The NBA posted a press release yesterday about its annual “Taco Bell Skills Challenge,” which will feature Derrick Rose, Brandon Jennings, Steve Nash and Deron Williams:
The Taco Bell Skills Challenge was introduced at NBA All-Star 2003 in Atlanta and features four players competing in a two-round timed “obstacle course” consisting of dribbling, passing and shooting stations. All players must observe basic NBA ball-handling rules while completing the course.
Wait a second — those aren’t Taco Bell skills at all. Those are just basketball skills. If they wanted to make it a Taco Bell/basketball hybrid skills challenge, that might be cool, because it’d be fun to watch Steve Nash try to dribble while eating a taco. But as it stands, calling this ball-handling contest a “Taco Bell Skills Challenge” is entirely misleading.
I would like to challenge these four men — and any other comers — to an actual Taco Bell skills competition. The events could include Fire Sauce application, cleanly eating, efficient drive-thru ordering, and spork manipulation. As a tiebreaker, we could each order nachos and see who could best ration the amount of cheese per tortilla chip.
Dammit, now I want Taco Bell.
Tedquarters 
Ted can you please explain what “spork manipulation” is?
A spork is a hybrid spoon/fork, distributed at Taco Bell. I don’t know exactly how the spork manipulation challenge would go down, but I imagine it would involve me shoving more pintos and cheese into my mouth than Deron Williams ever could.
I know what a spork is. I was asking in what ways and for what purpose a spork can be manipulated.
The spork is supposed to combine the capabilities of a spoon and a fork. However, the fork part is a bit shallow, so you have to manipulate the spork manually in order to get the most out of it.
This reminds me of that episode of Man v. Food where Adam Richman and his teammates had do a triathalon-type event interspersed with bouts of quickly eating large quantities of food. Surprisingly, nobody vomited.
So. Ted. When are we doing this? Seriously. I think you know I’m down.
Count me in, too. I think I’m going to “practice” for lunch
Ted, I sometimes wonder how you are not 400 lbs. How often do you really eat TB? And are you prudent enough from time to time to order from the Fresco Menu?
Well, I could stand to drop 15 pounds for sure, if I wanted to scale back on Taco Bell. But the Fresco Menu? Bah!
The key to Taco Bell is regulation. Just don’t get suckered into ordering tons and tons of food, like you obviously want to. A Volcano Taco, Baja Gordita and regular soft taco amounts to about 800 calories — certainly not nutritious ones, but still way fewer than any one dish at Chili’s or Applebee’s or whatever. I probably end up making about 1-2 runs for the border a week, which is actually about exactly the frequency with which I go to the gym. So it balances out, or something.