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Godzilla vs. the Expo Monster
or, Why Do We Do It?
By Kirk Hiner
July 16, 2002

I should really be packing.

Macworld Expo is tomorrow, after all, and I've got the long haul to New York today. I have to pack, I have to go withdrawal more money than I should, and I have to get at least one of my watches fixed. Five watches I have in this house, and not one of them has a working battery. How does this happen to a man? I guess time will march on even if I'm not accurately monitoring it.

The thing is, I just went through all of this on Friday. Four days ago, I packed everything up, I withdrew more money than I should have, and I realized that I need to get at least one of my watches fixed. Then, I was heading the opposite direction; instead of eight hours on I-80 through Pennsylvania and New Jersey to attend Macworld Expo in New York, I spent seven hours on I-80 through Ohio and Indiana to attend the annual G-Fest in Chicago.

I'm not embarrassed to tell you that the G in G-Fest stands for Godzilla. If you're the type who regularly reads my column, or even if you've just wandered over this way for the first time, but were still on a Macintosh news site, you probably understand fandom and the extreme measures some will take to feed that fandom.

See, being a 32-year-old fan of Godzilla requires an awful lot of explaining to many different people. Few are willing to accept that movies about giant monsters can be entertaining to anyone over the age of twelve, and I guess they're justified in that thought. When western culture thinks of Godzilla, they think of horrible special effects and equally horrible overdubbing and stories. It makes sense, since that's the bulk of Godzilla movies made throughout the 60s and 70s.

It's actually pretty much the same with the Macintosh. When most people think Macs, they think of the troubles Apple had in the late 90s, they think of System 7 from back when they were in college and couldn't understand why that newfangled Windows Start Bar was nowhere to be found, and some probably still think of MacWrite. Even my boss still justifies his love for the PC because, "...it works better than the Mac." He should know, right? He worked on an a Quadra.

With Godzilla, I've long since given up justifying my affection for the movies. Even last weekend, while dining in Chicago with some friends and some other guy I'd never met, the other guy was grilling me about the convention. I should point out that he was introduced to me as an improv comedian, and that's always a horrible, horrible thing. Improv comedians are always working on their routines (yet they never seem to get much better), so not only was this guy being condescending, but he was trying to be funny in the meantime. Me? I just wanted to eat my cheeseburger and catch up with my friends.

I feel the same way about the Macworld Expo, really. To my PC friends, Macworld Expo is just some comical gathering where freaky Mac cult members get together to look at three or four displays of word processing and graphics programs, then sit down to whine about how unfairly we're treated in the PC world. They sure are a haughty bunch, those PC users.

To me, Macworld Expo is a place I can go and just, for once, not have to explain myself. It's the same as G-Fest where I don't have to answer questions about why I never outgrew Godzilla or what I could possibly find entertaining about those movies. The people there understand, so we could cut through the crap and get right to the real important discussions...such as whether or not those guys in Godzilla vs. Megalon are gay.

Of course, there is much more to both expos than just comaraderie. It's also about getting stuff. With Godzilla, it's mostly about the past. I wanted to see the first U.S. screening of Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (released in Japan in 2001). I wanted to pick up videos of the Godzilla movies that never made it to America. Sadly, because Toho sanctioned the event, there were no bootleg Godzilla videos to be found. One of the dealers was selling those "College Girls Gone Crazy!" and "Wacky Naked Women Want to Get Drunk and Show You Their Boobs!" videotapes, though. Don't they have their own convention?

Macworld Expo, on the other hand, is about the future. It's about what's ahead for Apple, sure. More importantly, it's about what's ahead for the countless software developers. Apple's product announcements, although sometimes fantastic, are also usually out of my financial reach. But on the show floor, amongst the exhibits, that's where the fun is. There are the new games and applications and system enhancements that have an immediate impact on how I work and what I do. This is why I go to the Expo year after year; to speak with the developers, to learn about they're offering us, and to pass it on to our readers.

So, I'm excited. People have been saying that this will be a pretty slow Expo, but I'm not worried. Even if Steve Jobs came on stage and just juggled bowling pins for the whole keynote, or maybe just read off two hours worth of top ten lists, that would still leave three days of exploring. macworldexpo.com lists 235 exhibitors, and there's bound to be some great stuff in there.

I just wish that, instead of t-shirts, people gave out Godzilla figurines for promotional purposes. I've got the new 4" resin Burning Godzilla, but I'd be happy to accept Hedorah or Rodan...or an NFR copy of Final Cut Pro. You know...whatever you've got back there. I'll save room for it when I pack. Which I should do. Now.

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