Finally, it had arrived. I had been anxiously awaiting
this day for over a month. I woke up early, showered,
dressed, ate and made my way to the car rental agency
to pick up my nice shiny Ford Taurus Wagon. For the
first time, I would be attending a MacWorld Exposition! I was Toronto bound and I was ecstatic. I stopped at my friends apartment to pick him up, and (predictably) he was not yet ready, citing that his socks were still in the dryer. Toronto is about a four and a half hour drive from Ottawa and I had intended on leaving at 10:00am. It was already 12:00pm; I was behind schedule, and I was not happy.
The drive to the Holy Land (er…Toronto) was somewhat uneventful, if not a bit distressing. It was raining, there were a large number of Big Rigs on the road and visibility was nil. I was going to get to Toronto though, come hell or high water (which had already started to come). We ended up stopping along the way for a quick bite; we went to my favorite fast food restaurant and ended up getting lost trying to find the highway afterwards.
We finally arrived in Toronto at about 6:30pm. Because of the popularity of the MacWorld Exposition and our limited budget, we ended up staying at a nice little motel, about 3 traffic-hours away from the Convention Centre and downtown Toronto.
We arrived at MacWorld Exposition at about 11:00am the following morning. I excitedly paid my admission fee and took the escalator to the upper level of the Convention Centre. After making my little name badge (which I proudly wore around my neck for everyone to see), I was ready to start exploring. I was geared up to witness and take part in the most exciting single event in my lifetime. Or so I thought.
I hurriedly proceeded from exhibit to exhibit, in the same manner as a few hundred other not-so-normal individuals. I lingered around the WordPerfect booth and watched a demonstration of the soon to be released WordPerfect 3.1. I hung out at the Adobe booth and saw demos of Photoshop 3.0 and various other Adobe/Aldus products.
It suddenly hit me. Like a big yellow Mack truck had just plowed into me. This wasn’t all that great, and there weren’t all that many exciting exhibits. A great number of them were for local and mail-order retailers. I was here to see exciting new products, the latest technology, and talk to people in the industry. If I wanted to buy a copy of the not-so-greatest and not-so-latest computer product I would have headed to my nearest reseller, not make a pilgrimage to Toronto.
The few people I did talk to did not seem all that aware. Even a gentleman at the Apple booth disappointed me. I was checking out the new Apple Color StyleWriter 2400 and I asked a few simple questions, such as “How many printed pages per ink cartridge,” and “What is the suggested retail price on the printer and the cartridges?” The guy had no idea. I was shocked. Wasn’t this a trade show? Shouldn’t the guy in the Apple booth know how many pages can be printed from a single ink cartridge on the product he was demonstrating?
The Exposition wasn’t all that bad. I did have the opportunity to purchase a really nice limited edition long-sleeve mock turtle neck from the Apple booth. At least I had something nifty to commemorate my trip, to show my friends and family and add to my Apple clothing collection. 
While walking down one of Toronto’s main streets and contempla-
ting the events that had transpired earlier in the day, I spotted a
hot dog vendor. I bought myself the tastiest, most delectable polish
sausage on a bun I had ever eaten. It somehow seemed to put things
into perspective. Sure, MacWorld Expo Toronto wasn’t all that
great–the people demonstrating the few new products at the show
seemed to know little about them, and the trip was a complete
waste of money. At the end of it all, though, I believe I had a good
time. I’m not sure if it was because I was able to get away from the
office for a few days, or because I got to explore a great Canadian
city. But right there, munching on a polish sausage, everything
seemed to make sense. I was having a great time.
Well, that was until I was stopped by a police officer on the drive back home and was given a $98.00 speeding ticket for going twenty-five kilometers over the speed limit.
Go figure.
 
Renzo Piche is MacSense's executive assistant and Vice-President of Helix Online, a local First Class-based online service. He can usually be found hounding local Apple Dealers and Representatives for Apple clothes. Mr. Piche would love to hear from fellow Mac enthusiasts everywhere, so drop him a line at RenzoPiche@eWorld.com
