Meet “Big Tex,” the Texas State Fair’s mascot, scaring the crap out of people since 1952.

Yo, people. Sam is still sick. He went back to bed around 9:30, and bed is a damn good place for him to be. Since I don’t want to turn on the TV and disturb him I thought I’d spend a little time horsing around with the Howdygram. I’ve even got a vanilla phosphate and six different slot machine games on my iPad to keep me company. In case you’re interested, a vanilla phosphate — which tastes like cream soda — is made with 10 pumps of DaVinci sugar-free vanilla syrup and a 12-oz. can of cold seltzer. We’ve got an entire pantry full of these amazing DaVinci things in all of our favorite flavors, including banana, pineapple, peach, watermelon, raspberry, blueberry, chocolate, lime, root beer and strawberry! ENOUGH TO MAKE MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF PHOSPHATES!

If you want to buy some of these for yourself I recommend Netrition.com because they carry every DaVinci flavor imaginable with cheapo flat-rate shipping no matter how many bottles you buy. (Be sure to order a bunch of syrup pumps, too. They screw on.)

Yee-haw! The State Fair of Texas — still the largest state fair in the United States — will be open September 28 through October 21 at Fair Park in Dallas, just in case you’re planning to be in town for this huge and festive hoo-hah. Regular gate admission is $16 for adults and $12 for children and seniors, but there are several excellent discount specials that might interest you.

• Seniors get in FREE on Thursdays.
• On Wednesdays bring three cans of food as a donation to area food banks and admission is just $2 courtesy of Kroger. Yay Kroger!
• Bring an empty Dr. Pepper can on Tuesdays to get in for only $5. Belch at the ticket counter for a free bag of popcorn. (Just kidding.)

Pictured below is “Big Tex,” the State Fair’s mascot, who stands five stories tall and scares the crap out of everybody at the main gate booming “HOWDY! WELCOME TO THE STATE FAIR OF TEXAS!” in a voice that reminds me of the Jolly Green Giant. (Does anybody remember those commercials?) Big Tex gets a new outfit every five years. He weighs 6,000 pounds, his hat is 75 gallons, his boots stand more than seven feet tall and his pants inseam is 200 inches. Holy crap, that’s one gigantic dude. Do you think he’s anatomically correct?

I’m tired tonight so I think I’ll just wrap up this post, do my nightly insulin injection (oh boy!) and join Sam in dreamland. Thank you for reading this.