Alabama National Fair

Last night I went to the Alabama National Fair.







Yes, it's a national fair. Nothing on the website seems to indicate why exactly it is a national fair as opposed to a state fair, but I assume it's because the contests at the fair accept entries from non-Alabamans.



Anyway, it's a pretty typical state fair with livestock, competitions, food, games and rides.











The major attraction at the fair was Krispy Kreme's Donut Burger.







These things have been around for years up north (a google search produces hits going back to 2006). It's simply a bacon cheese burger with a glazed donut for a bun (aka "The Luther"). It contains nearly 1,100 calories and 67 grams of fat. Of course I had to have one and document the experience:







It tasted like a burger with a donut. And it was delicious.






Something more unique to the fair was pig racing.



Unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to the hype.



For each race the MC rambled for about 5 minutes and then the actually race took about 15 seconds.



But this one race was pretty good.







Instead of going around the track the pigs had to swim through a water obstacle. Notice how far the last pig manages to jump.

Baseball in ATL

Last Saturday I went to the Phillies-Braves game in Atlanta.

I wore a Ryan Howard t-shirt and Phillies hat and expected to get crap for it. From going to Eagles games since the 1980s, I'm pretty much expect a few fights to erupt during division games between fans of the opposing teams.



So I was surprised how polite Braves fans were. No one said anything. When I was climbing over seats to get back to my row Braves fans volunteered to hold my food. After the game they were coming up to me joking how I ruined Bobby Cox appreciation Day (Phillies won 7-0). Had this been Philadelphia, a more likely reaction from hometown fans would have been voluntary vomiting.



I was also surprised with how many Philadelphia fans were at the game -- easily 10% of the crowd. Some people must have been from Philadelphia -- roundtrip flights on Saturdays are only $150 and Braves tickets are very easy to get last minute. Despite the Braves still being in the wild card race at that point, I was able to get tickets three days before the game.