Is it just me, or was the past year marked by a distinct interest in bacon?

My google reader tends to focus on the literary and the crafty, but every now and then, it also feeds foodie features into my line of vision. There was a noticeable increase in the number of bacon-centric offering over the past twelve months.

And then restaurants of all varieties suddenly seemed to have bacon options at every meal of the day.

And then there was the bacon sundae you could get right along with your burger and fries (um, would you like a heart attack with your lunch today, dear fast food diner?).

And then my facebook feed was full of bacon-related Christmas gifts, from t-shirts to poly-filled versions of the breakfast staple.

Has anyone else noticed this? Is there some sort of threat of a bacon shortage and the whole country has gone bacon crazy in a get-it-while-you-can binge? Will someone please tell me why the hell bacon is now such a big deal?

Author’s note: I’m vegetarian now, but even when I ate meat, I wasn’t crazy about bacon. My meat-eating adolescent self thought bacon was, well, kind of icky. Has bacon somehow become tastier in the past decade?