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In This Issue

• Happy VD
• I Want to Be A Matzoh, Matzoh Man
• Letters to the Feditor
• Lee Bollinger Asks: Are You Hot or Not?
• I Hate New York. Now More than Ever.
• Ab Electrocution Devices Found to be Shockingly Unsafe
• Waking up Gay On Sesame Street
• Lunchables for a Dysfunctional World
• Bad Places to Wake Up
• Removing Used Sex Partners is Simple & Fun!
• Columbia University, a.k.a. Outkast's Bitch
• Report from the Frontline-Dancing
• Anarchists betray the goals of liberal politics
• In defense of not defending - but instead attacking - TA Unionization
• A Crash Course In Punk
• R.I.P. What Bar
• Damn You, Nickelodeon
• Newsbriefs del Pueblo
• Pulpit Fiction
• Horoscopes? Why, yes. Horoscopes.
• Angry Cell Phone Guy Turns Me On (Real Hard)
• Fruitloop and Dandy
• Another View of The Fed
• THEY Watch
• The Staff of 17.6

Freddy also "sez" "My only pleasure lies in awaiting the sweet embrace of death."

Wayne thinks that after practicing so hard on matzoh balls, he’s finally ready to kiss a girl.

Ladies and gentleman, eating contests are no longer the realm of massively obese diabetics who find projectile vomit amusing. Or so it seems, now that the new world champion of matzoh ball eating is the relatively skinny, mild-mannered, non-diabetic 165 lb, 5'10", Oleg Zohornitsky.

The Fifth Annual Charity Matzoh Ball Eating Contest began late on Tuesday morning, January 29th at Ben's Kosher Deli on W. 38th Street. The normally roomy Ben's was packed with hordes of pushy cameramen and eating enthusiasts, all fighting for a good view of the two tables where the eight competitors would soon take their positions. Already placed in front of each seat was the preliminary bowl of four spongy, neon-yellow softball-sized matzoh balls (for the uninitiated, matzo is unleavened bread seasoned with the blood of Christian children, traditionally eaten by Jewish people during the Passover holiday).

Hosts Bob David, Ben's CFO, and radio personality Curtis "The Rock" Sliwa, introduced the anxious crowd to the contestants, which included two former champions, 2001's "Hungry" Charles Hardy and 2000's Donald "Moses" Lerman. Both men had engaged in some serious training for this year's competition: Hardy (5'11", 325 lbs) had recently won both the American hot-dog eating championship as well as the world sushi championship in Tokyo. Lerman (5'8") worked his stomach the opposite way, slimming down from 266 lbs to 146, making him the slimmest man in the eat-off. Even though he had been dieting, Lerman promised to "go through those matzoh balls like Grant went through Richmond."

Also competing were massive Long Islander Eric "Badlands" Booker (6'5", 400 lbs), Hicksville's Mario "the Meatball" DiCerbo (6', 245 lbs), machinist Wayne "the Duke" DelDuca (5'9", 250 lbs), former Oreo cookie addict Ed "Cookie" Jarvis (6'6", 325 lbs), and self-proclaimed "Mr. Mom" "Big" Joe "the PizzaBagel" Manchetti. Least favored to win, however, was Ukrainian Oleg Zohornitsky , the first foreign-born competitor in the annual matzoh contest. Zohornitsky immediately appeared as an experienced eater, though, as he (and fellow thinman Lerman) chose to stuff himself while standing (a more optimal eating position, according to the New York Press).

The rules of the contest were simple. In five minutes and twenty-five seconds, each contestant was to consume as many of the half-pound balls as he could. They were allowed only one small bottle of water with which to wash them down, and any vomiting was grounds for immediate disqualification.

Before the eating began, President George Shay of the International Federation of Competitive Eating, which "governs all stomach-centric sports around the world," came out to officially sanction the event that Sliwa called "the mother of all matzoh ball competitions." After a brief fanfare and a few last words from Sliwa and David, the race was on.

Though the rest of the men ate at breakneck speed, they seemed to be casually snacking compared to Zohornitsky . The lean immigrant stuffed ball after ball into his mouth with one hand, intermittently swallowing modest gulps from his water bottle. Before long, this bottomless pit of a human had downed twelve balls, with his nearest competitor still on eight.

Wayne "the Duke" DelDuca ate his last matzoh ball four minutes into the eat-off, realizing he had reached his limit. DelDuca did not want a repeat of his near-vomit at the semi-finals, and hoped that fourteen and a half matzoh balls (one and a half more than last year's winner) were enough to win him the championship. But this was not to be the case, as Eric "Badlands" Booker and Zohornitsky fought to a photo finish, with the former finishing off fifteen and three quarters balls, and the latter just a half a ball more. As he devoured his last balls, Sliwa christened Zohornitsky , who until then lacked a nickname, "Chernobyl." The crowd, amazed that this Ukrainian immigrant had defeated men more than twice his size, immediately swarmed to the first foreign-born matzoh ball champion's side, and he was lit up by camera flashes.

Despite worries about what may arise when several obese men are put together in an excited situation and then forced to feast on massive quantities, the event went off without a medical hitch. In case of any problems, Emergency Medical Technician Madalyn Ross was on hand. When asked if she was concerned that a contestant might go into cardiac arrest, or worse, that his stomach might explode, (covering the audience in a thick coating of bile, chyme and matzo), Ross gave a suspicious frown and responded, "No, I'm more worried about gagging and choking. That's more of what I'm here for."

As dangerous as the world of digestive sports can be, the 2002 championship seemed rather tame. It even lacked a tie to force a sudden death eat-off, as has happened in past years. One spectator, Milton Dongsleep of Williams College, complained, "I like exploding stomachs, so I was a bit disappointed."