Does SF stand for State Fair or Science Fiction?

I peered a little closer at the embroidery and grabbed my husband as he came around the corner. "Hey. What does that look like?"

My husband looked. "It looks like -- oh, I know what that is."

I nodded triumphantly. "That's what I thought it was." (We've been married long enough that much of our conversations take place via matrimonial telepathy.) I leaned closer to take a picture of the embroidered item and spotted the name on the tag next to the first place ribbon. "Merrie Burnett! I should have looked to start with."

"That" was an embroidery of the TARDIS from Doctor Who fame, and I remembered Merrie Burnett from a couple of years ago, when she won second place for her embroidery of the spaceship Serenity from the TV show Firefly.

We've got our share of techies in North Carolina, and you can tell at the Fair -- whether it's the R2D2 cake, or the robot bird in the art contest, or the science-fiction themes popping up in the embroidery contest. Keep an eye out for these unexpected references as you wander around the Fair.