terms of notoriety and how far people are able to stretch one culinary theme". The event included lectures on bacon as art, a PowerPoint presentation of the Obacon project (a recreation of the famous Obama Hope poster), as well as judging and awards. The slide show from the event includes a wide range of innovative food and decorative bacon entities. The San Francisco Weekly advised those attending to live, breathe, and smell like it and to bring a bacon dish. Events In and around Baltimore, Maryland, bacon has featured at various eating and drinking establishments. There is a "clamoring" for the bacon happy hour at Bad Decisions bar in Fells Point which includes a menu that is completely redone with bacon dishes and big bowls of bacon served on the bar (using up to 30 pounds of bacon in a two-hour period). A cafe in Hampden offers the Bacon Bulleit, a cocktail of bourbon, lemon, and maple syrup, "with applewood smoked bacon replacing the swizzle stick." The "Bacon Takedown" competition in Brooklyn, New York, was held March 29, 2009 and featured 30 contestants vying for the best bacon dish. The winner was bourbon-bacon ice cream. The "Bacon Mania" ABC News segment covered the event and noted that $2 billion in bacon was sold in the United States in 2008 and that "with the bacon business booming... you might say our love affair with the breakfast meat is more passionate than ever". On February 28, 2009, the second annual Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival in Des Moines Iowa hosted a sell-out event for more than 300 people. First held March 1, 2008, on National Pig Day, it was founded by Brooks Reynolds, and the 2013 sold 8000 tickets in three minutes. Humor about bacon includes an April Fool's day story about a putative all-bacon restaurant and the supposed creation of "squeezable bacon" including a video advertisement. A group of graduate students in Boulder, Colorado, has established an International Bacon Day celebration which is now in its fifth year. In Portland, Oregon there are multiple bacon events each year, including Portland Baconfest. These are described as "some of the happiest places in the world" by attendees. These events focus on fun just as much as bacon. Possible decline Negative publicity surrounding swine flu, although not transmitted via pork product consumption, hit sales and prices in the pork industry in 2009. Heather Lauer, author