From hot dogs to pie and pork products, this weird week was mainly about food, glorious food, with additional dispatches about a persistent pencil pusher, Dutch body art, and a gun nut who just should have stayed in bed.

PROUD PENCIL PUSHER

An Iowa man may be well on his way to an official world record – for pencils.
Aaron Bartholmey of Colfax has been collecting wooden advertising pencils since he was a child. Now, he claims to own more than 70,000. That’s substantially more than the Guinness World Record for the largest pencil collection – 24,000, held by Emilio Arenas from Uruguay since 2020.

Bartholmey says his most treasured pencils are those from his hometown, noting that in many instances the pencils “are the only place where there is any record of that business still, and I think it’s just a neat way to preserve history.” Recently, two counters from the American Pencil Collectors Society were at the Colfax Historical Society to count Bartholmey’s pencils. Now, he’s waiting to hear if the count is approved by Guinness, which estimated the review process could take up to three months.
DUTCH TREAT
The Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam transformed one of its rooms into a tattoo parlor for a week-long residency it called “A Poor Man’s Rembrandt,” featuring top tattoo artists who, for between about 50 and 250 euros ($70-$360), offered visitors their own permanent reminder of the great Dutch artist.

“It’s a juxtaposition – a jump from high to low, from highbrow to lowbrow,” one artist said, adding, “And it’s great that these two worlds can visit one another. Actually, it’s really one world because it’s about art.”

Museum Director Milou Halbesma said the event was a way of attracting new visitors to the historic house and getting people closer to the artist. The workshop proved a hit with all appointments filled within 10 minutes.

HOT DIGGITY DOG!

Eating superstar Joey “Jaws” Chestnut shook off a rain delay and gobbled his way to another win at Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July hot dog eating contest, downing 62 franks and buns in 10 minutes. Chestnut out-ate a field of 15 competitive eaters by double digits to clinch his 16th title. Chestnut’s best finish was in 2021 when he tallied 76 hot dogs, but Tuesday’s weather disruption made a repeat impossible. The annual contest on New York City’s Coney Island drew competitors from around the world, including Canada.

USE A FORK!

Meanwhile, the annual Independence Day Key Lime Pie Eating Championship in Key West was won by Joshua Mogle, a 38-year-old tire manufacturing manager from Iowa. Mogle plunged face-first into a 23-centimetre pie smothered with whipped cream during the challenge (photo), whose rules forbid contestants to use their hands. The gooey competition has become a subtropical substitute to Nathan’s hot dog eating contest.

Mogle consumed the confection in three minutes and 35 seconds, besting 24 rivals in the culmination of Key West’s five-day Key Lime Festival. “Eat… eat… eat… always have pie in my mouth,” said Mogle, when asked about the strategy he employed. The competition took place less than 24 hours after a Key lime pie measuring 4 metres in diameter, to be submitted for certification as the world’s largest, was created for the Florida Keys’ bicentennial celebration.

MACON BACON

A doctors’ group that promotes plant-based eating and animal rights is makin’ a fuss over the Macon Bacon baseball team, urging the Georgia summer collegiate team to change its name. “Macon Bacon’s glorification of bacon, a processed meat that raises the risk of colorectal cancer and other diseases, sends the wrong message to fans,” Anna Herby, nutrition education program manager of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine wrote to the team’s president.

And it’s not just a name, which was chosen by fans in 2018. The ballpark concession menu includes bacon-wrapped bacon, steak-cut bacon, bacon-loaded cheese fries, and bacon chips. The team’s mascot, Kevin, won over “Footloose” actor Kevin Bacon, who once wore a Macon Bacon hat in an Instagram post.

IT’D BE FUNNY, EXCEPT…

Ah, America, you never cease to amaze us. A suburban Chicago man is facing firearm charges after he told officers he accidentally shot himself in the leg while dreaming that an intruder was breaking into his home. Deputies who found the 62-year-old man with a gunshot wound to one of his legs, applied a tourniquet to the limb because he “was losing a significant amount of blood” before being hospitalized.

The man told investigators he had a dream that someone was breaking into his home and during that dream he retrieved his .357 Magnum revolver and shot at who he believed was the intruder. “When he fired, he shot himself and apparently woke up from the dream,” police said, adding that it was determined that there was no burglary attempt at the home.