Sorry about the recent gaps in the blog entries. I've been a little under the weather since returning from the post-Perlozzo firing Orioles trip to San Diego. Have you ever had that really bad head congestion, where you feel pressure all over your head including in your ears, so much that you can't even hear straight, and you're constantly coughing up this thick, multi-colored stuff and going through a whole box of tissues in one day and wiping goo out of the corners of your eyes?

Pretty disgusting, wasn't it? Didn't want to read that first thing in the morning, did you? Sure, but you watched that damn hot-dog eating contest yesterday. God, I'm getting nauseous just thinking about it.

Please tell me that you agree with me that the line has to be drawn at this "sport.'' That this does not require live national TV coverage, that ESPN can find enough programming to fill its four networks without resorting to this, that poker and rodeo and Arena football and ultimate fighting satisfy our desire for pseudo-sports without subjecting us to a gluttony contest.

And, by the way, that this is one reason our enemies hate us. I mean, we celebrate our nation's independence by lining people up and seeing how much crap they can force into their stomachs before they throw up, and sell tickets to it and televise it? What do the refugees fleeing Darfur think when they get to a military base, get fed and clothed and treated for their injuries, then sit on their cots and turn on cable and see people eating for entertainment purposes - not worms and maggots like in Fear Factor, but real, edible, (semi-)nourishing food?

I vehemently oppose this, both on moral and gastrointestinal grounds.

This phenomenon has grown way out of control. It used to be kind of a funny human-interest story, an extension of the kind of stuff they do at county fairs, pretty innocuous. Nathan's, of course, I can't hate on them; they make great dogs, and they've had their contest at Coney Island for years. It was just a routine slice of New York life. Then it went big-time, I'm not sure when, but all of a sudden there were eating celebrities (Takeru Kobayashi and The Black Widow) and regional variations, like the crabcake- eating contest at the harbor, which we cover every year. The police should come and shut it down. It's a waste of good crabcakes. Literally a waste, the way most of the contestants bow out, bent over a trash bin.

C'mon, you can tell by my photo up there on the upper right-hand side that I enjoy food. But that's the point - I enjoy food, not the act of shoveling it in until I can't hold any more down. Kobayashi was being treated like a hero, getting more coverage than Paris Hilton in the days leading up to yesterday's contest, his competitive-eating injury being covered like it was Tejada's wrist. And now this Joey Chestnut mook beats Kobayashi, sets a world record and "brings the title home'' to America, and he's being treated like Lance Armstrong. Uh oh, hold on, I'm feeling sick again ...

And they ran highlights on SportsCenter, focusing largely on the too-detailed moment when Kobayashi conceded the crown and the record, which I don't even want to think about anymore, much less describe. I can't believe they didn't come up with a graphic for it, like the "Chasing Aaron'' thing they do for Bonds. You know, a little circle in the corner with Kobayashi stuffing meat and buns in his mouth, then leaning over in a bucket, and spinning it around and morphing it into Chestnut cramming stuff in his hole, then leaning over, and the number "66'' popping up.

Stupid, isn't it? Well, not as stupid as the fact that ESPN Classic showed a marathon of past Nathan's contests last night.

You all have your own favorite proofs of the decline of American society - violent TV shows, explicit song lyrics, pay-per-view porn, graphic video games, 24-hour Anna Nicole coverage, blah blah blah. I'll take eat-til-you-puke competitions being presented as big-time events on The Worldwide Leader, and not look back.