Competitive Eating

* I took the day off today for some home repair work, and after that was done I was flipping around the TV and came across ESPN2 Competitive Eating contest. This is where contestants try to eat the most amount of food. Gross. Salad. Potato skins. Spaghetti. I didn’t stay for the end.

* The ISM number came in good, and even though the DOW was down, advancers led decliners. We may be due for a pullback once monthly strength ends. August tends to be a bad month. But the economy looks good. I’d say watch for too much bullishness now. Also, if we start to see monthly job gains over 200K month after month, we could see pressure on wages and then inflation. I don’t think the Fed would let that get too far before they clamp down.

* Bush appointed John Bolton to the UN, which upsets Democrats. (When haven’t they been upset?) I think the guy is a clown, but the UN is a pretty pathetic organization anyways. Everybody tries to paint a smiley face on the UN, but look at some of the scandals there.

* Competitive eater Sarah “The Black Widow” Thomas was talking about how important speed and stomach capacity is. She barely weighs over 100 lbs, and she was kickin’ butt out there. Gorging, gorging, gorging. Incredible.

* How about those Oakland A’s?

* It is August, and I’m starting to notice the daylight is lasting less and less from day to day. I’m tired of the heat, but there probably is something from my childhood that hates the end of summer. Oh, the beginning of school! Well, when you work for a living, there is no such break anymore, so I should be over it ,right?

* NASA is going to conduct a spacewalk to “fix” the shuttle. I hope they brought some duct tape.

* I couldn’t be a competitive eater. I’m a grazer/snacker. I eat a little at a time throughout the day. I can’t eat a whole plate of anything.

* Today, I had a bowl of whole grain cereal. Then a couple hours later I had some whole grain toast with peanut butter. Then a couple hours later I had some watermelon. Then a couple hours later I had a bean burrito. I just had a handful of Wheat Thins. I’ll probably finish the day with a salad later.

* The Saudi Arabia dude died. King Faad or Fahd. Something like that. Now, the Crown Price Abdullah becomes King Abdullah. He says he’ll continue to pump crude like crazy. I don’t really trust those folks, and I’d be building nuclear plants as fast as possible here if I were King or Crown Prince of the US. We have to do something to quit burning fossil fuels. It’d be cleaner, too.

* Wedding Crashers was pretty funny.

* I just glanced at the baseball standings, maybe for the first time in months. Did you know that the first place team in the NL West is under .500? Impressive. Yeesh. Good grief. Baseball kind of bores me, but sometimes I’ll watch the world series.