Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2008

The fair is coming! The FAIR is coming!

My boss passed out our Benton Franklin Fair & Rodeo press badges today, making it official - fair food is just around the corner!

Seems like just last week we were getting our boat race badges and gearing up for one of the most crummy weekends of the year-- I mean, the best traffic-driving weekends of the year...!

My favorite part of the fair is the fair food. It's dripping with oil, battered 'n fried and comes with a warning that says "I will slowly kill you from the inside."

Last year I probably blew over $30 on fair food, which may not seem like a lot to most of you - but imagine eating $30 worth of carnival food in a matter of just two days. Yeah, shiver with me.

But I can't complain because around this time last year I was first beginning to hang out with Mr. Big. I brought him an elephant ear one night and it was a very fun and flirty time.

Two years ago I tried to see how much I could eat and then document how much weight I gained. To accurately weigh myself, I got to stand on the weigher they use to weigh livestock. At the end of the day, it only said I had gained one pound - but by the next day, my personal scale said I had gained six. Hmm...

This past weekend I judged the local American Idol auditions and two sources told me that the local Battle of the Bands at the fair this year was going through some rough times.

Apparently there's another Battle of the Bands in a nearby city that's giving away $1,000 to the winner, so all of the bands, except two, dropped out of the local battle, ultimately causing the main sponsor to drop out. Hearing this left me wondering if there would even be a battle this year.

Then I got an E-mail from a fair representative asking for someone from our department to judge the battle. I guess it lives on.

What doesn't live on is Kleptocracy - that magnificent face-melting-metal band that I got to meet the summer of 2006. Those were good times. However, my boss did pay tribute to them at the boat races, rocking their AtomicTown tribute song at full blast in our little media trailer.