Hot Dogs by Snively '11
Or, how I fail at eating hot dogs.
I’ve always been a big eater. Part of this may be because my dad is not only a fire fighter but also because he used to be a cook. For those of you who are out of the loop, fire fighters cook enough food for an army, and when they’re on shift that’s fine. When a fire fighter cooks for an army but only has to feed a family, the boy has to eat it all. That’d be me, I’m the boy, and I’m used to eating massive amounts of food.
Before Matt, Ben, and I gave our presentation last week we went for lunch at a place called Spike’s Junkyard Dogs. While there I noticed a contest that challenged patrons to eat as many hot dogs as possible. Being the typical MIT student with a huge ego I say to Matt and Ben “Psh, I can do that, look! The record is only 14, and you get an hour and a half to do it, how is that even hard!?”
Matt and Ben were skeptic. I was not.
The e-mail went out Saturday:
So Spike’s Junkyard Dogs (http://www.spikesjunkyarddogs.com/index.html) has this neat little contest wherein whoever can eat the most hot dogs in 1.5 hours gets their picture on the wall, a t-shirt, free hot dogs, and all sorts of other fame and admiration. The current record is only 14 dogs. As some of you may know, I’m pretty much a garbage disposal for food, so I thought I’d give it a try.
I’m planning on heading over tomorrow at about 3 pm and I’d appreciate a cheering section. I can’t make any guarantees as to whether I’ll be able to eat 15 dogs or not, but I’ll certainly end up making myself sick and eat a ridiculous amount of food.
Anybody interested, let’s meet in the 23 at 3ish. You’re welcome to try to break the record with me!
I planned my dinner and breakfast food amounts accordingly and went for a jog in order to make myself hungry. A group of us headed out at 3 and laughed joyously at the thought of what was to come.
We got there and I strode up to the counter, slapped down a $50 bill and said “I’m going to eat 15 hot dogs.” The cashier took the money and said “Do you know the rules? As many hot dogs as possible, an hour and a half, no bathroom and no throwing up.” I nodded and was ready to eat. We all sat down at the table and chatted happily, waiting for our hot dogs to arrive. Zach LaBry ’08 decided to try and eat as many as possible as well, so it became a nice little contest between the two of us. Here’s our group before our food had arrived, Zach is the one in the middle.
The hot dogs began to arrive. Michelle ’11 got hers first
followed by Zach Bailey ’08 (we had more than one Zach in our party, so Zach Bailey actually told the guy at the register his name was Jim).
and then Zach LaBry
Jordan got hers next
and then I started to get mine.
I scarfed the first two dogs like they were nothing. By the third one I wasn’t really hungry anymore. I could still eat, it just wasn’t pleasant. Why such an early sign of defeat? The buns on the hot dogs were actually baguettes. Seriously, they took a loaf of bread, cut it in half, and made it a hot dog bun. It dries out your mouth so much! Being the engineer I am, I decided to try and find an easier way to consume bread. Perhaps if I dunk it in water!?
Let’s see, now that it’s all moist I’ll just take a bite and then
BLECH! Ok, dunking in water maybe wasn’t the best idea. At all. Bread turns into this nasty, aloe-like gel-consistency when soaked in water. It’s not appetizing. Good thing they gave me a bucket.
As I begin fighting my way through my fourth hot dog Zach is on number 5. It is at this point we realize that Zach is a beast and I suck at eating hot dogs. This is what our table looked like about midway through the eating:
Notice how I stare at Zach in awe as he scarfs down dog number 7. I am just beginning number 5.
Zach’s having a great time, I’m angry at meat.
This is me halfway through dog 5.
After an hour and a half I had eaten 5 dogs and Zach had eaten 9. I realized that although I may like to eat a lot of food, my metabolism doesn’t, and baguettes suck. Zach, for eating more than 6 hot dogs, got his picture on the wall and a t-shirt.
I got nothing :( That’s ok though, because I had a really fun time, am uber impressed by Zach, and I got to eat a lot of tasty hot dogs. Michelle stole one though.
Before we left, full and content, I gave my hot dogs one last stare down and then threw them away. It’s just too much hot dog for one person. So, a challenge to all you pre-frosh during CPW, let’s get together and go to Spike’s, I want to see you all eat over 6 hot dogs. I’ll try to get funding, but bring some money along in case I can’t. It’s about $2.50 a dog, it’s a good time!
If I liked hot dogs, I’d be in.
:D I’ll go and laugh at the pre-frosh who DOES eat 6+ hot dogs though.
Glad to hear you survived. I was worried for a little while there.
Not sure why the word “dogs” in your short description links to a picture of a nekobasu — other than nekobasu being generally awesome.
Nice shirt.
See, I seriously thought 14 hotdogs wasn’t too much. Looks like it was an epic battle though, glad you had fun
SNIVELY! Thats a bummer, I thought you would be able to do it too, im not impressed! Haha, It was a good run. Looks like youve got two months of training then ill come down and see it for myself at CPW. I might make it to six…or die trying, but it should be good. Nice work!
If I were a pre-frosh (and if I could go to CPW), I’d surely get in =/
The first thing that I noticed was the power shirt you had on.
Did you get it from ThinkGeek?
Snively,
A fellow MIT freshman whose name is also Michael and also goes by his last name, over the last two years organized a little project he called Operation Centiburger. the mission: get a group of people to eat 100 cheseburgers all at once. The next year the aim was 500.. I went and ate 11 … we only made 271, but in the process raised $515.49 for the American Heart Association (and $00000000 for the international federation of irony).
It was epic. Pictures and other information are at the website which starts with centiburger and ends with .com (I’d link it, but that might trigger the approval filter, and after your recent attack of spam, I didn’t want to put you through that).
anyway .. if you want a more specific idea of who he is for any reason (operation centidog?), let me know.
~Donald
14 really doesn’t look very high. I bet I could eat them in an hour and a half. Now you’re just going to have to convince the admissions comitee to admit me so that you could see me eating to death.
Oh gosh, I HAVE to give this a try! I love to eat! I never stop haha, I probably eat about 6 meals a day and could go for more
. Thank you metabolism! I actually have to eat to maintain my weight. If i go with about 3 meals in a day I might loose a few pounds haha. Well Snively if I get accepted to MIT I’ll be looking you up 
I’ve been a vegetarian for the past six years but I will gladly take you on in tofu dogs if I’m admitted.
Tell Ben and Matt! Maybe this is the deciding factor – my willingness to eat my weight in processed fake-meat products to gain admission
But seriously, tofu dogs are delicious. I hope that they have them.
@Noelle
I actually got it at http://faroutshirts.com/ which is a great site for shirts. That and http://www.nerdyshirts.com and http://www.bustedtees.com
@Karen
They have veggie dogs as well and let you do the same contest with them.
For me, I if I was extremly hungry I would make it up to 4 or 5 hotdogs probably more, but judging from the photos you put, the bread does looks like a difficulty.
However, nice to see the fun and good spirit with all of you guys!!
OMG CATBUS!!1
Noooo Problem….and I will drink a WHOLE gallon of milk at the same time…I had hoped with a name like Michael you would have stepped up and do me proud…have Mick tell you the famous and now legendary 20 pound pizza story…ahhhh – good times.
Heh, 14 dogs are nothing.. without anything else. But looking at the pictures, they’re like the size of um, one and a half times the size of my fist, and 14 would be like.. 7 dogs more than would fit in my stomach.
But I will go for 14 tofu dogs
Baguettes for buns? All buttery and stuff? Boy, that would kill any chance for me. Still, even with normal buns, I don’t think I could stand a chance to 9…
And…how come you’ve recently started linking random words in your blog descriptions to certain odd, but very cool, websites? SometimesRedSometimesBlue.com rocked my socks, for the record…and so did the nekobasu pic.
Snively:
You guys are so cute and look funny while the dogs seem to be so tasty. You had a great time hanging out together.
Baguettes for buns? I hate to think of the cholesterol levels that guy must have had right after eating 14 of those…
Snively, it was good that you did some prep before going for it.
I have never studied psychology but I think it could be effective to bring along a music player with you with at least about 20 or so favorites; the more you think you are eating abnormally, the less you will want to eat!
On an average, 6 minutes to eat one to break the record. That’s not breakable… you can destroy it. Having said that, something’s not done till it’s done. But I still can’t believe it can be tough to eat 15 in 90 minutes. :-O
lol…i am in!!
Tanmay, keep it secret! Man, the record is going to be 24 dogs by next month if that gets out. And a lot of sore tummies
Tanmay, keep it secret! Man, the record is going to be 24 dogs by next month if that gets out. And a lot of sore tummies
Hahaha Muz, there’s is a gap of a 100 light-years between knowing what to do and doing.
Nice watch. I have the same.
Blue or red?
14 hot dogs? I am a veggie too but if I get in, and make it to CPW in one piece, I’d definitely take you up on that!! :D After all, growing hmm.. children, adutlish people, teens….whatever you call us, we need food and fun!!! :D
Snively: I accept your challenge.
I could probably manage somewhere from 5-8 hotdogs, depending on how much I will have eaten that day. I think the trick is to be methodical. Scarfing them down won’t work, they’ll back up in the esophagus and insufficient chewing will lower (slightly) the packing efficiency of the chewed hot-dog-matter. Breaking the six hot-dog barrier? A lose-lose proposition, because I’ll feel terrible about myself either way.
Hahaha, the picture where you have your head down on your arm, the guy in the back is turning around and looking at you with the funniest “Dude, he’s okay… right?” expression. Legendary :D
It must suck being the employee who has to clean out the barf bucket. Bleh.
I’ll try!
I just wont get through maybe 3 dogs.
SNIVELY!! You totally put in a link to a real-life catbus!!! Being the (maybe slightly obsessive) hayao miyazaki fan that I am, you just went up about 10% on your awesomeness rating. You now currently hold the record at 110%.
well, i take the challenge… I’ve downed 8 of those veg-burgers at McDonalds, so i guess with a bit of practice, i might just… Now please tell the admission guys to take me in… so MIT can have one more food dump in its cadre…
Hey snively,
who wrote the first post on the mit blogs? can u give us a link?
Who wrote the first post on the mit blogs? can u give us a link?
That’s good,Anion. Forgive me for doing Snively’s task, I found it quite interesting!
Matt and Ben posted the first entries on the same day, 08.06.04.
If I am right, they are here:
http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/misc/miscellaneous/hello_world.shtml
http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/misc/miscellaneous/all_about_the_author.shtml
As disgusting as it may seem, dunking the bun is how the record for hot-dog-eating was set. I guess it’s the method of choice.
Oh it’s on.
I’m so going to start practicing right now.
Oh it’s on.
I’m so going to start practicing right now.
<3Pamela
lol i tried today and i got to 4.75. those baguettes suck really bad. i’m sorry but i think 15 is an impossible task. I will eat 6 at cpw though after some thought on the best way–perhaps the fact that i used mustard had some effect on my stomach?