Shameless Self-Promotion Challenge #1: The Re-Do

Over the last 32 weeks, there are certainly instances where outright success eluded me.  If you put me in a car with a manual transmission today, I’d still stall most of the time, and if you asked me to unhook a fish on a line, we’d be having McDonald’s for dinner.  I see these misses as part of the journey – I’m learning that perfection isn’t always the ideal.  And if you think I’m just rationalizing my failures…well, you’re absolutely right, but I don’t care.

But there is one challenge that no amount of rationalizing could make a success.  When I spent a week eating like a man, the final challenge involved eating a plate of four peppers, each one exponentially hotter than the last, culminating with the fiery habanero.  However, when my MANtor Drew and I reached the habanero, the heat was surprisingly underwhelming.  Though having burned off most of our taste buds at that point, we could barely tell the difference.

It’s pretty clear now that we had eaten a pair of duds.  Though there’s still pride in consuming the previous three peppers, it’s hard not to feel as though we hopped on a golf cart to finish the last few miles of a marathon.  I mentioned in a previous challenge update that I wouldn’t be surprised if I had to revisit the pepper challenge.  So here we are.

I’m prepared to rectify the Great Habanero Fiasco of 2013, but I’m hoping we can engage in a little quid pro quo, dear reader.  Currently, I’m standing still at 65 Twitter followers and Facebook likes combined.  If I can get to 150 likes and followers before the end of 2013, I will post a video of yours truly eating a Red Savina Habanero pepper. (CORRECTION: I’ll now be eating a Ghost Pepper, which is twice as hot as a Red Savina. It also looks like death.)

This pepper is twice as hot as a normal habanero, and is on average, 70 times hotter than a jalapeño.  Up until 2007, the Red Savina Habanero held the title of Hottest Chili in the World in the Guinness Book of World Records.  Just reading its Wikipedia page is giving me heartburn.

But this is what I’m prepared to do in order to save my pride and get a few more eyeballs on the website.  So please click on the little Facebook and Twitter icons in the right-hand column and like or follow for blog updates.  If you already have signed up, go ahead and share the Facebook and Twitter pages with friends and family who might be interested in my blog.

With your help, I can be a crying, sniveling mess with fewer taste buds by the end of the year.