fair summer evening

a note on the value of cliches. they continue to say exactly what they've always said. what's not to love about a few reliable, straight forward phrases? like this one: when it rains, it pours. lately, this blog has been pouring pictures. count your many blessings. if not pictures, than words--a picture says a thousand words--and all i've got inside of me is cliches, and one can only handle so many cliches right? i've been reading cliches online, just to see how many i can handle, in case handling cliches is a special gift i have, and i haven't gotten sick of them yet. i like the combinations that come up--the one i'm including here is especially awesome for how it starts and how it ends. choice.

He's a few balloons short of a parade.
you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear
let's cross that bridge when we come to it
hard as nails
kid-glove treatment
no great shakes
smoke-filled room
go haywire
the cow jumped over the moon
peter out
as the crow flies
hell has no fury like a woman scorned
beyond the pale
the butt of a joke
it's a guessing game
duffing off
hanging fire
turn the other cheek
beg the question
Be careful or you'll poke your eye out!

maybe now that those are out of my system, i'll have something to say. i'm actually feeling a little chatty, so look out!

today's feature has everything to do with county fairs, and yes, there will be a lot of pictures. i know everyone and their dog (seriously, animal facebook pages and websites and twitter feeds and home photo studios are probably right around the corner) thinks that the advent of digital photography and editing software has made them a pro photographer. i know i think that, which is why i keep taking all these predictable pics and posting them on my blog. i'm just trying to stay current with my generation: living to blog, planning my day to give me something to write about, snapping pictures that make boring events look WAY funnerer than they actually were. (props to the people i know who are legit photographers, by the way.)

this county fair was incredibly lame. let's get that straight before i try to persuade you differently with my pics. all i need at a fair is about ten minutes to eat something fried, see a few rednecks, smell the livestock, feel like vomiting, and skedaddle. only the fair costs too much to justify a ten minute in-and-out operation (even though i remember econ 110 and the myth of "Getting your money's worth:" you spend money on a county fair and decide that you don't actually want to go (or stay), but you've paid! so you stay to get your money's worth. at the end of the visit, you're out your money AND the time you spent in the fair when you could have been doing something you really wanted to be doing like watching Hello Dolly! online. actually, getting your money's worth is NOT going to the fair. but whatever. what do economists know anyway?)

a ticket booth inside the fair is the first indication that things are gonna get more expensive before they get less.

man announcing that the circus was t-5 to showtime. "circus"=two-man juggling act haranguing the audience for applause.

sure did like that ferris wheel.

and the post-rain clouds.

swings are always a favorite.

sure did like that ferris wheel.

yup. pigs racing. WAY lamer than it looks.

if only i could turn this pic into a scratch and sniff.... yuckarama.

check out that denim on denim tube top number. 'nuff said.

hazy lazy summer dayshorse race. post finish line. who knew they didn't even race a complete lap, making our position placed after the finish and before the start totally ridiculous?

this guy is bugged too. he may have lost some money too on "All I Can Say is Wow." They name horses the darndest things.

even that kid in the back is starting to catch on to the lameness of fairs.

that's all ya'll. me at the fair, gettin' 'er done.