Not to be outdone by the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the Krystal Square Off V World Hamburger Eating Championship will host an Opening Ceremony today in downtown Chattanooga. The ceremony will start up at 1:00 pm EST with the official lighting of the Krystal Square Off Grill to signify the beginning of this year’s Krystal Square Off Qualifying Tour.

After the lighting, Chattanoogans are invited to join the first ever “Running of the Grill” down Chestnut Street, complete with a police escort, parade of vehicles with local dignitaries, the Krystal cycling team on bikes and a host of Krystal employees.

The procession will end down at the Riverfront, where Krystal’s VP of Marketing Brad Wahl and George Shea from Major League Eating will host a press conference to set the stage for this year’s competitive eating contest, and immediately afterwards, Chattanooga’s most popular news personalities will compete in a 2-minute Krystal burger eating contest.

Head over to our sister site, the Krystal Square Off Blog, to find out which media personalities are competing and for more details. They’ll also have updates throughout the day, including photos, video and more.

While perusing our blog roll, we came across this fun story posted on A Hamburger Today. Apparently there is such a thing as a Rube Goldberg Machine contest.

What’s a Rube Goldberg Machine you ask?

Well, remember watching cartoons as a kid and those crazy, annoying machines that nearly every character at some point created to catch his arch nemesis? You know, the machine where a character pulls a string and a boot kicks a bowling ball which rolls through the gutters and down the downspout then hits the dominoes which are perfectly spaced to knock over a cup of water that lands on a see saw that sends a marble flying through the air where it lands in a funnel and somehow ends up dropping a safe off a cliff. It’s one of those machines.

If you need a visual example, click here - just be warned it’s a clip from Pee Wee Herman’s Big Adventure.

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