Reasons why this whole Takeru Kobayashi winning the 'hot dog eating' contest is the coolest thing ever:

1.) Hot dog eating contest might be the only "sport" where winning means the worst possible pain ever.

2.) It's the only time being physically "in shape" means nothing.

3.) Mental. Mental... could you force yourself to gorge yourself with even 20 hotdogs in 12 minutes?!??! My goodness...

4.) Last name 'Kobayashi.' 'Nuff said

5.) Brings up interesting conversation regarding the techniques required to quaff 53 hotdogs in 12 minutes... 4-5 hotdogs a minute?!?!?

Just be careful, Kobayashi, and don't get yourself killed. Don't ruin this whole sport for the rest of us...

Oh yeah, random iPod stuff. My co-worker here has an iPod as well, so he brought in his Powerbook so I could steal from his MP3 collection. He's a legit artist, so he has good musical tastes ... and I gotta say the whole Phanton Planet CD is rockin' ... I thought they were a one-hit wonder, but the whole CD is very solid in a very chill way, although it reminds me of the Eagles too much (don't ask me why...)

Dear lord, is it possible to get a headache from thinking too much? Whenever I get a free chance out from teaching, I go to work on Tabulas. My mind has been in a constant state of whirlwind activity...

Right now, I'm doing a juggling act between the control panel, the display engine, and the user directory.

Most likely, the user directory will get released in a beta test for paid/beta users sometime this week (I got the UI down, and I'm just working out some UI kinks and a few scripting bugs ... ). The new member list is pretty sleek looking, so it's a good reason to upgrade if you haven't done so...

The main problem is that I have to redesign the DB architecture; as the members section stands now as scripted, it will not hold up very long; the databases are way too heavily loaded. I need to populate a new table with the member data only.

But this is one of the new featurettes that will remain paid-only ... hopefully if enough of you paid/beta users love it, you will write glowing reviews of it on your website so you can get more people to switch to paid ;)

But yes, you paid/beta users, check out this page over the next few days (realistically by Thursday/Friday) ... you should have access to the new members directory!
Posted by roy on July 5, 2004 at 06:22 AM in Ramblings, Web Development, Tabulas | 10 Comments

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MacDaddyTatsu (guest)

Comment posted on July 6th, 2004 at 02:33 AM
Im Asian. Im also going to keep trying. I used to be able to eat so much more, but I havent been eating anywhere near as much!

Want to comment with Tabulas?. Please login.

Comment posted on July 6th, 2004 at 12:18 AM
I wouldn\'t be surprised if it was some physiological thing with Asians. If you look at the leader board, it was an all Asian sweep. Might be a thicker esophagus or something. Or maybe the lack of fat around the midsection allows for more stomach elasticity. So like I told monkeyone, just like any sport, it might be beneficial to work out. You look like a perfect candidate as the next IFOCE star (International Federation of Competitive Eating). Just think...all your winnings can go to improving Tabulas.

<a href=http://www.ifoce.com/eater.php><a href="http://www.ifoce.com/eater.php">http://www.ifoce.com/eater.php</a></a>

MacDaddyTatsu (guest)

Comment posted on July 5th, 2004 at 08:24 PM
He is a fuckin mutant. I just tried to down as many dogs as I could and only managed ten.

MacDaddyTatsu (guest)

Comment posted on July 5th, 2004 at 04:55 PM
iPOD battery is evil...

<a href="http://www.ipodsdirtysecret.com">http://www.ipodsdirtysecret.com</a>/

plasticboombox (guest)

Comment posted on July 5th, 2004 at 08:15 PM
COOOOOL.
Comment posted on July 5th, 2004 at 08:46 AM
Ah yes. Marvin brings something up. Certain SE Asian countries are blocked from using Paypal because of the high rate of fraud.
Comment posted on July 5th, 2004 at 08:08 AM
it seems that the moving of most features to paid account is inevitable, but i have one suggestion for now.

pls try making flexible plans. $28 per year is really quite heavy for us, especially because there are additional charges for us living in far away countries whenever we send money abroad (one of my friends said that it\'s not possible for us to pay through paypal). and if ever we get to pay that amount (and thus unlock the features), the only thing we\'ll probably be using is the templating function. i\'m personally happy with the features of my current free account and i don\'t really need the other features, but since you\'re moving the templating function under paid account, i might get one just to unlock templating. by paying and unlocking templating, other features that i might never use at all will also be unlocked.

what i\'m suggesting is that you create plans/packages a la webhosting services where we pay only for the things that we want to get. For example, Plan A allows us to unlock one feature of our choice for $1/month. Plan B allow us to unlock 3 features of our choice for $2. Or Package A allows us to use the templating function and media storage for $1.50/month. And so on.

it will be a lot easier on our pocket, plus, we only pay for what we actually want. and i think it\'s a lot easier for anyone to let go of $1 than let go of $3.
Comment posted on July 5th, 2004 at 11:59 PM
$28 is a bit pricey for non-US residents, but I gather that the biggest hindrance for overseas people is NOT the price, but the fact that it\'s hard to pay overseas. I\'ve had a few subscriptions from overbroad, and the price has never been an issue.

You have to understand that when you pay me money, I don\'t pocket it all. PayPal takes an enormous cut of it, and if I were to register a CC merchant to handle overseas, they would take an even higher percentage. When it comes down to that, getting $1 or $2 from a few people is about the same as getting nothing. You may argue that \"well the masses can offset with quantity of orders instead of quality,\" but again, I don\'t believe that dropping price to unlock certain features is what\'s limiting people from buying the paid accounts: it\'s a general unwillingness to pay for internet services and the difficulty in getting overseas payments.

Plus if I had to implement \"unlock\" certain features into the system, i would have to load up so much more on a technical end (in terms of scripting and storing \"who ahs access to what\"). it\'s much easier set one user status and have that unlock a bunch of features then set a bunch of switches taht determines which features you have on or off within your account.

The $28 is really dirt-cheap and although it may seem like a lot to overseas (completely understandeable), the costs I\'m incurring are from US servers, and dropping prices even more will not help the financial quandary at all.

$28 per year is roughly $0.08 cents a day. I find that hard to believe to be out of \"anyones\" grasp ... especially those people on the internet.
Comment posted on July 5th, 2004 at 06:50 AM
you gotta love kobayashi. with the size of his body--he\'s quite lean and smaller than several other contestants--you\'ll wonder where he puts those hotdogs!
Comment posted on July 5th, 2004 at 11:54 AM
He has hollow legs, I think.