Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and...

Still, I felt a nagging emptiness when I left. That was it? That's the event Minnesotans talk about all year long? --Diablo Cody

You see, my little Diablita, the State Fair is about the annualness of it all. This is a harvest festival. We all get together and celebrate our sunburnt, drunken, fish-poachin', gun-shootin', bike ridin', pontoon wreckin' summers. And, if we happen to come across a bare-chested, 300 pound man with a prosthetic hook for a right arm, wearing a captain's hat, with a distended belly button that would be a b-cup breast if it were on a woman...well, good God woman, that's worth the $9 in and of itself. Some things are different about the Fair each year: the seed artworks, some of the food, a handful of musical acts...but some things are the SAME: like the above photo, an annual rite of "Sparks at the Fair." This year's act was filled with unbridled joy because I had actually bought a digital camera this past winter and was able to capture it in pixilated form for posterity. I apologize, but the only thing I don't like about the State Fair is when they bring in bullshit sissy boy bands like Rascall Flatts, and the scotch eggs. Everything else gets a "10" in my book.