Always wished you had a pocket fair guide to direct you exactly to the racing pigs, the deep-fried candy bar or the Tilt-a-Whirl? This year you can, if you have an iPhone or Android phone.
The fair has its own free app available for download this year. Just search for "NC State Fair" on the iTunes store or the Android Market.
Once you've downloaded it, the app shows you a satellite view of the fairgrounds as you walk around. The foods, exhibits and rides nearby are marked, and you can click each to get more information and even reviews from other fairgoers.
We played around with the app this week and found it to be very useful. The only thing that might make it better would be a live satellite image. (The one that's there is file of the fairgrounds with no booths, rides or people.)
One other nice thing is a daily schedule that can be updated as things change.
By Wednesday afernoon, more than 250 iPhone apps and 125 Android aps had been downloaded.
Check it out before you head to the fairgrounds.
Thad Ogburn is The N&O's Metro Editor, overseeing most local news reporting. His previous jobs have included editor of North Raleigh News and Features Editor, during which he learned that comics attract more reader response than just about anything else we do. His guilty pleasure is reality TV, which he finds not very real at all. That's assuming, of course, there is room on his DVR amid all the episodes of "Say Yes to the Dress" that his wife and daughter record.