Making a Winner

A week or so ago, mega munch and I threwdown. Peanut butter topped burgers. Thanks to your votes I won Burger Challenge #1. Here are some photos from the construction.


I started with two pounds of 80/20 ground beef. I think 80/20 is perfect for burgers.


Ingredients. Throw in some crushed sea salt. I was going to add bacon too but I forgot to buy it. Bacon makes anything good. I'd probably eat a roll of pennies wrapped in bacon.


I used onion rolls. Both delicious and they look good in pictures.


On the grill. Two big patties and the small patty that happens to be the perfect size for doggies.


Here is burger #1. Baked Lay's accompany. Sure, burger #1 looks very good, but the final photo chosen to post - and be voted on - was burger #2. This burger was cooked just right. Burger #2 was actually not cooked enough, but it looked good!


Preparing for the 1st bite.


And this would be the aforementioned 1st bite.



Coming up next: Dave, me, and Wild Bill throwdown Pizza Burgers.

Bushie, You're Doing a Heckuva Job

Wow. 2000, I can see that. 2004?!? How?!? W '08! Yes We Can! Watch the clip.

2 More Down

In my quest to eat all 17 flavors of Snack Packs I can cross two more off the list.

See the updated list.

Absolutely Half-Full

A full review of the Birmingham Krystal qualifier and stuff will follow, but here's all you need to know:


Here's the trip. I think chronologically is a good perspective. All times are local (home is Mountain, Atlanta is Eastern, Birmingham is Central).

Friday, 5:00am - wake up and stuff, go to work.

Friday, noon - leave work, eat, pack, get to the airport.

Friday, 5:00pm - Frontier to ATL.

Friday, 11:30pm - arrive in Atlanta. Get the car ($5.95/day on Hotwire. Get thee there.)

Ho hum up until now.

Saturday, 12:30am - start the drive to Birmingham. 150 miles or so.

Saturday, 2:30am - find the Anytime Fitness in south Birmingham and go check it out:


It's as expected: new, clean, and great equipment.



After checking out Anytime, I check in the Pontiac Inn.

Saturday, 3:00am - get some shut eye.

Saturday, 6:00am - get up and go work out.

Saturday, 8:00am - leave to scope some of Birmingham, and find two bottles of water for the eating.

Saturday, 9:00am - pick up my parents at the Birmingham International Airport. They are great athletic supporters who have witnessed some great performances other than those of myself. Sonya does the Barrick. Pat in pizza. The Locust in Perry. And today it's Kobayashi.

Saturday, 11:30am - arrive at Legion Field and find the Krystal site. Late last week the word was the contest would be in the stadium, on the field, and on the Jumbotron. It ended up being outside the stadium, in a field, and maybe-or-maybe-not on the Jumbotron. I wasn't in the stadium so I don't know.

Saturday, 12:30pm - fill out that freakin' god forsaken form. Hang out, meet the other eaters. Not a great turnout of "professionals", only three, but along with some legitimate hopefuls and the five chosen ones there were 12 in the contest.


SSBMBBBMOCTB
(Super Senior Big Mouth Burger Boneyard Breaker Big Man On Campus Tropicmon Barlow)


Steve-o, he of 2nd


The cool guy

Oh, and

Kobayashi.

Saturday, 1:30pm - the 5 are picked, intros go, eating begins.



Kobayashi takes it. Not any surprise. But what was a surprise was how "easily" he did it. Push him, like Joey or Pat or Bob or whoever will in Chattanooga, and Koby could turn out the lights. Sure on Any Given Sunday who knows what might happen but the US guys better watch out. I've seen Joey and Pat and Bob and whoever eat balls out like they do. Not taking anything away of course, but they seem to work much more. Koby was money, smooth as silk. Look out.


89 of them in there

After a few more photos and stuff, everyone scatters.



Saturday, 8:00pm - I head back to Atlanta. On tap...


Saturday, 11:30pm - it's crowded, it's greasy, but it's good.

You might have heard talk of the chili at The Varsity. Not a lie. It is to die for. Delicious. The fries are another story.



Sunday, 2:30am - I return the car and get to the airport. There's not a whole lot going on then:




I pass the time until we board.

Sunday, 6:00am - board flight. I don't remember even taking off. I didn't wake up until somewhere over Kansas.

There are more photos. View them all here.

5 years in the making.

Birmingham Results

Kobayashi 89
Me 18
SPBBBRFBBBMPB 20ish
Some kid 24

Me and My Meat

Earlier this week myself and mega munch threw down and created some good looking peanut butter topped burgers. We each made one, took a picture, consumed the things, and posted our burger pictures for you guys to vote and select the best looking burger. Thanks for your votes! Voting has ended, and the winner:

Burger #1. Mine. 9 votes, to 6 votes.

And it was very tasty. The onions! I'll have a full write-up in a few days. And even better is that we will be throwing down again. Pizza burgers!

Burger Challenge #1

Today both myself and Mega Munch are going to post pictures of our peanut butter topped hamburger creations we whipped up this past weekend. We are each going to post the two pictures on our sites. There will be no way that anyone can determine which burger is which. You just vote for the one that looks better (however you want to define that) by posting your thoughts or choice here or on his site, and in a few days we'll see who wins Burger Challenge #1 - Peanut Butter Topped Burgers.

Below are the burgers. Feel free to leave a comment voting for burger #1 (the top) or burger #2 (the bottom). Sorry, no anonymous votes allowed!

Attack of Snack Packs

One down, 16 to go. There are actually 18 flavors of pudding Snack Packs, but I don't do Tapioca. Flavors:

* Banana
* Banana Cream Pie
* Butterscotch
* Caramel Cream
* Chocolate - 9/24/2008
* Chocolate Caramel
* Chocolate Cookie Dough
* Chocolate Daredevil
* Chocolate Fudge
* Chocolate Mud Pie
* Chocolate Vanilla
* Ice Cream Sandwich - 9/13/2008
* Lemon
* Lemon Meringue Pie
* Milk Chocolate
* Smores
* Tapioca
* Vanilla - 9/24/2008

8 Days

I've been waiting 5 years for this! The Krystal Square Off blog posted it, eatfeats.com reported it, and I will too so if you haven't seen it yet:

http://krystalsquareoff.com/blog/takeru-kobayashi-vs-joe-chestnut-rematch-its-almost-official-502.html

Kobayashi will compete in the Birmingham qualifier. Huge news!

Dunk or Not?

So ealier in the week I was thinking about how I was going to approach the Krystal Squareoff. Last year, I got 21 down. This year, I'm shooting for more than 21. I would love to put down 30.

I am in the midst of some time off from the eating stupidity so I found a way to do "more than 21". Picnic style for sure. I think that would definitely do the "more than 21" but not 30. But then last night I dunked and determined 30 could be in play. Picnic style is certainly cleaner, more delicious, and more pure. But I'd love to hit 30. We'll see..

Burger Challenge Begins

Today mega munch posted this fine photo from Fanny Ann's Saloon in California. But it's not a cheeseburger like you might think. It's a peanut butter burger. He said he wanted to make one soon. Make it now, byotch! I challenged him to a throwdown. Him & I will take our best shot at a peanut butter topped burger, each post the final picture of our creations, and we'll let you guys vote for the winner of the best looking peanut butter burger! Definitely check back on Monday morning - we'll have anonymous pictures of our burgers and you will determine who wins.

New Nerdbox

Circuit City had a killer deal on a Compaq Presario CQ50-110US. Mega processor, big RAM, humongo hard drive, integrated card reader, the screen pops, nice nice nice. Windows Vista will take some time, but it's all good.

It's like Christmas!


Simple yet effective packing:


The touchpad is perhaps the most captivating feature:


Presenting the Compaq Presario CQ50-110US:

The Twins

Just look at them!

It's Going Up

A few months ago I had my body fat calculated. Then, 6.44%.

I had it re-tested yesterday:


6.97%. Going in to it I thought it might come out higher, maybe 8%. I'm going to have it tested again next Wednesday after the sodium and sugars taken in this weekend.

As before, the tests were done using calipers. They took three measurements at each of three testing areas: chest, abdomen, thigh.

Some Do, Some Don't

On eatfeats.com there are a few comments going back and forth about people taking eating enhancing drugs or training a bunch or whatever to be the best eater ever. Whatever. I guess I see it as sort of Darwinian. If they want to take some drug or train in some way that makes them really good, then so be it. Those people will get weeded out of the gene pool one way or another.

Some bonehead will say "you don't know what they do or what affect a drug might have". They'd be correct. I don't know. But they don't know either. Nobody knows. But I think it can't be good. It might be 5, 10, 20 years before something happens, but something will happen.

Some videos:
Buffalo Buffet Bowl 2008 and Beautiful Brian's Corner

Checkup Coming Up

I last went to the regular doctor in late December 2006. Mainly for an overall physical and a blood test for my cholesterol numbers. Then the cholesterol was 206 total - LDL 114, HDL 75.

With the crap I've eaten recently - primarily the two Big Texan attempts - I'm thinking the number has got to be higher. I've been more or less good since the end of July so who knows. I do have a few more contests in September (ending with Krystals in Birmingham on the 20th) but after those I'll clamp down through October. Then pick it up again for Wing Bowl, the Boot, T-Bone, BT...