When Words Aren’t Enough – Say It With Bacon!

When Words Aren’t Enough…

Say It With Bacon!

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Thanks to the incredibly fantastic Judith Rosenberg Charney for this one!!

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Ever Have One of Those Mornings?

Ever have one of those mornings?

Yeah, me too.

Momma said there’ll be days like this.

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Once more unto the Bacon, dear friends, once more!

Henry V couldn’t have paraphrased it better.

(Baco-bacon-taco)

In my constant battle to understand the nation’s bacon obsession,…

(Bacon-wrapped olives)

I’ve come across the following suicide-inducing culinary combatants…

(One of the most versatile of all ‘wrapping’ foods)

And then there’s this…

And this…

Bacon is ubiquitous

(Now that’s a slab of bacon!)

Why the obsession?

(Why the bizarre merchandizing?)

Why the unbridled passion?

Well, at least this makes sense from a marketing point of view!

(Mancakes!)

Until next time, folks, let’s keep bacon in its proper place…

In a frying pan, waiting to kill you.

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Bacon – The Never-Ending Story

Yes, boys and girls, geeks and nerdlings, it’s time for yet another installment in our continuing series…

What’s With The Bacon??

As I have commented many times…

It’s not so much my interest in bacon, per se…

It’s my fascination with people’s obsession with bacon.

From classic bacon usage…

(Swizzle sticks)

To the unusual…

(Fred Flintstone would approve)

To the far-fetched…

To the truly bizarre…

There always seems to be more and more room for bacon appreciation.

It never ceases to amaze me how so many people are devoted to bacon…

(Gift wrapping paper)

Especially in the area of merchandising.

(I mean really!!)

Let’s face it…

Bacon provides a fertile ground for expression…

Political commentary, satire…

(Occupy bacon!)

Art, music, civil disobedience…

(Early bacon)

Or just some plain old good-natured ribbing (pun intended).

No matter how you slice it (pun definitely intended)…

Bacon is the next best thing to a religion.

It feeds the hungry…

Comforts those in need…

(Tell me this wasn’t created in The South!)

And gives solace to the destitute.

And gives life meaning and purpose in a chaotic world.

Or something like that.

I’m just glad someone’s making a buck off of all this passion.

I hate to see all this fervour go to waste.

So until next time, I will leave bacon where it best belongs…

On a plate, waiting to kill you.

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Thanks once again to my many friends and readers who send me more bacon-related photos than I can shake a bacon swizzlestick at!

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Coffee, Green Tea, May Help Lower Stroke Risk, Research Shows

This is a story that’s been bouncing around the past few days…

The geeks and nerdlings over at ScienceDaily.com put us in the picture.

Green tea and coffee may help lower your risk of having a stroke, especially when both are a regular part of your diet, according to research published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

“This is the first large-scale study to examine the combined effects of both green tea and coffee on stroke risks,” said Yoshihiro Kokubo, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.H.A., F.A.C.C., F.E.S.C., lead author of the study at Japan’s National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center. “You may make a small but positive lifestyle change to help lower the risk of stroke by adding daily green tea to your diet.”

Researchers asked 83,269 Japanese adults about their green tea and coffee drinking habits, following them for an average 13 years. They found that the more green tea or coffee people drink, the lower their stroke risks.

• People who drank at least one cup of coffee daily had about a 20 percent lower risk of stroke compared to those who rarely drank it.
• People who drank two to three cups of green tea daily had a 14 percent lower risk of stroke and those who had at least four cups had a 20 percent lower risk, compared to those who rarely drank it.
• People who drank at least one cup of coffee or two cups of green tea daily had a 32 percent lower risk of intracerebral hemorrhage, compared to those who rarely drank either beverage. (Intracerebral hemorrhage happens when a blood vessel bursts and bleeds inside the brain. About 13 percent of strokes are hemorrhagic.)

Participants in the study were 45 to 74 years old, almost evenly divided in gender, and were free from cancer and cardiovascular disease.

During the 13-years of follow-up, researchers reviewed participants’ hospital medical records and death certificates, collecting data about heart disease, strokes and causes of death. They adjusted their findings to account for age, sex and lifestyle factors like smoking, alcohol, weight, diet and exercise.

Green tea drinkers in the study were more likely to exercise compared to non-drinkers.

Previous limited research has shown green tea’s link to lower death risks from heart disease, but has only touched on its association with lower stroke risks. Other studies have shown inconsistent connections between coffee and stroke risks.

Initial study results showed that drinking more than two cups of coffee daily was linked to increasing coronary heart disease rates in age- and sex-adjusted analysis. But researchers didn’t find the association after factoring in the effects of cigarette smoking — underscoring smoking’s negative health impact on heart and stroke health.

A typical cup of coffee or tea in Japan was approximately six ounces. “However, our self-reported data may be reasonably accurate, because nationwide annual health screenings produced similar results, and our validation study showed relatively high validity.” Kokubo said. “The regular action of drinking tea, coffee, largely benefits cardiovascular health because it partly keeps blood clots from forming.”

Tea and coffee are the most popular drinks in the world after water, suggesting that these results may apply in America and other countries.

It’s unclear how green tea affects stroke risks. A compound group known as catechins may provide some protection. Catechins have an antioxidant anti-inflammatory effect, increasing plasma antioxidant capacity and anti-thrombogenic effects.

Some chemicals in coffee include chlorogenic acid, thus cutting stroke risks by lowering the chances of developing type 2 diabetes.

Further research could clarify how the interaction between coffee and green tea might help further lower stroke risks, Kokubo said.

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Co-authors are: Isao Saito, M.D., Ph.D.; Kazumasa Yamagishi, M.D., Ph.D.; Hiroshi Yatsuya, M.D., Ph.D.; Junko Ishihara, Ph.D.; Manami Inoue, M.D., Ph.D.; and Shoichiro Tsugane, M.D., Ph.D.

The study was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Cancer Research and the Third-Term Comprehensive Ten-Year Strategy for Cancer Control from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan.

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I Lost My Office… AGAIN!!

As followers of this blog know, I have a long and tortured past when it comes to my ‘office’… a certain spot at a certain address which has gone through various incarnations over the last few years.

Originally, I set up shop there when it was The Café on Main.

(Cafe on Main – my office, as it then was)

Then, when it was the Ambrosia Café, I re-inserted myself at the same spot and declared that my office was open once more!

(Ambrosia – my office, right side, farthest table back)

In its present incarnation, the Bridgewater Café has provided me my office space once more. I felt I was, once again, firmly ensconced.

(Bridgewater – my office, in front of the counter near the pillar)

That is, until I walked into the Bridgewater last Tuesday!

Judge my chagrin when my office was replaced with a couch, coffee table and some armchairs!

The pain. The loss. The sense of betrayal.

The lovely Shannon gave some lame excuse about the City finding that there were too many seats/tables for the number of bathrooms available and forced them to reduce the seating space.

(Here’s a shot of the lovely Shannon NOT coming to my rescue!)

Be that as it may, I would have hoped that the staff would have blocked any such attempt to eliminate my office.

Shannon should have put up a fight. I suppose she felt that you can’t fight City Hall. Or at least you can try but you will most likely be charged with assault.

(The fair Ashley – she would have stopped it)

I know for a fact that the fair Ashley, given the opportunity, would have stormed over to City Hall (kitty corner to the Bridgewater) like an angry, torch-wielding villager in a Universal Studios horror movie.

Alas, the damage had been done.

(There it is… GONE!)

This is what has become of my precious office space.

I don’t know which is worse… not having an office… or going to the café, sitting at another table and looking longingly at where my office used to be.

I am NOT happy.

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Rough Morning

Ever have one of those mornings?

Happy Hump Day!

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Wake n' Bacon

Reblogged from Mathlete:

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Version 1 by Matty Sallin, Daniel Bartolini, Hsiao-huh Hsu
Version 2 by Matty Sallin with engineering by Josh Myer

WHAT: An alarm clock that wakes you up with the smell of cooking bacon instead of a buzzer.  The aroma wakes you up, then you can open the oven component and eat the bacon itself.

Read more… 302 more words

Thanks to Steven Burke for bringing this to my attention!

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Just When I Thought I Was Out… The Bacon Pulls Me Back In!

Just When I Thought I Was Out…

They Pull Me Back In…

With Bacon!!

It’s quite remarkable really…

(Darth Bacon!)

This seemingly endless supply of bacon-related artifacts.

Thanks yet again to all the friends and readers who provide me with this outstanding bacon-related photographs!

From the cute…

To the somewhat nerdy.

From the historical…

To the hysterical!

From the political…

to the Existential!

From casual fashion…

to the goofy…

To the Newfie!

And of course….

a portrait of Kevin Bacon… made from bacon!

Let us keep bacon in its proper place…

In a frying pan. Waiting to kill you.

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Unhealthy Interests (Part 7): Grocery Shopping

Most people don’t have feelings either way when it comes to grocery shopping. It is a chore that has to be done and that’s pretty much as far as it goes.

(My idea of a good time!)

Many people HATE grocery shopping. They just can’t stand it.

Many people really enjoy grocery shopping.

(Not me… although it does kinda look like me)

And then there are those of us who simply ADORE grocery shopping. It is one of the highlights of our week!

My dear friend Wendy shares this bizarre passion.

To us, grocery shopping is an adventure! We check out new produce, new products, casually go up and down the aisles. We check out the grocery store staff.

And we check out our fellow shoppers. Sometimes this can be an amusing experience.

(A disgruntled fellow-shopper)

Sometimes it is a disturbing reality check!

I have not yet introduced Wendy to the concept of kosher food shopping in any great detail. It’s a lot of information up front. I think I am going to have to ease the poor kid into it gradually.

(Sometimes a zucchini is just a zucchini)

I’m sure there are all kinds of psychological reasons why we (and people like us) get such an unbridled feeling of joy when we shop for food.

I am even more sure that Wendy and I could not care less what those reasons are.

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