Nathan's annual Hot Dog turn-off contest

@RedBaron :)

@Heartlander I think you meant disgust. But if you feel that way, why don't you just not watch?

@RedBaron I didn't watch to the end. Just a few minutes. Even that dimmed my usual enthusiasm for hot dogs.

@Heartlander Then why watch at all if you find it so disgusting?

@RedBaron Good question. Probably for the same reasons I watch documentaries or read about the horrors of war, or pay attention to human behavior, whether it disgusts me or not.

Their foot-long chili dog is probably the only thing I buy at Sonic; and if I had a armored vehicle I'd risk a drive into the heart of Chicago for a Chicago style hot dog, and grab a Chicago style Pizza while I was at it. There are always disgusting things to be tip-toed around as we plow through life, palaces surrounded by shit-holes, roses that grow on thorny branches, etc. Maybe it's the thorny branches that help make roses so cherished, and maybe it's the image of someone stuffing a hot dog down his throat every 10 seconds that makes temperance so appealing.

@Heartlander You must have a serious bias against large cities. Minorities too? You wouldn't need an armored vehicle if you just behave normally and don't try to attract attention to yourself. I have lived in Brooklyn and Manhattan (NYC) for 54 of my 62 years. That includes both riding mass transit and driving my car, and going into predominantly minority neighborhoods at different times of the day. I have even visited black people living in housing projects! I have never feared for my safety and never felt the need for an armored vehicle.

@RedBaron

Ahhhh .... the race card :) Always there at the bottom of the deck, ready to be played.

What makes Chicago and NYC dangerous aren't the black people or other minorities. What makes them dangerous are the Democrats.

@Heartlander It takes a racist to bring up "the race card." And we've had Republican mayors, like Rudy Giuliani, who went from being a good mayor to a wacko Trump lackey.

And the city just isn't that dangerous. The media creates a lot of hysteria about it when they have nothing better to do.

@RedBaron I'm not a Republican, I'm an anti-Democrat.

I'm pretty familiar with quite a few big US cities, and sadly witnessed them being gutted through the 1960s and 70s. Heck I even lived in NYC for about 9 or 10 months in 1969/70. Ed Koch was probable the only Democrat in my lifetime that I remember favorably.

@Heartlander It rebounded a great deal beginning in Koch's time. As I said, it's just not that dangerous. The media blows it way out of proportion.