Mistaken Bacon Combinations

Defy the thought of defeat, so my struggles I’m embracing’
And it’s amazing how weak are the bubbles that we’re encased in
Never be afraid of your thoughts and if your trouble is motivation
Remember you're not alone, can I get an 'amen' from the congregation?

When you write a blog titled 'Coffee, Bacon, Beer & Sports, you are guaranteed to receive a barrage of well-intentioned notifications of new, interesting and oftentimes disturbing products that utilize a combination of those four pillars of America. They will vary from intriguingly cute (see the coffee drink below) to the artery-cloggingly bizarre (a lifesize football made entirely out of bacon) and several levels in between. I mean don't misunderstand my intentions here, I have a bottle of doughnout bacon maple ale sitting in eyesight right this very moment...



Editor's Note: Seattle's Best recently held a contest to develop a new coffee beverage and the $10,000 winner was a tantalizing drink that included "Level 5 Seattle's Best Coffee® with the unexpected flavors of caramelized bacon and subtle hints of pumpkin pie spice." This is now planned to be served nationwide. For those of you who haven't heard my whining for the past 15 months, Seattle's Best was served at Border's Bookstores...my former place of zen which closed last year. Furthering my argument that God has a personal beef with me.

 





But let's be honest, just between us: not everything we love is designed to go together. I love sex. And I love Robert DeNiro in many of his acting roles. But one vaguely unsettling dream in college aside, the two have never and will never go together. The same goes with bacon and...well many, many things. Bacon beer does not sound appealing to me in any way, shape or unholy form. It's two great tastes that just don't seem like they'd taste great together. I may be wrong but that bottle of Voodoo Doughnot Bacon Maple Ale I'm currently staring at...it may be delicious. But it's been sitting in my room for a year now, its purpose as a comedic conversation piece rather than a refreshing beverage.

If I ate bacon with the frequency most of you seem to think I do, not only would I be dead long before now but my fingers would be far too fat to type this blog. And I'm not technologically savvy enough to employ voice recognition software for this sort of thing. The only reason I can post a blog at all is because Google decided to make an online blog template that a 96 year old with dementia could use (I was going to use a 6 year old in that reference but nowadays children are far superior with technology than I am). I love bacon but it's not designed to go with cinnamon rolls or fruit juice. It shouldn't be served in any form the size of a football or that requires you to buy it in10lb packages. Even greatness has to have limits.

Does that mean I don't want your posts and pics? Absolutely not. Bring it the fuck on. But if you think I'm actually going to prepare that bacon, cheddar, peach and chocolate cupcake recipe you send me you are going to be disappointed. I'm sorry I can't be the hero you need, the champion of excess that you deserve. I'm not Bacon Batman. My arteries and taste buds have spoken.

The Post-Election Blog: Bringing Slaps to the People

Ok, now that I'm assuming you've all got that whole election thing out of your systems can we please focus on what's really important in our country? Like the impending bacon shortage and what we are going to do with all these LIVESTRONG bracelets. I've already banded up all of my old baseball and Pokemon cards and I still have a variety of colors left.

But, seriously...no, you know what? Fuck serious. We've been serious the past few days and rightfully so. Important shit has been happening. But there's a way to state your opinion, a way to engage in discourse, and a way to, as the good people of First Take would say, embrace debate. But unfortunately so many of you haven't been listening to Stephen A. Smith:

 

 

So now, in the spirit of the upcoming holiday, Slapsgiving, and my penchance for stealing from popular sitcoms and movies, I'm here to prepare you all for the true meaning of the giving of slaps. Why slaps? Because an open handed slap, besides being incredibly jarring to the ego, is a nice middle ground between a closed fist strike (too violent to move past once the message is given) and mere words (not impactful enough to get the message across to the ignorant). To quote Kevin Spacey's sympathetic character from Se7en, "Nowadays if you want to get people's attention you can't just tap them on the shoulder, you have to hit them with a sledgehammer." I didn't look up that quote for verification, I'm just reciting it as accurately as I can from my 72 viewings. Oh and also...slaps are fun! If you haven't slapped anyone since childhood, or have never slapped anybody if your childhood was repressed or of non-violent Amish upbringing, you have no idea what you're missing. No A grade in school, no job hire or promotion, no personal accomplishment, no childbirth can match the satisfaction of a well delivered slap to a deserving asshole.

 

Editor's Note: Coffee, Bacon, Beer & Sports does not condone domestic violence or abuse in any way, shape or form. All slaps are to be delivered to the same gender only and even then only as a consequence to genuine douchebaggery.



 

 

My Facebook news feed has been as divided as the front seats on a Hummer this past week. Group A insists that anyone who shares the views of Group B are lobotomized sheep handing out candy and lacking adult genitalia. Group B insists that anyone supporting Group A are heartless money-demons who boil puppies and kittens in (an undoubtedly delicious) stew. Then Group C are the children in the backseat complaining about the radio stations that Groups A and B keep changing up front while they're watching their portable DVD players. (Annnndddd the winner for worst analogy ever posted in a blog: The Hummer 3-Group Facebook analogy. The trophy ceremony will be held at the next BET Awards show after Chris Brown accepts his Humanitarian of the Year award.)

 

So since there are no established cultural guidelines on social media behavior, particularly during elections, tragedies, deaths, etc. how do you know if you should be receiving, or who to give, slaps? Just follow some simple guidelines outlined below:

 

1: If you express strong opinions to your 300+ closest friends and are in any way surprised that you receive dissenting opinions in response, you need to be struck by the Slap of Common Sense. If you yell it from the mountaintop some people at the bottom are bound to feel differently and will pause their goatherding to yell back.

 

2: If you express strong opinions without at least a respectable amount of knowledge and genuine reasonable thought put into your opinion you should expect to receive the Slap of General Principle. And please don't procreate. If said procreation has already occurred, consider adoption. Please, for the child's sake.

 

3: If you defend your strong opinion with sarcasm, cynicism, insults and mocking then tilt your face appropriately, bare your cheek and brace for the Slap of Respect. While sarcasm, cynicism, insults and mocking are some of my favorite things, they are only to be used in trivial matters such as sports teams and musical preferences, not issues of genuine importance, and they nullify your point.

 

4: If you present your strong opinion with the spelling and grammar of a 13 year old girl sneak-texting during algebra class, you will be sent to the principal's office for the Slap of Education. Y u think u go 2 skool 4? Smh.

 

5: If your strong opinions have been shaped entirely by commercials and your Facebook news feed then keep your eyes glued to your TV/computer screen so you can't anticipate the Slap of Media. Repeating things you heard just makes you an opinionated parrot. Get your information from Jon Stewart and Rush Limbaugh like a normal human being.

 

Ok, there are many, many, many (if you're over the age of 30 you should be reading this in the voice of Commandant Lassard from the Police Academy movies) other reasons to slap somebody. Some equally as deserving as those listed, some are just barely disguised excuses to get your slap on. But these are the ones I feel are most appropriate for the current social climate and frankly, I can't believe any of you have read this far. I'm tempted to just start spewing random hate speech or quoting passages from 50 Shades of Grey just to see if anyone's actually bored or masochistic enough to still be reading.

 

In conclusion, the season of slaps is upon us. Depending on which side of the fence you live on you should either be learning to dodge, dip, duck, dive and dodge or preparing yourself physically with a series of strenuous exercises designed to strengthen your slapping motion. Regardless of what you think this week I have done my own dedicated research and as it turns out...the world still has coffee, bacon, beer and sports. So relax. Slap an opinionated friend if you need to. Turns out slapping is therapeutic.

 

 

Video of the Blog (besides the video I already posted)