We made an appearance in the Star Tribune booth today from 11 a.m. to noon. Here are some of the hotly anticipated highlights: *Pictured: Us with the BlueCross BlueShield "Do Groove" guy. We know his real name, but we shall keep him anonymous. He made an appearance from noon-1, and he was extremely good natured about being made to dance on command, wear that sweater vest, etc. The amount of cell phone pictures being taken of him doing the shovel dance and other things was astounding. His popularity almost completely overtook the presence of lowly sports bloggers such as ourself and Howard Sinker in the booth.

*Except: There was a 70ish man in a University of North Dakota jacket who didn't give two [redacteds] about anything but us and Sinker after finding out our names. Quoting verbatim here, as best as we can recall: "You're Michael Rand! ... You're Howard Sinker! I've been reading you guys for years. You're famous! You're right up there with John Grisham and ... Elmore Leonard." It's too bad he's not reading this right now. He told us a story of how he bought a computer two years ago, couldn't figure it out and then gave it away to a school in need. He wanted to know why web site readers can get some things that folks in the paper can't get. We have no idea what he's talking about ... RandBall can be easily mailed to anyone who asks. Actually, he made a good point. We're going to have to think about this a little bit.

*The Star Tribune buttered corn on the cob flavored lip balm giveaway continues to be a hot item. When supplies ran out midway through our run, things threatened to turn surly. Along with Howard, we urged the disappointed masses to shake down random strangers and take it from them if they had any. We're not sure if this was the message the Star Tribune was trying to promote, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

*Social media meets media social: One of the Do Groove guy's handlers (and there were several) turned out to be none other than Andrew Miller of Becky "Icebox" O'Shea tweeting fame. Also, a young reader said he would like to see the Star Tribune get an app for the Android. We e-mailed his message via Blackberry directly back to the powers that be. GIVING THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT.

*Spotted: Multiple people wearing gloves/mittens while at the same time countless people were in shorts and flip flops. This is early September at the State Fair in a nutshell.

*A woman pointed at us and said, "I want that." Get in line, lady! (Actually, she wanted a Star Tribune sports sweatshirt. But she was considering an upgrade to the deluxe package when HR stepped in).