If you’re like many highly literate people, seeing alot is like chewing on aluminum foil. It doesn’t sit well with me either. But I am of the considered opinion that while it may not become the formal standard, it’s not going away either – because it makes a certain intuitive sense. Read the reasoning in my latest article for The Week:
Hey, grammar nerds! Stop freaking out about ‘alot.’
Sesquiotica 
Have you seen the Hyperbole and a Half treatment of alot?
You beat me to it, Wilson. I was just about to comment with that link.
I was considering whether to include it. I thought it might seem shoehorned so I left it out, but when Slate reposted it on their Lexicon Valley blog, they found a way to add the link smoothly. See http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/07/21/alot_ahold_awhile_history_of_vanishing_spaces_after_a_at_the_beginning_of.html
Nice!