My brother (Chris Cohoon) entered a contest where he added a keyboard track to a Derek Trucks Band song. Here's what he said about it. Sure, I'm biased since he's my awesome brother, but his keyboard track is a real cool addition to the song.

Please go vote for his track. If you're part of the army who brought the Burger Slayer to power, it's time to polish off your internet voting skills again. You're allowed to vote once, you don't have to create an account on indabamusic to vote, and it doesn't take very long. After you vote for Chris, check out some of the other entries in the contest -- there are lot of good ones out there.

You can use the widget below to vote.



Tell your friends to vote for Chris, too!

If you're in the Greensboro area, pick yourself up a copy of Yes! Weekly this week to catch the article about me being the Burger Slayer. On the chow section page of the website, they included my Burger Slayer picture, which is also included in the print edition.

Last week, when we were in Raleigh, I received an email from Hardee's PR asking if I'd be available for an interview with Yes! Weekly about being the Burger Slayer. Of course I'd be available! So, the next day (last Friday), I received a phone call from Brian Clarey, who chatted with me for about 10 minutes. I didn't have a chance to mention that my coronation as Burger Slayer makes me the 2nd champion eater in the family now -- yarbiedoll won a jalapeño-eating contest a few years ago. I also failed to push my anti-DST platform. Even so, I'm really happy with the fun profile Brian put together and I had a great time being the subject of a newspaper interview.

We did either use or give away all of the free burger coupons. We depleted the stack on December 30, somewhere in South Carolina, on our way to Atlanta. I got to try the Philly Cheesesteak Thickburger, which I haven't seen around these parts in a while. It was pretty good, but the Jalapeño Thickburger is still my favorite.

Once again, thanks to all of you for voting for me to be the Burger Slayer and helping to make this all possible!

Been busy lately. No time to post a complete update. But here's a proof of life that I'm home fine. We actually got in about 1930 today -- since then, I've been watching TV and winding down from the travels.

In the past week, I've (not necessarily in order): visited family, given and received presents, driven a lot, lost my voice, been interviewed for a local paper, visited friends, shared an elevator ride with Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, enjoyed a great concert, found a few geocaches, witnessed an automobile accident happen a few yards in front of us in the other lane, read a bunch of Civil War-related articles, stayed up too late, got up too early, ate too much, suffered a half-day with a painful lower back, successfully didn't think about work, and probably a bunch of other things that I can't think of right now. I'll try to remember them all later and write about them.

But now, I'm going to go to bed. Somewhere along the way in my travels, I heard on the radio that I work for a new company now. It'll be interesting to see what's in my inbox at work after having been gone for two weeks.

A couple of quick Burger Slayer updates....

I went to lunch at Hardee's today with yarbiedoll. When we started to approach the counter, the manager recognized me from prior visits and proclaimed "Here's the Burger Slayer!" It was pretty funny and fun to be recognized.

About an hour ago, I got a call from someone at CKE Restaurants (the parent company of Hardee's). She congratulated me for my mighty victory as Burger Slayer and told me that they wanted to contact the local media about me. A marketing campaign like Burger Slayer was designed to encourage people to do exactly what I did -- get all my friends to have fun with it, write about it in blogs, etc. So the folks at Hardee's are happy to see that I'm having a great time as the new Burger Slayer. I don't know if anything will come from them contacting local media, but it's pretty cool. We'll see what happens.

I gave sidelobe an autographed photo today. He took a picture and put it in his blog.

Finally, ( here's a picture of me signing autographs during Wednesday's Burger Slayer party: )

I'm having a celebratory lunch at Hardee's today to celebrate my winning the Hardee's Burger Slayer contest for October 2006.

If you are reading this, you are invited!

Meet me at the Hardee's on Battleground Avenue (Greensboro, NC) at 11:45 this morning (12/6/2006). I've got extra coupons for free thickburgers -- probably enough to give one to everyone who shows up.

I might even be signing autographs.

It's official: I am the October 2006 Hardee's Burger Slayer Of The Month.

I've been being quiet about it lately, waiting for it to all fall in place. It looks like it's all in place now. Over the past few weeks, I've been in touch via phone and email with people from Hardee's about the contest and we worked out all the confusion about me originally not getting contacted when I won. They emailed me a list of questions to answer, and I responded a few days before Thanksgiving. I've been waiting for my prize to show up and for the website to be updated. Well, just before lunch today, yarbiedoll called me and said that I got a FedEx package from CKE Restaurants (parent company of Hardee's). We both figured that was my prize. Then she checked the website and saw that it had been updated with my picture and bio on the official promotion page.

So, there you go, I'm Burger Slayer Of The Month for October 2006. But guess what? There was no Burger Slayer contest for November 2006 and there doesn't look like there's going to be one in December, either. I think the month I won was the final month of the contest, which means that I AM BURGER SLAYER FOR LIFE! I plan to use my position as Burger Slayer for good -- of course, I'll promote the yummy Hardee's burgers for our corporate overlords (whom I welcome), but I'll also attempt to use this as a platform for the elimination of Daylight Savings Time and to help bring attention to underrated condiments like fennel seed.

A big thank you to all of you who made this possible: yarbiedoll for noticing the contest and taking the photo, those of you pimped me out in your own blogs to drum up votes (I'm looking at you, meep, kateshort, sidelobe, yarbiedoll, captain_phil, partywhipple, yesimthegirl, and wyera.), to all of you who took the time to vote for me throughout the life of the contest, and to my parents for believing in me enough to vote for me every day and for being the people to first notice that I had won the contest. Thank you, all of you.

As I mentioned when I previously talked about the Burger Slayer contest, I'm going to be the best Burger Slayer ever! If you want a position in the regime under your new Benevolent Burger Slayer For Life, let me know and I'll see what I can hook you up with.

Next week, there will be a victory celebration at the Hardee's on Battleground (in Greensboro, NC). You're all invited. Watch this space for more details.

I think I may be the Hardee's Burger Slayer for October 2006!

If you go to burgerslayer.hardees.com, you'll note that the picture labeled "Burger Slayer of the Month: October, 2006" is my picture. I've been checking the website periodically since the end of the month to see if any updates have been posted. Until yesterday, that spot for the October winner was blank, but now it's got my picture in it. I was actually out geocaching with yarbiedoll last night when I got a call from my parents to let me know that I won. It was really cool.

Now, I'm not counting my chickens before they're hatched, because I haven't been notified by Hardee's that I'm the winner. I sent them an e-mail earlier today to ask what I needed to do to claim my prize -- I hope they get in touch with me about it soon. I guess I should start deciding how I'll answer the Burger Slayer questions that they're going to ask me for my bio.

So here's a big "thank you" to all of you for helping me achieve this honor, with a special thanks to yarbiedoll for noticing the contest and snapping the picture. I wouldn't have had a chance without all of your help. If you want a position in my benevolent Burger Slaying regime, let me know and I'll see what we can work out. First, I'm going to have to see if I can use my new position to get rid of DST.

Let's celebrate by going to Hardee's!

Today's the last day to vote in the October Burger Slayer contest, and I need your support now more than ever! As I write this blog entry, I'm sitting at just over 400 votes (thank you all very much!) and my competitor in first place is sitting at over 1800. OK, I don't realistically believe that I'll be able to overtake the lead, but I'd love to see a strong showing at the finish. The people at Hardee's aren't necessarily going to pick the top vote-getter to be the Burger Slayer -- they're going to pick the picture they like the best. Perhaps if they notice a frenzy of last-minute voting for my picture, they'll give it a second look and crown me the champion.

I've been amazed by the support I've received over the past several weeks in this campaign. Thank all of you who have voted for me, especially those of you who have come back day after day to cast that important vote. Without your support, I'd be sitting at the bottom of the Burger Slayer pile. Instead, I'm prominently featured on the main page. Thanks to all of you.

Several of you even promoted you in your own journals: meep (here), kateshort (here), sidelobe (here), yarbiedoll (here), and captain_phil (here). sidelobe even went so far to promote me in the greensboro community (here). I think I caught all of the places where you guys drummed up some votes for me. If I missed you, I apologize. If I'm crowned Burger Slayer for October, each of you will have have a position in the new regime waiting for you. Since she found the contest and snapped the picture, yarbiedoll can have whatever position in the regime she wants -- the rest of you should let me know what position you want, and I'll try to make it happen (but no promises).

[Edit: More people are pimping me out! Thanks to partywhipple (here), yesimthegirl (here), and wyera (here) for the support!]

If I'm chosen as Burger Slayer of the Month, I'll be the Best Burger Slayer ever. I'm not going to go into all of the details of my campaign planks right now, but if you have any questions, ask them here and I'll try to answer them in the comments. Trust me, the world will be a better place with drmellow as Burger Slayer.

To vote, head out to burgerslayer.hardees.com and pick my photo. I'm currently on Page 3 of the contest, under the pictures posted on October 13. It's the picture that matches the photo included in this post. So go vote!

Thanks to everyone who's voted for me at burgerslayer.hardees.com -- in the day since I began my campaign of self-promotion, all of you people have brought my photo up into the top five -- just a few votes shy of being featured on the main contest page. Some of you are even promoting me in your own journals -- I appreciate that.

More details, including the awesome photo I'm using to try to win free burgers can be seen at the original post I made yesterday. You have the power to help a buddy get free burgers! Someday, I'll post the details of my burger platform and what you, the voters can expect from me when I'm crowned October's Burger Slayer.

Remember, you can vote every day, so vote often!

Thursday after the heating guy serviced our furnaces, yarbiedoll and I headed to Hardee's to grab a burger before I went back to work. It turns out that they're doing a promotion called Burger Slayer where you take a picture of yourself eating one of their big burgers, upload it to their website, and people can vote on it. Every month, they pick a winner and that winner gets a bunch of free burgers.

So, yeah, of course I entered.

yarbiedoll snapped the picture accompanying this post and we sent it to Hardee's. It appears that they published it Friday afternoon -- I was out of town, so I didn't notice when it went up. Anyway, I'm back in town and noticed that my picture is up and that it already has 6 votes. My vote made 7. Of course, I'm going to ask all of you to go vote for me, too, 'cause that's just the kind of thing you're supposed to do when you enter a contest like this. I couldn't figure out a way to make a direct link to vote for me, so the best I can tell you to do is go to burgerslayer.hardees.com and look for my picture. You'll probably have to click on the link for "View All Pictures And Vote". It's in the gallery, posted on October 13 -- the second one. You'll know which one it is, 'cause it's the one that looks like the picture in this post, except they cropped it a little bit. You can vote for me every day, and I'd sure appreciate it if you did.

Help a buddy get free burgers!