Hey, are you going to finish that?

Suffice it to say, there is a lot I don't understand. For instance, why is it that local newscasts spend 10 minutes doing the weather, but about 30 seconds covering the latest developments in Iraq? Or how about the Wing Bowl -- can someone explain that one?

In a stunning turn of events, it appears as if I'm not the only one that doesn't understand why it's fun to get drunk at 3 a.m. outside of a sports arena on a cold February morning in anticipation of an eating competition. Worse, it's not just any eating competition, it's a chicken wings eating competition complete with mascots, radio people, and half-naked women in front of a drunken mob.

Yeah, that sounds fun.

Now here's the stunning part (insert sarcasm font here) – the Wing Bowl, as it's so fiendishly and cleverly named, is having a difficult time attracting national advertisers. According to a story in today's Inquirer, big-time advertisers think the Wing Bowl is "gross."

Competitive eating also suffers from a blurred identity. It's not an athletic competition like pole-vaulting, not a game of skill like pool, not a test of intellect like chess.

Plus, "it's kind of gross," said Kelly O'Keefe, executive education director of Adcenter, the graduate program in advertising at Virginia Commonwealth University. But the contests do attract tremendous attention, he said.

Duh!

Personally, I don't have anything against the Wing Bowl. If that's your thing, then God bless you. I just don't happen to enjoy eating food that leads to self-destruction. And if The New York Times is any indicator, people are interested in reading about proper nutrition. No, we're not going to get all PC and promote our vegetarian ethos – that's just boring. But maybe advertisers think that associating with a contest in gluttony is like promoting smoking and baby seal clubbing?