Having just returned from our trip and having no food to speak of, we went out to eat supper last night at a local sports bar. They have probably 20 or so TV screens showing a variety of sporting events, news, trivia, etc. Among the sporting events shown last night was the Johnsonville Brat (as in Bratwurst) Eating Contest broadcast live from Sheboygan, WI. First of all, when did "Major League Eating" become a sport worthy of coverage on ESPN? No, not ESPN2 or another second-rate sports channel, but the founding father of sports coverage. Second of all, why must these gorge-fests be telecast? Do they really think people want to watch someone shove 58 brats down his throat in 10 minutes? That's a new world record, by the way. This miraculous feat was accomplished by none other than Takeru Kobayashi, the competitive eating champion who has never lost to a human. He did lose to a 1000-lb Kodiak bear, however. Hmmm, where was I going with this? No idea. But according to the Sheboygan Press, even local residents are grossed out by their town's claim to fame. A former Sheboygan city attorney is proposing to get rid of the contest altogether. He claims to have enough votes to pass a referendum. A survey of readers disagrees; most of them say keep the contest and lose the lawyer.

We returned from the great state of Minnesota yesterday. I gave up blog posting during our visit because my in-laws have dial-up and I grew weary of waiting for pages to download. It was like watching paint dry. After the heat wave, I didn't have anything interesting to write about anyway. I mean, let's face it - the Mall of America just isn't that interesting since they took Snoopy away.

So we returned home to our poor dog who evidently thought that we left her for good this time. We thought it would be a good idea to leave her at home and have a friend come over to feed her and let her out. Yeah, not really. The Idiot was so stressed that she didn't eat while we were gone, yet she managed to poop on the carpet upstairs three times. Just what I wanted to come home to.

The high temperature here in the greater Twin Cities area was 101 today, the highest in 11 years. I'm so glad to be here. The good news is that the temperature is supposed to drop 15 degrees tomorrow.

While describing the Body Worlds exhibit at the Science Museum of Minneapolis, my mother-in-law said [the bodies] "look like beef jerky with eyeballs".