluids he drank to aid swallowing) to Chestnut's just over four kilograms, almost impressing occ.


"Good job guys, dinner's on me!" (photo credit occ)

We then had dinner at Funan, which led us to more deeply appreciate Kobayashi's talent, and a fired-up occ was eager to begin his conditioning with fifty sticks of satay but couldn't locate any sellers. Competitive eating does have its dark side too, but it would be criminal to let such potential wither.



Bush Economics 101

A classic Tom the Dancing Bug strip (click to enlarge):



(When apples are relatively cheap, consumers substitute oranges for apples by buying more apples than oranges - this causes the price of apples to rise and that of oranges to fall until a new equilibrium is reached)



RIP Randy Pausch

It appears that Prof Pausch, who was referenced a couple of blog posts ago, has passed on. I doubt many would have known him but for his famous Last Lecture, but he is certainly worthy of his tributes online and off (of which I have borrowed two here) for that alone - "Would that all of us could pack so much life into such a short time/The world is a lesser place without him, but we are greater for having had him to begin with."



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