1998: Well, ummm....

Sigh. Not every cookoff can be a winner. Oh sure, we had our Burma Shave signs (Hey John Glenn -- Think you're tough? -- Have a bowl -- The REAL Right Stuff! -- Surfin' Chili), and we had our Jello Shot Twister, and our tequila shots, and our cherry bombs... but we didn't have a skit, for the first time since 1991.

We had lame excuses like "I'm too busy". A script was planned; topical references would have included the last episode of "Seinfeld", Viagra, "Titanic", the Clinton/Lewinsky matter, and the new crew of the space station: John Glenn, Pat McGroin, and Kenny McCormack of "South Park". It also would have plagiarized old scripts of ours. In the end, though, it was just too little, too lame, so we went to the Big Dance skitless.

In the meantime, we managed to pick up a 3rd Place ribbon in both Grapefruit Pass and Pyramid Build and a 2nd Place Spoon Pass. Obviously, no Showmanship Award this year (or chili award, for that matter -- they opened up the competition and brand new teams won all the awards. A subsequent investigation turned up nothing...), but John had a comment of his own (see picture at left). Even Sally tried going undercover as a judge, but to no avail.


The booth was graced by the presence of JSC Center Director George Abbey (who once again declined our tequila shots, cherry bombs, and Jello shots) and Congressman Nick Lampson (D-Beaumont, TX) in whose disctrict JSC resides. Lampson, on the other hand, partook of both cherry bombs and Jello shots. He's a cool Congresscritter. Even General Jake Vermilyea, a top dog at USA management, chugged some cherry bomb juice.


You gotta love this place. Where else in the world can you have a German astronaut nicknamed Hoss wearing a cowboy hat and doing a Jello shot?



Next year, we'll do better. After all, it's the last chili cookoff of the millennium....