Bacon

ADMINIPOLOGIES: (in my best Adrian Monk voice) Here's what happened: late last week I read a story in USA Today that told of how many consumers had purchased or received gift cards and were now getting unpleasant surprises when they realized the company was going out of business and only honoring the cards for pennies on the dollar. So when I read that list of store closings in Cup O'Cheer, I tied the two stories together in my head and believed it. Couple that with a project for my daughter's swim team that took, literally, about 10 hours on Sunday and I didn't finish it until well after midnight ... well, I was just too pooped for due diligence. Not an excuse, just a pretty good explanation.

I'm talking about that list of stores closed or due to close that I printed in yesterday's post. As both Snopes and Truth or Fiction concur - though not on which stores - yesterday's list was shot full of holes, inaccuracies, and just enough truth to make us panic. I would ask you to forgive me for publishing errata. The warning about being careful which gift card you buy and making sure the company will be around into 2009, however, is still good advice and - one quick wipe of the brow and an embarrassingly mumbled but deeply felt thanks to list member Diane S. later - you can find more about that from the Better Business Bureau and station KRDO in Colorado here.

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Meanwhile, for those of you with families that think gravy is a beverage, this might interest you: chocolate covered bacon. It's been in the States since August but has just recently become a fab fad in the U.K.

And you thought I was kidding.

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IN PRAISE OF BACON

"Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon." (Doug Larson)

"I've long said that if I were about to be executed and given a choice of my last meal, it would be bacon and eggs. There are few sights that appeal to me more than the streaks of lean and fat in a good side of bacon, or the lovely round of pinkish meat framed in delicate white fat that is Canadian bacon. Nothing is quite as intoxicating as the smell of bacon frying in the morning, save perhaps the smell of coffee brewing." (James Beard)

"We plan, we toil, we suffer -- in the hope of what? A camel-load of idol's eyes? The title deeds to Radio City? The empire of Asia? A trip to the moon? No, no, no, no. Simply to wake up just in time to smell coffee and bacon and eggs. And, again I cry, how rarely it happens! But when it does happen -- then what a moment, what a morning, what a delight!" (J.B. Priestley)

"Friends are the bacon bits in the salad bowl of life." (Author Unknown)

[selected from several sites around the Web]

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WORDS for YOUR WEEK: "A light supper, a good night's sleep, and a fine morning have often made a hero of the same man who by indigestion, a restless night, and a rainy morning, would have proved a coward." (Earl of Chesterfield)

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