The Busine$$ of Convention$

Spring Comdex÷Chicago: During the Paleolithic Era, cavemen gathered to decide who would kill what mastadon, who was using the best spears, and who could drag their women the farthest without ruining the pH balance in their hair. Eerily, this was a precursor to all conventions that would come in future times. At Spring Comdex, the cavemen are now venture capital money boys looking for Internet startups, checking to see who's funding what, and trying to drag the life out of any company that has "Interactive" in the title. Penthouse Interactive, John Deere Interactive, Pewter Statues Interactive, Isolated Hermits Interactive. They don't make sense, but they have "Interactive" in the company name, so give them a couple million in funding and watch the stock skyrocket. Just don't ride too long.

Back to conventions. Does it need a theme? An important keynote speaker? (How soon before B. Gates speaks at an exhaust pipe convention?) A focused agenda? Nah. Just pack 'em in at $495 a pop for registration, charge 4 grand for booths, sell glossy 4-color ads in the program guide, do special parties, press events and gala strip bar offsites, and you'll make a mint. Your costs? The convention center rent (which is probably offset by all the money you bring the hotels in the city), some PR and handholding, and printing the program. Piddling compared to the money pouring in for all the doodads you charge for: putting stuff in the convention bag, selling ads on the convention bag, letting people pay to asphyxiate themselves with the convention bag. The opportunities are endless.

Though we're not sure how it works in Chi-town, when Comdex takes over Las Vegas, it really takes over. Want to get a hotel room? They've all been bought by Comdex and are resold to people at outrageously inflated prices. What used to be a $39 special at Circus Circus is now a $150 Comdex luxury suite. Is this an overt monopolizing, price-fixing, money-gouging technique perfected by mafiosos? Yes, but few complain, and fewer stop going. And if Comdex loses its hustling, bustling, sweaty cachet, there's always something else to take its place: E3, PC Expo, Dog & Puppy Worldwide Expo and ChowFest. You go, you pay, you drink to forget. This is the world of high-priced conventions, a cycle of spending and expensing that can only be justified in the yell heard round the industry: everyone else is going, so I've gotta go!

Alta Vista Celebrity Name Search-Off, Round 1 (cont.)

Tom Cruise vs. Marc Andreessen

One's a sexy, hot, topline actor who hawks PowerBooks, and has a brain the size of a pea (how else do you explain "Cocktail"?); the other's an overweight, gawky millionaire who loves making faces at press conferences when Microsoft is mentioned.

The Tally:
Marc Andreessen: 4,000 matches
representative site: USA Today÷"Stock options make instant, paper millionaires"
http://www.usatoday.com/news/acov.htm

Tom Cruise: 2,000 matches
representative site: Tom Cruise Psychobabble
http://www.echonyc.com/~ngraham/cruise.html

excerpt: "The twinning of safe boy-next-door (Tom) and the sexual adventurer (Cruise) in this dream figure points to unresolved relationship issues at work in the dreamer's psyche."

Who said looks count on the Web? And gosh, Tom, we couldn't see all your fan pages if it hadn't been for geeky Marc's Mosaic.