Now we get to the meat and potatoes of this story. Or well, the bacon and noodles. Whatever. Bacon's meat. I'm sure something we used may have had some potato in it. You don't know.

We had a plan going into this. Don't take us for unprepared loons. Of course, plan or not, unprepared loons are exactly what N1NJ4 and I wound up being. We had planned out the entrée and the dessert, while agreeing that whatever the secret ingredients turned out to be, they would probably screw absolutely everything up. CK, of course, was not caught offguard. He set straight to work on his entrée which started off as something that I cannot tell you the name of because I've been trying to figure it out for like twenty goddamn minutes and I feel like my head might pop like a zit. And not in the hilarious Animal House way. a sort of Monte Cristo.

So anyways, both CK and my dad had had this idea to make a thing by some name Monte Cristo, and that's what we started with. And then I decided we should combine the milk and the instant coffee together and soak it into the toast because when you do that with cocoa it's delicious. So what the idea became was this: He'd cook the toast and soak it in the coffee mix (or vice versa, I was never all that clear on the process), then cook the eggs on top of that and top the whole thing with bacon.

Meanwhile, our idea for the appetizer basically boiled down to doing something involving the Tostitos. Since I usually come up with the crazy things I make at home on the fly (and they tend to wind up pretty good), I figured, oh what the hell.

So the Gamer Iron Chef kicks off and CK goes to work on the toast and I'm left standing there without a clue in the world as to what to do. CK instructed me and N1NJ4 to make the dessert drink awhile (no slash, as it was both), but in the interests of keeping it cold, I decided to hold off on that for awhile. So I sort of stood there looking around trying to figure out something. Anything. I started just getting food and beginning projects with no intentions yet of using any of them. I dumped the box of macaroni into a bowl, and then never used it or even touched it again for the rest of the competition.

I open our pack of ramen and put the brick of noodles into a bowl which they did not fit into whatsoever. It was then that I realized that we didn't have any water. Then I noticed we didn't have any milk, either. So I had no idea what to do. After I spent the next five minutes being unproductive and complainy, somebody suggested that I melt some ice.

...It's just crazy enough to work.

So I toss some ice cubes under the ramen, and a few on top and wander over to the microwave, which is almost done doing what it's doing. The guy on the other team tells me he's actually gotta stick his stuff back in for awhile longer. I politely ask if I can just squeeze this in for a couple minutes first. He kindly obliges. So after two minutes, the ice hasn't really melted much at all. All science has been a lie to me.

As I'm walking back to my battle station, I notice another person walking by with a bowl of water. I stop and ask him where he could have possibly acquired this liquid gold. He informs me that there's a water cooler in the back of the room. Glory be! El Dorado itself sits beyond a mere handful of meatbags in chairs! The world is mine.

I toss the ice back in the cooler (now with ramen stuck to it and gross, but nobody but me noticed... or at least, nobody said anything) and fill my Cool Whip container (bowl) up with refreshing spring water and slightly soggy ramen noodles. N1NJ4's looking for something to do, so I hand that off to him to nuke while I search for other things to randomly slop together. I decide I should get some queso, as we're going to need it. It won't work in the drink, and it won't work with the eggs, so it has to work with whatever it is I make. I pour some of that into another bowl and just sort of look at the things around me and check on CK until N1NJ4 gets back.

N1NJ4 brings me the ramen and after a moment, I take a wooden spoon-like... thing, and I start breaking up the ramen some, because it seemed like a good idea at the time. I scoop some out into the queso bowl and grab a plastic spoon and stir it all up. I cut off a piece of this new mixture and try it. Oh wow. That's pretty good! I give N1NJ4 a piece. He suggests I combine it with the Cracklin' Oat Bran. Alright. I get another bit, and eat it along with a single piece of cereal. Oh now that will work splendidly.

I believe N1NJ4's reaction to the taste was, "OH MY GOD," whilst tossing his head back with ecstasy.

We finally had something. I drained the rest of the water out of the Cool Whip bowl into another such container holding a half-eaten piece of French toast N1NJ4 had been feasting on when he'd had nothing to do. I poured some more queso into the bowl and mixed it together, along with the original bowl of the concoction. Then I poured in a good amount of cereal and broke that up into smaller bits. My appetizer was now ready. I could give the judges all forks and a bit of this (granted it would be a very small helping apiece) and they would be pleased.

Meanwhile, CK was hard at work finishing up his breakfast pile. French toast with the coffee fused into it. Eggs cooked on that. Then milk on top of that, which he made by melting a container of ice cream in the microwave. And finally, bacon on top. He cut these (he made a few, obviously) in half very easily with my dad's knife. In triangles, as per our own Mel's instructions to us a few nights before - if you make anything like a sandwich, cut it into triangles for presentation.

Thanks, Mel!

So that's finished. He covers the serving tray to keep the food warm and turns his attention on the blender.

The blender, she is a pile.

Well, alright. No offense to the blender itself. It was a nice blender. But the other team had waged war on it and, frankly, it had been defeated. It needed to be cleaned. Badly. It looked as though that scene in The Goonies when Ma Fratelli holds Chunk's hand over the blades in the running blender had ended a lot worse than originally intended. So CK works on getting that cleaned. Meanwhile, N1NJ4 and myself... we accomplish absolutely nothing.

See now, during all of this confusion and cooking going on, there was much else happening within the room. The judges, for one, were watching everything and making jokes to keep the audience interested. I often took the opportunity to follow up one of their jokes with one of my own and get a bit of silly banter going on for the fine folks. Or simply be visually goofy. Like when somebody mentioned spitting in the food, and Jon St. John contended that none of us would, as they can all see us pretty clearly, and I fairly obviously but sneakily all at once grabbed a dish in front of me and crouched down behind the table as though I was going to spit in it.

Plus, at least two guys were going around with mics (I believe one or both of them were judges) and announcing things that were happening to the judges and the audience. They got excited anytime they found something strange. For instance, some French toast soaking in a bowl of ramen broth.

At one point, Team Lightening Bear had needed a can opener. They had brought everything else they needed, but failed to remember that. Somebody left the room and actually found one. But it was too late by the time he got back - the girl leading the team stabbed the can open with a knife. Jon St. John - who you will recall is the voice of Duke Nukem - announces to the room that she's got BALLS OF STEEL.

At this, I became... well, I was jealous. There, I said it. That's a hell of an honor, to have Duke himself tell you you've got balls of steel because of something you've done that impressed him enough to award them to you. I was slightly bummed out, because I knew I couldn't think of anything that would earn mine. I mean, sure, he's a real people person. He'll say anything you want if you ask him to. He lives for it. I could ask him to tell me I've got balls of steel. But it wouldn't be the same, at all. Not remotely.

So it was rather the event. Finally though, CK returned with the blender and we got to work. It was time to pull off my dad's idea. I filled it up a good portion of the way with ice (which I told him seemed like it would be too much), and then Cody took over and added some Mt. Dew and orange juice. At this point, the announcers took some notice and started to come over and examine things. Then I began breaking up a Pop-Tart on top. Then they turned all of the attention on us. We added a container of ice cream to the mix (this is the only part I had suggested instead of my dad, and the reason we got the ice cream in the first place). CK insisted that would be enough, but I wanted to shoot for two. Then JSJ asked if we had any vodka in there. CK told him we were just about to add it.

He holds up the tiny bottle for the audience to see, with a look on his face like some serious shit that they needed to see was about to go down. He poured it in, closed the lid, and blended it up. We all tried the finished result and found it a bit... lacking. There was too much ice, and not enough not ice.

TOLDJA.

So we add another Pop-Tart, and blend it again. One guy walks by and asks about it and, once we tell him everything we put in, he tells us it's basically the Katamari of drinks, what with it being everything all rolled up into one. We all like this notion and CK immediately announces that it's the "Katamari Cocktail!"

He then turns his attention on me and asks where my dish is at. I show my little covered Cool Whip container full of cheesy, cinnamony noodles, and he tells me I need to put it on one of the remaining serving dishes for presentation. One is a large bowl which this will just barely fill the very bottom of, and one is a flatter dish which this will look awkward on. He tells me to use Tostitos or whatever.

Now, our original plan, you will recall, involved Tostitos. And not much else yet, at the time. Once we fistbumped at the announcement of the queso, the judges flat-out said that you won't get many points if you simply couple it with the chips, because that's obvious. So those were scrapped immediately.

You can imagine, then, my hesitation towards using them with my dish now. But I get an idea. I arrange them on the flatter dish in the shape of Pac-Man. This seems to work out pretty well. But it's missing something. I get N1NJ4 to throw some more bacon on for me. I look over at the microwave and it's in use. So now I'm waiting for either the bacon or the microwave to finish (so I can heat this back up some before I serve it to the judges). What follows is a large "BANG!" from behind me (that's what she- oh, alright, nevermind).

I turn around, and the microwave door is now hanging open, with steam pouring out of it. Somebody exploded the microwave. Dammit. I need to heat this up. What happened?

Well, apparently, one of the other teams cooked a whole egg in there. And, well, it exploded. Steph and one of the announcers cleaned it up for me. Meanwhile, Sarnecky finished the bacon and I broke the strips into quarters, and put a fourth of bacon in each Tostitos Scoop. Once the microwave was clean, I heated my food up and removed the chips from the serving dish. Pouring the Cracklin' ramen-queso into the middle, I shape it as best I can to look like Pac-Man. Then, I arrange the chips around it as a border and cut it an eye. Lookin' pretty good. This is something I can be proud of!

Meanwhile, CK had finished the drink long ago and he and N1NJ4 had poured it into cups and added a bit of ice cream to the top of each as a float and then put a single piece of cereal on top of that as a garnish, then stacked them all in the cooler on the ice. So that was done. CK was finishing up by holding his dish on top of the George Foreman to try and heat his food back up even a little bit. He asked Team Lightening Bear if he could use their grill lighter they had used earlier to cook the top of something (fancy), but they AND I said no, don't think so. I wouldn't want to, anyways. Wouldn't be right.

Finally, it was time to put our pencils down and see who got the best score.

DUN DUN DUN! Cliffhanger time! I think tomorrow night will finish up Thursday. Do stay tuned for the rest!