Chicago Style Pizza - No, Not Really

Chicago Style Pizza - Not Really

Back in late February this year, I attended the national Halloween trade show in Chicago, Illinois. Once inside the convention center, you are pretty much at their mercy when it comes to breakfast and lunch. To leave the building for lunch would take too much time so we conventioneers dine under the roof.

This year, the convention offered very few choices for sustenance. Choosing the lesser of several evils, I ordered a piece of pizza and a diet Coke. Now I know some of you are thinking, hey, you are in Chicago, home of the famous Chicago style pizza. It has to taste fabulous right? It's Chicago!

Well, as you can see, this piece of pizza had absolutely no style. The only positive was that the pizza was warm. Not hot, but warm. heat lamps were doing their job that day. The crust was flat, a little doughy, and bland. The cheese was present, and that's all I have to say about the cheese. The sauce, well, there was red and orange fluid on the pizza which I guess could substitute for pizza sauce. The taste, well, it was filling and curbed my hunger allowing me to photo more sexy Halloween models in skimpy costumes. The cost, $5 dollars. Per slice. To put that in perspective, an 8 slice pizza would cost $40 dollars.

The Grassy Knoll Diner scores 1.5 out of 5 shots and under regular circumstances would never recommend this pizza. However, with very few food options inside the convention center, we recommend Chicago's Rosemont Convention pizza for lunch.

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Christmas In July Leg Lamp

Christmas In July

At the March Las Vegas ASD show, I happened upon a booth selling the infamous "Leg Lamp," from the classic movie, A Christmas Story. I had to have the Leg lamp. After a small negotiation, I bought two of them, one the full sized one pictured here and a 24 inch lamp that is in my office.

The Leg Lamp pictured is 40 inches tall, and to my knowledge, is an exact replica of the one featured in the movie right down to the fishnet stockings, fancy strings hanging from the shade, and I believe I detected just a whiff of ozone when I plugged it into the wall outlet.

It was Electric Sex at it's finest. And yes, it will be displayed in our upstairs window at Christmas.

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Hey Donkey

Being a veteran of trade shows, I am quite familiar with the setup and mechanics of the ones I attend. Except for one show I was asked to attend and fill in for a colleague of mine.

Usually, I know what hall the show is located in and the name of the company I will be assisting, the personnel in the booth, and the booth row and booth number. That wasn't the case for this show.

All I knew is the that it was located in the Nashville convention center and I was to be there Friday and Saturday. I asked my colleague how was I going to find where I needed to go.

He said he knew the first name of the contact, (Mike) but not the company name he was exhibiting under because they went under several names. However, he said I wouldn't have any problem finding the booth. He said to walk into the show and listen for a man that sounded like Shrek!

Shrek! WTF? I asked, "That's it! That's how I'm supposed to find the booth? By listening for a man that sounded like the Disney cartoon character Shrek?" He assured me that I would have no problem.

My flight to Nashville was uneventful and I checked into my hotel and went to find Shrek in the convention center. Thankfully, this trade show was a small one, only about 300 vendors and about 600 booths lined up in 10 rows. (Some shows have thousands of vendors and thousands of booths)

I decided to start at the first row and work my way around the show. I walked up the aisle slowly listening to the people talking hoping to hone in on the Shrek voice. No luck in row one. None in row two or three either. As I turned the corner of row four, I heard a man talking very loud. With an accent. A Scottish accent. I heard him say, "Hey donkey, that's not where that goes." A few seconds later I came face to face with Shrek. He was talking up a storm and he sounded exactly like Shrek. And looked a lot like him as well. A blockhead, big ogre type shoulders, tall, round stick out ears, just sans the green coloring. Give him a club and he could double as Shrek.

I started laughing out loud. Shrek, (Mike) turned around and stopped what he was doing for a moment and sized me up. He then said, "Oh, look at the funny man. Who are you supposed to be?" I told him I was Patrick and was here to help him. He said, "Oh, that's just great!" I told him, "Just don't call me donkey there Shrek!"

My colleague forgot to tell me that Mike (Shrek) didn't like to be compared to the cartoon character. Mike clammed up for a moment, gave me one of those upset looks that Shrek did and folded his arms and just stared at me. I couldn't help it. I said, "Hey look, it's Cameron Diaz!" (Princess Fiona, Shrek's love interest) All weekend long I called him Shrek. After a while, he got used to it.

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$3.00 Hot Dog

This is what a $3.00 hot dog at a typical trade show looks like. Yes, 3 bucks for a hot dog. And not even a foot long, or a chili dog, just a plain hot dog.

This one was purchased at the Smoky Mountain Gift Show in Gatlinburg, Tennessee November 6th, of this year. Being a little busy that day, I decided to stop at the kiosk and grab a dog. What a mistake. I re-tasted that hot dog all day long and well into the evening. That was the last hot dog I will buy there. (BURP!)

The Grassy Knoll Institute fires 1 out of 5 shots and does not recommend trade show hot dogs.

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LURKING ON THE GRASSY KNOLL