While you're checking out The N&O's coverage of the fair, be sure and watch this video from photojournalist Ted Richardson: Feeding the fair.

It's a great look behind the scenes at the food booth run by Raleigh's Westover United Methodist Church. Warning: We're not responsible if this leaves you hungry!

Ted and fellow photojournalist Travis Long also have this video of the first day of this year's fair. It nicely captures all the fun that young pals Malcolm McIntosh and Riley Niven have riding the rides, playing the games and eating the food.

As a weight guesser, Mike Caron knows that loose lips will get you socked in the gut — esepecially when the customer is on the portly side.

So he's always careful to ask, "Do you want me to guess out loud, or write it down?" It's a professional precaution. Nobody wants the whole midway to know the weight-guesser thinks you're a porker.

"I got hit once," Caron said. "Now I ask."

But flattering patter always works — even when it's a tad flirtatious. As he hands an inflatable baseball bat to a winning mother and her toddler, he jokes, "My guidance counselor was wrong. Women pay me to look at them."

Lest you think the mice in the "Mouse Game" lead a tough life, the game's workers have a disclaimer posted.

In the game, which is near the Exposition Center, a mouse is placed on a roulette-style board. He pauses for a moment, then runs into one of the multicolored holes. Players have placed 50-cent bets on individual colors. If Mr. Mouse picks your color hole, you win a stuffed animal.

The sign notes that individual mice are rotated out on an hourly basis. It also says that the mice are fed a strict, healthy diet of "commercially produced grain and distilled water."

We just hope they also are kept safe from the exhibit right across the way — the 20-foot-long, 300-pound "live snake"!