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It is all Ken’s fault, honestly. I was just walking out of Buffalo Wild Wings, minding my own business, happy to have seen yet another great Eurocup2008 game, when Ken stopped me and asked for my business card. Of course, I had none, as usual, I tend to forget to grab more business cards when I get back to the office. So instead he asked me to put my name and number down for a contest. I did, even if I was unsure what exactly it was that I had just signed up for. I heard contest and free chicken wings for a year and I thought it sounded good.

And it was good, turns out that two days later I get a call from Garret, the GM at Buffalo Wild Wings to let me know I had just won the contest along with three others and was going to get free tickets to the game, a VIP pass and would be competing in a wing eating contest during the half time show!!!

Now, I must say that I had a bit of hesitation on the contest part. My gag reflex is the worst, the idea of stuffing my mouth with food was not at all appealing, but hey, how many shots do you get at being in a half time contest? Not many…so I was not about to back out of it. Besides, it also meant a free live game for me and two friends. Of course, Kenichi was rightfully deserving of the first, because that was the deal, he is after all the one responsible. The other ticket went to my friend Rick who, even though it was short noticed, dropped everything out of his extremely busy schedule to make sure he could go watch some football and kick it out of the house for a bit.

So we went and it was fun. There was football, there was beer, there was cheer leading and all sorts of excitement. In all honesty, watching a game, I do not care what the sport is, is always better when you are there, live, seeing it all unfold. Sure, you often sacrifice the miracle of instant replay for it, or the DVR pause button for when you have to go take a leak but, ‘that is a small price to pay’ says I.

The contest itself was fun, between myself, two other winners of the drawing, a couple of radio celebrities, the Rattler Man (who apparently is some extreme fanatic, season ticket holder) and two little people (I think that is the politically correct term currently being accepted by society) who would act as a tag team. We each also were assigned a ‘counter’ which, in brief, was a really hot girl dressed in a tight referee shirt and short skirt and sexy fish-net stockings. That alone made the contest worthwhile…but I digress.

The contest itself was simple, you are given one and a half minutes and 25 boneless wings to eat, the person who eats the most wins. They also gave us a bottle of water but then told us we could not use water while competing. What this meant is that those delicious chicken wings suddenly turned into serious choking hazards. I did not become aware of this until I shoved the first one in my mouth and realized…”holy mother of all that is holy and mother, I am stuck with a chicken wing in my mouth I can not chew.”

Surely the other contestants realized this too, but for some reason they proceeded to shove more wings in their mouth. The dude next to me said he shoved three wings right of the get go! I never thought I would actually have the advantage here, but the strategy was very very simple: to win this contest, I simply had to eat like a civilized person and that is exactly what I did. Instead of shoving wings in my mouth, I would bite half a wing, swallow insert the other have and move that way.

Wouldn’t you know it, the strategy won, though apparently I was not the only genius to figure it out, somebody else at the other end of the table did too, and the two of us tied for first place with a grand total of — drum roll please — seven wings! I know, that sounds ridiculous even to me, particularly when there were guys twice my size competing, but…that is the way the cookie crumbles. So, I got a coupon book for chicken wings for the next year, a hard hat signed by the Rattler players, play off tickets for the AFC, a shirt and a hat, plus free beer. All in all, Ken did very good to make me sign up for this random contest.

And at the end of the night, kicking it with Rick and Ken at a game, watching the Rattlers attempt to ‘pull a Turkey’ and make a last minute comeback was very fun. So, here is a beer for a night well spent!

If you care to see more pictures of the night, just head over to my flickr account by clicking on the link: Rattler Night.

-Fco.