Bacon poll, bacon world, bacon lip balm, and my friend's awesome blog

My friend Charlie alerted me to a poll being conducted by Huffington Post about various bacon stuff. They've assembled a slideshow of a series of things made of bacon and ask you to vote on whether it's a good idea or no.

I have to say, a lot of it seems not only silly, but also rather wasteful. I mean, it's obviously temporary - you can drape a bunch of raw bacon on a lamp shade and gleefully declare that you have a bacon lampshade, but I suspect it only lasts long enough to take a photo, because who wants a rancid meat lamp? Stuff like that generally strikes me as kind of ridiculous, unlike bacon martinis or bacon cupcakes, which are probably delicious. Charlie thought that Bacon World would probably be neat to see in real life. I guess artists do kind of get a pass on wasting food if it's for a higher cause.

I was most excited, actually, by the bacon lip balm. That could be pretty awesome. I bet I'd get a lot more kisses with that on my mouth.

In other news, not strictly related to bacon but still kind of neat - my friend Ben recently discovered that he can acquire mussels at $2 a pound, and has embarked on a mission to make 50 different kinds of mussels. He's blogging about it, and if you're into mussels, you should definitely follow his progress - the man knows food. I dunno how much bacon will figure into the picture (he is certainly a big fan of the pork), but there's already one recipe up that involves pancetta, so who knows. Meanwhile, you should definitely tell him about your favorite mussels recipes.