I suck, but I'm working on it

Yesterday a few friends and I had lunch at The Spot as part of a training session for this weekend's hot dog eating contest. Gotta say, I wasn't too pleased with my performance. In fact, I got beat by Brad, our computer guy. (In my defense, he's not a geeky, pocket protector type of computer guy. He's actually a hell of an eater and if he'd ever quit his second job he might be able to win a few of these weekend contests.)

The test was four plain dogs for each of us and a side of fries to chow down on while the rest of our crew ate their meals at a more human-like pace. I went over my goal time of two minutes, which I'm not too surprized about considering I used no technique and the dogs were piping hot off the grill which made for some pretty awkward simultaneous biting and drinking to put out the fire. I even got a little blister on the roof of mouth, right behind my front teeth, but it shouldn't slow me down this weekend.

The owner of the place is an awesome guy and he was really stoked to hear that I (and maybe Brad) would be in this weekend's contest. He made a big deal out of it, making sure we had water and a stopwatch and announcing it to everyone within earshot, which is pretty much the whole place because it's so small.

Since I lost, I picked up the tab. Friday we're stepping it up to six dogs. I can't afford to lose again.