I lost a contest today but I’m not upset

I lost to an eating machine. This all started because we were sitting around the office talking about eating our favorite foods. As everyone was talking about different food items I mentioned my affinity for steak. The discussion switched to how much steak you could eat and then a couple of the guys talked about going down to Texas ad eating a seventy two ounce steak in an hour. The problem with that is they require you to eat a big baked potato salad and a shrimp cocktail.

Discussions of the seventy-two ouncer went on for a week or so until one of the guys was going in with his brothers on a whole cow and wondered if he should get a couple of the big steaks cut for a contest. Rules were agreed upon, a trophy was ordered, and today was the day. Seventy-two ounces of steak in an hour and you can’t get up from the table for an hour and ten minutes or you would have to pay market price for your hunk of cow. (roughly seventy five dollars)

The cuts were so thick that most of us chose to cut them into three individual steaks. I came out of the gates fast and eat the first two in ten minutes. Then after about four bites into the third and final steak I hit a wall. Or more accurately I had packed my plumbing and was in danger of solidifying my organs. We had a staggered start because once of the guys was still out in the field and by the time he started we were a half hour into our time limit.

Hid first two disappeared in an impressive eight minutes. I knew I was in trouble. Like an amateur I allowed one of my cuts to get overcooked and most of what I had left on my plate was charred fat and gristle. In the final five minutes I crammed everything that was left on my plate in my mouth and had to hold it for the ten minute no burst period. About seven minutes into my mouthful of horror the eating machine cleaned his plate.

It was incredible. He then ate two heaping scoops of potato salad, four big cookies, and washed it all down with three cans of Pepsi. That little display of showoffery sent me into the bathroom where I tried to cram my entire hand down my throat in an effort to expel as much meat as possible. For those of you not in the know and I don’t know why you would because I rarely vomit and when I do it’s usually at home, I am a Yell Puker.

So I am in the bathroom vomiting and yelling at the top of my lungs so hard that I burst blood vessels all over my face. I’ll try to take a picture of the effect because I now know what I would look like completely covered in freckles. Anyway, I will post whatever pictures cam out from the event but my focus was on the contest at hand so I won’t know what I got until I get home and plug the camera in. pictures to follow.

stuff

Technology has been the bane of Casa de stupidtom this week. Well, technology and the fact that I have a party to get ready for on Saturday. Tuesday night we lost power just as I was sitting down to create a fake myspace thing to spy on one of the people who used to work here. That is a longer story than it needs to be so I’m going to skip it. Not because of its length but because it’s boring. Once I make the fake space and make friends with the subject I might write some of it down. If it’s as good as everyone in the office tells me I will definitely write it down but at this point I know nothing.

Wow, Sargent Schultz just shuffled across my brain, nice. Anyway, the power went out and wee were living Little House until about two thirty in the morning. Luckily I sleep just this side of death so the complete power on didn’t wake me but I’m told it took Liza twenty minutes to scramble around and turn everything off. Then last night I had to begin party preparations and my neighbors saw the signs that begin another outdoor party season.

That’s right ladies and gentlemen it is time once again for Lizapalooza. The third annual celebration of my wife’s birthday that started on her 40th and doesn’t show any signs of stopping. I throw this party for her and try to take care of everything but at some point she can’t help but try and insert herself into the preparation. Her ideas only get in the way of my complicated Let’s-get-some-beer-and-invite-a-big-mix-of-people-over system. This year is on a budget because every other aspect of our lives is and why should the party be any different so it will be closer to my way than hers. Anyway, back to the party sign…

I can almost feel our backyard neighbors shudder when they see me cleaning off the patio and pulling the extra coolers out of the shed. I actively cultivate an adversarial relationship with my Western boundary neighbor so I always make sure he gets a good view of the cooler scrubbing operation. Last year at this party he flicked his porch lights on and off in an effort to trigger some kind of bar instinct to send everyone home but it didn’t work. Tonight is stage two and I will report on the progress tomorrow.

On a side note I have discovered a tragic flaw in my brackish cooler water trick. After using it for more than a year now I have noticed a drain trail of death. I have completely killed the grass in a stream pattern from the cooler drain zone down to the side of the shed. If I actually cared about my lawn this would probably upset me but aside from the mud it just means less to mow. I might have to get some saw dust or rocks to prevent an invisible hazard. Typing that just solved my problem. I will borrow some safety cones from work. I love it when a plan comes together.

Not typing at night means that I have to write this in an iGoogle window which is like typing in a cell phone window. If I want to go back and try to figure out where I was going or if I’m repeating myself its scroll city and who has time for that. I’ll post something proper as I nurse my hangover on Sunday.

Is it too soon?

Yes it probably is but I’m going to push on anyway because it’s driving me crazy. I’m talking about the horrible earthquake in China that has killed twelve thousand so far and by that I mean those are confirmed bodies with another twenty-nine thousand thought missing. The numbers are staggering and the tragedy is unthinkable but my mind keeps getting snagged on a minor point in most of the news reports of the story.

It’s the fact that the lazy prick news people refuse to take the time to call the area by its correct and hard to pronounce name. Instead they refer to it as the South Central China region, area, or whatever they can as to not have to try and pronounce Mianyang. So they keep saying South Central which in the brain of stupidtom brings up images of South Central Los Angeles because I have completely embraced the Hip Hop Lifestyle.

Then, rather than treating this tragedy with the reverence that it deserves, my brain immediately go for the Broods and Clips gang plobrems. Instead of relating to this story as I should my inner narrative turns into Charlie Chan movies from the nineteen thirties and forties that I used to watch on Sunday mornings as a kid. The Sidney Toler Charlie Chan dominated all others by the way in case you were wondering. This is not to be confused with the fine cartoon from my youth The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan.

If I were of Chinese dissent I might be equally offended by all of that crap but then again you don’t see me out protesting Family Guy, I’m just a fan. I go now.