A couple weeks ago, The New York Times wisely introduced Article Skimmer as an additional way for readers to interact with the news. It’s fast, intuitive, and easy to use. I put this in the solidly innovative column that I’ve seen a bunch of from the Times over the last year or so.

But then let me introduce Skimmer’s Bacon topic. I’ve been trying to think of a way to kill the bacon meme since January or so, but the New York Times just did it for me. I’m tired of the internet that allows lazy marketers to layer whatever they want with bacon and score cheap internet traffic. That’s not an internet I want to live in, and I don’t think that’s the internet you want either.

I can’t help but think the bacon topic is aimed at this cheap internet traffic and by catering to it, the New York Times has debased itself. Who do they think they are, really? They could have maintained their stodgy standoffishness, but by rolling around the mud with the pigs…well, let’s just say that ‘arbiter of cool’ The New York Times is not. To say nothing of the fact that if you’re a meme, and people send around links about you, and then everyone on the internet is talking about you, and then The Paper of Record talks about you, you’re not a meme anymore. You’ve baconed the Times or some other cute play on jumping the shark. It should be noted for the record that, for the sake of my argument, I’ve ignored the likely scenario that the Topics on Skimmer are automatically created based on what the readers are searching for and reading. If that’s not how Topics get created, well that’s just sad. (Thanks, Aaron!)

Click image to enlarge.

This is an oldie, but goodie. Put a frozen strip of bacon into your Wake N Bacon. 10 minutes before you need to wake up, it starts cooking so you can wake up to the tasty aroma of bacon (and smell like bacon for the rest of your life)!
Thanks, Chris.

“Elaborate Bacon: Piece in heart, Fragrance in mouth.” (Thanks, Karmen!)

Not only does this cake have chocolate and bacon, but it has beer and, well, cake. (Thanks, Jonathan!)

Like the Bacon Bra, but even less safe for work, and somehow billed as th ultimate Super Bowl food (huh?), the bacon bikini. (Thanks, Matt!)

One last bacon post for the day. A bbq bacon sausage. You just have to click the link to understand how it all works. It’s glorious. And disgusting.

Another birthday present, another bacon related treat. I haven’t had it yet, but I bet it tastes syrupy and smoky. We’ll see how it goes. Thanks, Ally!

Here is a wiki for The Holy Church of Bacon complete with a list to quite a few bacon blogs and places for all your bacon merch needs.

A friend gave me bacon mints for my birthday. While expected just a bacon flavored candy, I was surprised to find so much more. There’s actually some mint in there – smoky, salty mint. Thanks, Will!

I don’t know why friends started sending me their bacon links. At some point people started associating me with bacon and now I can’t shake it. I’m their bacon guy. Somehow, in the same vein, my mother is the giraffe lady. As a school teacher, and known as the giraffe lady, my mother would consistently get 6-10 giraffes per holiday season and 6-10 giraffes at the end of the year. Giraffe plates, pins, statues, paintings, socks, clocks, etc, etc, etc. It hasn’t gotten that bad for me yet. But I’m going to have to consider putting an end to it before it becomes serious.

Last year on Christmas, my father-in-law gave me a subscription to the Bacon of the Month Club. He didn’t think 1 pound per month was enough, though, so he upgraded us to 2 pounds. Over the summer, with 6 pounds of bacon in the freezer, we called and asked them to hold our subscription until October and go month to month after that.

Here’s how bacon is made, which isn’t as gross as how hot dogs are made, but still eye opening.