It feels like I'm slowly making my way backwards with pictures and stories from the Expo instead of simply starting at the beginning. So the best I can do right now is pick a picture from the Expo that sums up my feelings right now and just run with it.
What you are seeing here is simply a beautiful representation the end of the Expo: a crumpled mass of empty cardboard.
You see, the exhibitors take a lot of time setting up their displays, showcasing their new products and best products - and then GUARDING THE HELL OUT OF THEM. Tape, signage, stern lectures - anything that keeps the display looking nice so that it will attract business and intrigue about the products. An empty display sells no product.
Then 1pm hits on Thursday afternoon. The exhibitors are tired and there's only an hour left of the convention. Some of them decide to go the whole nine yards and say "these are my products, my supply is limited, I'm packing it up and taking it back with me".
The other 95% say "why waste that time and energy? I don't need this stuff, as it has now completed its purpose - take it off my hands."
Well, of those 95% of vendors, I'd say half of them willingly say it, and the other half are just victims of it. The greed takes over, and the masses want their freebies and souvenirs and bragging rights.
Ferrero Rocher is my prime example - their displays are exquisite pillars of shiny wrapped candies in shiny translucent boxes. And every year, one of the attendants at their large booth finally waves the white flag and says, "You see all those 'DO NOT EAT' stickers and the tape we use to keep our candies safe from you masses? IGNORE THEM."
Bedlam ensues. Within a span of 15 minutes, the displays go from shining examples of a company's pride to . . . well, you can see the picked-clean skeletons of cardboard discarded in the center of the carpeted area, devoid of any signs of life or sugary goodness. Around the hall, you can see the boxes in threes and fours tucked under the arms and poking from the tops of the bags of the victors.
Because to the victors go the spoils of war.
And all that remains on the battlefield are the tiny stains of ground-up chocolate mashed into the carpet as casualties of war and the cardboard graves in memorium to those candies who perished on this glorious day that shall live in infamy.
Until next year, Ferrero Rocher... Until next year...
Showing posts with label pictures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pictures. Show all posts
Friday, May 28, 2010
Snacks and Sweets Expo 2010 - A Picture of the End
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
In the RedEye: 5 on 5 - March 23, 2010
I finally made it back into the RedEye, folks! And this time with a picture and everything!
It all started last Wednesday when I e-mailed my answers to the Sports section's "5 on 5" request. I thought my answers were rather amusing, so I sent it in.
Well, I didn't get in, but the guy said he'd be connecting me to someone who will get back to me and will put me in the Tuesday "5 on 5" instead because he already booked the Thursday one! So I waited patiently and on Sunday night, I got this e-mail:
"Hey Aaron, [Columnist] gave me your contact info so we could get you into 5 on 5s this week. I'm filling in for him while he's on vacation. Thanks for getting in touch with us. The questions are below, and I need your answers by 2 p.m. Monday. Let me know if there are any questions, and definitely send us a picture (a head/shoulders shot will do) if you have not done so already.
1. What else can be solved with a bracket-type tournament?
2. Create a rallying cry for a team in the Sweet 16.
3. With their 10-game skid snapped, what do the Bulls do for an encore?
4. Whom would you like to see announcing March Madness games?
5. What will Ozzie Guillen do when he bores of Twitter?"
So I sent in my responses.
As is customary, I wrote too much and they had to cut it down to make it fit. So here are my responses in full and I'll bold the parts that got kept in.
1. What else can be solved with a bracket-type tournament?
Government bailouts. I don't want my money going to bail out a company that hasn't fought from a Sweet 16 to the Championships. [won a tourney.]
2. Create a rallying cry for a team in the Sweet 16.
"Northern Iowa Panthers: Your Office Probably Hates Us Now!"
3. With their 10-game skid snapped, what do the Bulls do for an encore?
The obvious answer is "an 11-game skid", but I think they could hit 12 or 13 easily. Can't underestimate the Bulls!
4. Whom would you like to see announcing March Madness games?
We need a new insulting, snarky Brit to handle sports like Simon Cowell does for singing and Gordon Ramsay for cooking. And put him courtside with a bullhorn for maximum chance of crying.
5. What will Ozzie Guillen do when he bores of Twitter?
He'll spend his days updating his status message on Facebook and throwing sheep at the managers of other teams.
I also sent in two headshots for them to pick from. One was my famous "sombrero" picture, which I realize didn't have the standard headshot look with shoulders that they tend to use, so I included a backup picture of me in my suit and power tie. And sadly, that's the one they used. Though it's a hilarious contrast from the other pictures in the column.
You can see for yourself in the ONLINE edition if you're not a Chicagoan and have access to the actual paper today.
Well, that's all for now! Maybe someday I'll finally get a gig as a guest columnist for the RedEye!
Hey - Digg this article!
Read more!
It all started last Wednesday when I e-mailed my answers to the Sports section's "5 on 5" request. I thought my answers were rather amusing, so I sent it in.
Well, I didn't get in, but the guy said he'd be connecting me to someone who will get back to me and will put me in the Tuesday "5 on 5" instead because he already booked the Thursday one! So I waited patiently and on Sunday night, I got this e-mail:
"Hey Aaron, [Columnist] gave me your contact info so we could get you into 5 on 5s this week. I'm filling in for him while he's on vacation. Thanks for getting in touch with us. The questions are below, and I need your answers by 2 p.m. Monday. Let me know if there are any questions, and definitely send us a picture (a head/shoulders shot will do) if you have not done so already.
1. What else can be solved with a bracket-type tournament?
2. Create a rallying cry for a team in the Sweet 16.
3. With their 10-game skid snapped, what do the Bulls do for an encore?
4. Whom would you like to see announcing March Madness games?
5. What will Ozzie Guillen do when he bores of Twitter?"
So I sent in my responses.
As is customary, I wrote too much and they had to cut it down to make it fit. So here are my responses in full and I'll bold the parts that got kept in.
1. What else can be solved with a bracket-type tournament?
Government bailouts. I don't want my money going to bail out a company that hasn't fought from a Sweet 16 to the Championships. [won a tourney.]
2. Create a rallying cry for a team in the Sweet 16.
"Northern Iowa Panthers: Your Office Probably Hates Us Now!"
3. With their 10-game skid snapped, what do the Bulls do for an encore?
The obvious answer is "an 11-game skid", but I think they could hit 12 or 13 easily. Can't underestimate the Bulls!
4. Whom would you like to see announcing March Madness games?
We need a new insulting, snarky Brit to handle sports like Simon Cowell does for singing and Gordon Ramsay for cooking. And put him courtside with a bullhorn for maximum chance of crying.
5. What will Ozzie Guillen do when he bores of Twitter?
He'll spend his days updating his status message on Facebook and throwing sheep at the managers of other teams.
I also sent in two headshots for them to pick from. One was my famous "sombrero" picture, which I realize didn't have the standard headshot look with shoulders that they tend to use, so I included a backup picture of me in my suit and power tie. And sadly, that's the one they used. Though it's a hilarious contrast from the other pictures in the column.
You can see for yourself in the ONLINE edition if you're not a Chicagoan and have access to the actual paper today.
Well, that's all for now! Maybe someday I'll finally get a gig as a guest columnist for the RedEye!
Hey - Digg this article!
Read more!
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
New Show Idea!
I'm always trying to come with horrible new TV shows, in hopes of one day landing one with a TV exec and getting paid a decent amount of money (not "retirement" money, but "living comfortably while keeping my job" money) and getting to appear in the credits or something. You know, a legacy. And more bad TV!
In the past, most of my efforts have gone to a FOX-style TV show called "V.D. Island" which would have honestly fit in perfectly with the FOX steaming pile of reality crap television. It's basically "The Mole" meets "Tempation Island", in which you basically have 10 males and 10 females all with clean bills of health except for one who secretly has a venerial disease. I'm thinking it would be best to do this show with an STD that can be fought with antibiotics, but it's up to the producers. It's basically a show where contestants have to have sex with someone at least once a week and try not to get the disease. The real fun comes in when people realize they've GOT the disease and since nobody's booted off the island, they get to trick other people into having sex with them just to screw them out of the prize. Would it come down to rape? Who knows! It's FOX programming at it's finest, no?
The real FOX-style twist would be when on the final episode, as the host is announcing the winner who does not have the VD that everyone else has...
...the host stabs the winner in the arm with a syringe and screams "YOU'VE GOT VD!" and hope on a helicopter as all of the signs flip-change to read an extra "ESCAPE FROM" over the "V.D. ISLAND"! Now it's a NEW reality show where 20 people with V.D. have six weeks to escape from V.D. Island! Plus, as an incentive, for every week they DON'T escape, they airdrop in a ravenous lion - who also has V.D.! The show would only obviously last two seasons (or whenever they get cancelled due to death-related lawsuits), but I think that's enough to get the ratings and merchandising enough to turn a profit.
I'm off the toppic - I have a NEW show idea. It's certainly not good enough for FOX (and by that, I mean "not profitable or horrendous enough") but it would do well on a network like maybe Food Network, given the nature of it.
I'm still working on a title.
Here's the premise:
A crew goes to a fast-food place, somewhere that has those deceptive-looking pictures of menu items (I've found them mostly at Chinese places, but most fast food locations would work just as well) and you basically tell the cashier that you will pay $100 if they can produce in ten minutes the equivelant food item that is represented in the picture. The footage would show the crew scrambling to adjust things or maybe make something fresh for a change just to try and piece together all of the elements of the picture in order to satisfy the judge. The end result would be a photo match showing the picture and the item, and if it comes close enough they get the money to be split among the crew, otherwise they get paid the regular value of the item.
Since the ten minutes of time they need to make the item is obviously not long enough for one full half-hour episode (I doubt that even with minimal editing, there isn't even going to be ten full minutes of footage that's airworthy), Food Network might have the classier programming to maybe take a few minutes to do some background on the location, or air the letter or video send in requesting that their team tackle this location. I can't wait to see angry patrons showing video of the picture on the menu and the pathetic excuses for food that are served, demanding this kind of satisfaction to be televised. Maybe as a bonus, they have that patron who sent the request actually show up at the location to eat the end results and maybe give a food rating or just a statement of gratitude.
Maybe as a show-off, they could have a moderately-famous chef as the host and after the ten-minute judging, the chef would get behind the counter and use their ingredients to try and out-do them in making the visual masterpiece? The possibilities are quite extensive. I think it would make for great bad-TV, something you flip to and wonder what it is long enough to stay tuned, like a car accident that piques your interest.
What do you think? Would you watch this kind of show? Should I create a real pitch for it? Do you have restaurants screwing you over with inaccurate visual representations of their food? Should I just stick to "V.D. Island"-type shows?
(Fact: My dad used to order burgers from Carl's Jr. with the phrase "extra messy" because he wanted them to accurately represent the sloppy claims made in the TV advertisements. For those of you not familiar with one of Carl's Jr. or their slogans, "If it doesn't get all over the place - it doesn't belong in your face.") Read more!
In the past, most of my efforts have gone to a FOX-style TV show called "V.D. Island" which would have honestly fit in perfectly with the FOX steaming pile of reality crap television. It's basically "The Mole" meets "Tempation Island", in which you basically have 10 males and 10 females all with clean bills of health except for one who secretly has a venerial disease. I'm thinking it would be best to do this show with an STD that can be fought with antibiotics, but it's up to the producers. It's basically a show where contestants have to have sex with someone at least once a week and try not to get the disease. The real fun comes in when people realize they've GOT the disease and since nobody's booted off the island, they get to trick other people into having sex with them just to screw them out of the prize. Would it come down to rape? Who knows! It's FOX programming at it's finest, no?
The real FOX-style twist would be when on the final episode, as the host is announcing the winner who does not have the VD that everyone else has...
...the host stabs the winner in the arm with a syringe and screams "YOU'VE GOT VD!" and hope on a helicopter as all of the signs flip-change to read an extra "ESCAPE FROM" over the "V.D. ISLAND"! Now it's a NEW reality show where 20 people with V.D. have six weeks to escape from V.D. Island! Plus, as an incentive, for every week they DON'T escape, they airdrop in a ravenous lion - who also has V.D.! The show would only obviously last two seasons (or whenever they get cancelled due to death-related lawsuits), but I think that's enough to get the ratings and merchandising enough to turn a profit.
I'm off the toppic - I have a NEW show idea. It's certainly not good enough for FOX (and by that, I mean "not profitable or horrendous enough") but it would do well on a network like maybe Food Network, given the nature of it.
I'm still working on a title.
Here's the premise:
A crew goes to a fast-food place, somewhere that has those deceptive-looking pictures of menu items (I've found them mostly at Chinese places, but most fast food locations would work just as well) and you basically tell the cashier that you will pay $100 if they can produce in ten minutes the equivelant food item that is represented in the picture. The footage would show the crew scrambling to adjust things or maybe make something fresh for a change just to try and piece together all of the elements of the picture in order to satisfy the judge. The end result would be a photo match showing the picture and the item, and if it comes close enough they get the money to be split among the crew, otherwise they get paid the regular value of the item.
Since the ten minutes of time they need to make the item is obviously not long enough for one full half-hour episode (I doubt that even with minimal editing, there isn't even going to be ten full minutes of footage that's airworthy), Food Network might have the classier programming to maybe take a few minutes to do some background on the location, or air the letter or video send in requesting that their team tackle this location. I can't wait to see angry patrons showing video of the picture on the menu and the pathetic excuses for food that are served, demanding this kind of satisfaction to be televised. Maybe as a bonus, they have that patron who sent the request actually show up at the location to eat the end results and maybe give a food rating or just a statement of gratitude.
Maybe as a show-off, they could have a moderately-famous chef as the host and after the ten-minute judging, the chef would get behind the counter and use their ingredients to try and out-do them in making the visual masterpiece? The possibilities are quite extensive. I think it would make for great bad-TV, something you flip to and wonder what it is long enough to stay tuned, like a car accident that piques your interest.
What do you think? Would you watch this kind of show? Should I create a real pitch for it? Do you have restaurants screwing you over with inaccurate visual representations of their food? Should I just stick to "V.D. Island"-type shows?
(Fact: My dad used to order burgers from Carl's Jr. with the phrase "extra messy" because he wanted them to accurately represent the sloppy claims made in the TV advertisements. For those of you not familiar with one of Carl's Jr. or their slogans, "If it doesn't get all over the place - it doesn't belong in your face.") Read more!
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