Fluffy: the $35 unicorn.It's been an exhausting week here at Chez Szondy. Summer is drawing to a close, which means two things: First, decent weather where a man can put on a cardy isn't far off and second, it's time for a final fling of family fun before the school gates clang shut on the daughter for another year. I've just spent an exhausting three days that weren't helped by my having just finished a contract for a client nor that I'll need to work like a dog to make up for the last three days, but that's fatherhood for you; loads of responsibilities, tons of joy, and no time to squeeze it all into the annoyingly finite days that God sends to us. Why we can't get the occasional 28 hour day is beyond me.
Anyway, on Friday, the Szondy family went to the Evergreen State Fair. I've always loved agricultural shows, village fêtes, and all the other rural gatherings that filled my childhood in Yorkshire. Give me a tombola, a quince jam competition, a bran tub, and a steam-powered carousel and I'm happy. Throw in a beer tent and a barbecue and I may never go home. Things are a bit different in the States. The fairs are far larger, more professionally organised, and much more expensive, but I can still find a tractor show set up in a field that costs a fiver, if they bother to collect it, and is a joyous day out of hay rides and grizzled old men showing off Ford tractors that were new when Kitchner was alive.
Anyway, back to the Evergreen State Fair. That thing is a money Hoover, so we played it smart and bought our admission, midway, and parking tickets in advance and planned out our day for the most fun for the least expenditure. Then we hit our first and only fairground game and within five minutes the daughter was holding a stuffed unicorn that cost $35. I plan to keep it in a vault.
Things went uphill from there. The wife thought I was insane on insisting that we go there from basically opening to closing, but she soon saw the method in my madness as we let the daughter run her all-you-ride wristband into the ground in the Midway, then alternated that with taking in the free shows, gawping at the handicraft and homemaking competitions, and (my favourite) visiting the animal barns. Naturally, this was punctuated with downing all sorts of meaty, sugary, high-fat, high-cholesterol, low-vitamin, and generally bad for you food that would make a Vegan go into systemic shock.
Warning: Avoid the deep-fried Twinkies; they are disgusting beyond the measure of man.
You'd think this sort of thing would take it's toll and you're right. That's why they invented the Shire horse competition so Mama could take an antacid pill and we could put our feet up for a couple of hours.
The daughter had a particularly good time. Not only did we get to see the pig races, her particular favourite, but she was picked as the cheerleader for her chosen pig, who won and the daughter ended up with a blue ribbon and a photo with the speedy rasher of bacon. She then fell into more luck when a roving magician picked her as an assistant and she got to be as much the centre of attention as an eight-year old could want.
The end of our day was as perfect as we could have hoped. Nearly, anyway. A good portion of it was spent with my having to go on the rides, which I don't care for. I hate being pummeled and whirled about unless there's a point to it and flying through the air suspended by a very thin looking chain isn't so much fun for me as terrifying. Still, the wife timed our evening so that the last ride we went on was the Ferris wheel and that we'd be at the zenith of the giant wheel just at the moment when the fireworks show started. The crowning touch was when some teenagers barged the queue in front of us and I whispered to my wife, "Go ahead. We're destroying the world economy; let's see who laughs last."
They were then ejected for having counterfeit wristbands.
The dogs hate us, by the way. We came home that night reeking of farm animals, grease, sugar, sweat, and sawdust and they were convinced that we'd gone to Heaven and left them behind.
The winning Shire horse team at the parade.
They really were a magnificent rig.
Next day, the town of Monroe had it's State Fair parade, which we attended with our neighbours. it was a perfect example of a small-town fair with everybody in the district taking part from the radio station to the high school to the local cafe. Hard candy was flung to cries of "Look out! Incoming!" Okay, that was me. Equestrian teams rode by followed by a man with a wheelbarrow, and local candidates schmoozed for votes. It was the sort of eclectic, untidy, uneven affair that was tremendous fun simply because everyone was having fun doing it as well as watching it.
It was a hot day and we ended up setting our chairs on the sunny side of the street, which proved a mistake, but we were close enough to the radio station's stand that the daughter and the neighbour kids could bop to their beat.. or something... and that local churches passed out water to us. The latter was fortunate, as the whole thing went on for two hours and without the water and the sweets that I nicked from the daughter's hoard I don't think I'd have made it.
Today, was more of a recuperation day, but the wife's feet and legs were in such bad shape from all the walking that we spent most of it at the local pool where taking the weight off with a bit of buoyancy followed by a soak in the spa did us all a world of good. The water slide was open, which delighted the daughter–especially when she insisted that I have several goes on it. Sometimes I think I agree because the cup of tea that I have in the lobby to restore my nerves while wife and daughter dry their hair is so much more welcome after that.
I'd like to say that I went home and slept soundly after that, but I've three columns to write and a load of jobs to chase after, what with money being insanely tight in this economy (rattles the tip jar), so here it is nearly midnight and I'm pounding away at the keyboard.
Next up: the final road trip of the summer. I have no idea where we're going or if the car will survive, but getting there is half the fun. Getting back is another matter.
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi tells Europe to pay him €5 billion a year to stop "illegal immigration".
Here's the text without the fancy font:
Defense Tech looks at the DARPA idea of a "flying Humvee" and asks the obvious question: Who the *&^ is going to drive the thing?
The BBC looks at the mackerel war and the state of the fisheries. 
Due to a government that thinks that electric cars and fat cheques to African dictators are more important than the defence of the realm, the Royal Navy abandons any hope of fielding VSTOL fighters. 
Fluffy: the $35 unicorn.
The end of our day was as perfect as we could have hoped. Nearly, anyway. A good portion of it was spent with my having to go on the rides, which I don't care for. I hate being pummeled and whirled about unless there's a point to it and flying through the air suspended by a very thin looking chain isn't so much fun for me as terrifying. Still, the wife timed our evening so that the last ride we went on was the Ferris wheel and that we'd be at the zenith of the giant wheel just at the moment when the fireworks show started. The crowning touch was when some teenagers barged the queue in front of us and I whispered to my wife, "Go ahead. We're destroying the world economy; let's see who laughs last."
The winning Shire horse team at the parade. 
It was a hot day and we ended up setting our chairs on the sunny side of the street, which proved a mistake, but we were close enough to the radio station's stand that the daughter and the neighbour kids could bop to their beat.. or something... and that local churches passed out water to us. The latter was fortunate, as the whole thing went on for two hours and without the water and the sweets that I nicked from the daughter's hoard I don't think I'd have made it.
It's the Evergreen State Fair today, so I'm off to look at a bunch of livestock, eat food that is really bad for my ulcer, and take the wife and daughter on a lot of rides that will guarantee that the food does not stay in my system.
The One on the one dollar note–and the designers are serious! 
The Royal Navy may have to borrow fighter planes from the Americans to arm the new carriers.
It's good to see the BBC holding true to its hard-won reputation for scrupulous journalism with this article about an outbreak of ergot poisoning in France in 1951 that claims that it was really an evil experiment the the evil American evil CIA evilly subjecting a village to evil LSD for evil reasons of great evilness.
Castaic jail in California joins the 21st century this week as it installs a new heat ray to put down riots and other outbreaks of violence.
Today is the 1,600th anniversary of the sack of Rome by the Visigoths.
A 62-mile ling traffic tailback that lasted nine days. Or, as it's called in Britain, Monday on the M25.
Should the Royal Navy be cut yet again? Go ahead, but you'd better pray that none of our enemies notice.
How to handle the problem of drug addiction? According to the UK Drug Policy Commission stop calling addicts "addicts".
An arctic laboratory inside a set of inflatable bags designed to blow like a bit of thistledown across the polar wilderness–until it goes sailing off a cliff or a shoggoth tries to mate with it, of course.,
The flat that fits in a three-wheel van. It looks bizarre and it probably has all the stability of a box of sweaty gelignite, but there were times in my life when this would have been a brilliant solution to my travel and living problems.
I will admit that I have a soft spot for any device that has a slot to insert one of its accessories into.
Once a depiction of the Dunkirk spirit during the war, now a portryal of Britain's armed forces after the projected defence cuts.
The "bioethanol fireplace for the eco-conscious". 
From the BBC:
I was pottering about the BBC archives web site when I came across a 1979 gem of a documentary on aerial archaeology. Digging from the Air is such a solid piece of scholarship and so lacking in any sort of pandering or condescension that I would have happily presented it to one of my university classes. It isn't afraid to assume a certain level of education and intelligence in an audience with an attention span greater than that of a hyperactive meerkat. It really feels like a film made by makers and scientists who genuinely want to teach something. I even learned some new things and I'm supposed to be an expert.
From the BBC:
With Mr David Cameron out of town, Mr Nicholas Cregg forgets that as deputy prime minister he is actually part of the government and says something typically daft:
This makes it hallowed.
Everyone hates bendy buses; they say they're ugly, no fun to ride in and dangerous. What should we do?
Another example of what not to try to get me on unless you want two foot-deep furrows dug into the airfield by my fingers.
What? Sarah Connor hasn't even been born yet?
Miss Bryony Gordon in The Telegraph claims that there is nothing wrong with topless sunbathing and that anyone who thinks otherwise is a stuck-up prude. This, of course, is in an opinion piece illustrated with the above image of Bridget Bardot.
James Lileks tears apart a fake retro advert from Brazil that's been annoying me for a week.
Speaking of Lileks, this week his update at the Gallery of Regrettable Foods looks at a topic near and dear to your heart and mine: meat curing.
The hallmark of good writing is to avoid cant, slang, jargon, cliché, buzzwords, and any other linguist abominations that come between the reader and clarity. Unsuckit is a handy little tool in the war against nonsense. Type in whatever bit of businessspeak you're stuck on and it delivers a translation in plain English.
When a country loses its sense of humour, its liberty follows close behind.
The Telegraph claims to have seen leaked budget proposals that would entail defence cuts that would end Britain as a major military power.
