ICE CREAM AND BLOODY LIPS

Today we gathered outside Harrisburg for the first annual Brusters Ice Cream Eating Contest. The weather was perfect weather and the crowd was lively. All in all, is was a good contest and a great job by the Brusters staff.

It was a 12 minute event, and each eater was given a quart (two pints) of premium vanilla ice cream. After each eater finished his or her quart, they were given a pint and another pint until time expired. The winner ate 6-and-a-half pints and won a half gallon of ice cream a week for one year. The use of water or any other liquids was NOT ALLOWED.

Beau's girlfriend, Katie (who also helped Beau with his scraps at Denny's) is "totally in love with ice cream" so she entered the contest with me. I told her if she beat me, I'd give her $100. Believe it or not, she almost earned it. She'd go on to finish 9th out of 17 (she ate just over 3 pints), beating one other woman and 7 other men. I'd finish 5th with about 4-and-a-half-pints (just over half a gallon). Obviously I'm not happy with that. Anything less than first place in any amateur contest is a let down, but oh well.

Here we see Katie in the final seconds of the contest. Her empty quart and one empty pint are in front of her. I'm really impressed with how well she did. She talked a lot of smack before the contest about her eating skills and she backed it up. We were given cheap metal spoons, but she used a wooden spoon and I brought a larger metal spoon.

Here I am looking tough for the camera. In other photos (linked below) I look a lot less tough. My tongue, cheeks and the inside of my lips were numb after the first three minutes. Halfway through my fourth pint I spotted swirls of what looked like brown or red in my vanilla. For a few seconds I thought some chocolate ice cream had gotten into the pint until I looked on my spoon and realized it was blood. Seems I'd bit my lip and, because it was numb, I didn't realize it. About five seconds later I bit it again.

A full set of pics can be seen here.