Every year in Japan, sumo wrestlers are paired off with infants in a ring.  The amateur wrestlers hold up the infants into the air and the infant who cries first is the winner.  If the infants cry at the same time then the loudest infant wins. 

The purpose of the contest is to pray for children's healthy growth.

Link, Link to photo gallery [via]

Nick Patera sings The Little Mermaid's "Part of Your World" for the Give Us Your Voice Contest!, which is a contest that will give one lucky winner the opportunity to witness the original broadway cast recording session of the new broadway musical.  Link to video.  [via MeFi]

Former hot dog eating world record holder Takeru 'Tsunami' Kobayashi has developed jaw arthritis due to his rigorous hot dog eating training.

The injury occurred only a week after the slender 29-year-old started training to win his sixth straight title at the annual July 4 Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating contest on New York's Coney Island. "I feel ashamed that I couldn't notice the alarm bells set off by my own body," he said. "But with the goal to win another title with a new record, I couldn't stop my training so close to the competition. "I was continuing my training and bearing with the pain but finally I destroyed my jaw."

Despite his injury, Kobayashi still plans to attend the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating contest in New York to "be the pride of his mother" who passed away earlier this year.

Previously:
Hot Dog Eating Record Broken by California Man

A man fell off a two-storey balcony when he thrusted too far forward in trying to outspit his 12-year-old son in a spitting contest.  He was taken to the hospital and is in critical condition.  Link.

Six-time consectuive champion of Nathan's Famous hot dog eating competition and hot dog world record holder Takeru Kobayashi is probably in tears this weekend.  Kobayashi's world record of 53 3/4 hot dogs and buns was shattered by Joe Chestnut of San Jose, CA.  Chestnut managed to stuff himself with 59 1/2 "HBDs" in 12 minutes at the Southwest Regional Hot Dog Eating Championship in Arizona. 

Morgan Pozgar, a thirteen-year-old from Pennsylvania, won $25,000 at the LG National Texting competition by typing "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" in 15 seconds.  [Link]

The 79th Academy Awards are February 25 and it's your time to shine.  NPR is now accepting entries for the 'Write Your Own Oscar Speech' contest.  Here are the official rules from NPR's website:

What: NPR is now accepting entries for its first Oscar Speech contest. Write an acceptance speech for your favorite actor, actress, supporting actor or supporting actress nominated in 2007. The caveat: The speech must be written in character. That means writing Sacha Baron Cohen's speech As Borat would deliver it. Or Jennifer Hudson's speech, as Effie would sing it.

How to Enter: E-mail your 200-word entry to us.

Prizes: We'll record winners' speeches in a phone interview and post the best ones online. Up to three winners will receive copies of the box set of our musical CD series I Heard It on NPR. (But sadly, no Oscar.)

Deadline: Feb. 17, 2007, no later than 11:59 p.m. PST.

If you can successfully hack the PS3 that is running on this site you will win:

• The PS3 with all its default accessories (hard disk was replaced with a 160 GB hard disk),
• an HDMI cable,
• Linux (Fedora core 5 PPC + PS3 add-on) preinstalled,
• The game "Resistance - The Fall of Man"

Details of the contest are located on the site.  Contest runs until the beginning of January 2007.

Happy hacking!

[via digg]

BBC Wildlife holds an annual wildlife photography competition to find the Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year as well as other award-worthy photography (other competition categories can be viewed here).

The photographer of the year for 2006 is Goran Ehlme who won with a shot of a walrus feeding on clams.  Goran almost deleted the award-winning shot from his camera until he noticed a walrus's head poking through a cloud of sediment.  Link.

You guys tried, but we have no winners.  Miss Lilly was just too much for you sissies to handle ;)  On the bright side, since this is our first stab at a contest like this, everyone who participated gets a prize.

Here are the summary numbers for the eligible bloggers:
noogz 746 reads - 1 comment
rlarson 465 reads - 3 comments
samccone 319 reads - 1 comment
tubajon 190 reads - 1 comment

4 bloggers, 11 posts and $100 on the line: 1720 reads
Single picture of Evangeline Lilly in her underpants: 3479 reads

Now I know for sure that Eva really is _that_ hot, but I'm left pondering a few tough questions... what happened with this contest?  how can i make it better?  would you participate again?  why do you suppose nobody new posted?  and where did robogeek go?