As for the bacon event...I have tried to interest my resident bacon-eating specialist in the 2nd annual bacon-eating contest at Atwoods to no avail.
Side note: I considered giving him the gift of "Bacon of the Month Club" for Christmas.
There was an interesting article on bacon in the Boston Phoenix last week, that included lots of interesting info, including an explanation of why Canadian bacon is round, plus the Atwood's contest and a collection of bacon-centric blogs and websites.