Flashback Weekend: Ozzy Rules…and so does Physical Media!

This past Friday, I arrived in Rosemont, Illinois, at 11:30 am – just in time for a convention apocalypse. Sharing the dates of Flashback Weekend was another event -the National Sports Card Convention. This mammoth affair took place next door to Flashback’s Hyatt Regency at the Donald E. Stephens Center, ensuring all area hotels were booked and visitor parking critical. I ended up down the street in the CTA lot before hoofing it over. No worries, I had plenty of time to kill before the event opened and the arrival of national TV horror host, Svengoolie. As in previous years, I was asked to assist him and his crew, mostly on Saturday during his signing.

All Monsters Attack 2025: Three Godzillas in Chicago!

Last weekend, I attended my first Chicago All Monsters Attack convention, an offshoot of Days of the Dead. This made perfect sense because I’ve seen fewer days as dead as this one. The show was at the Crowne Plaza in Rosemont (right across the street from my last adventure, Nightmare Weekend), which coincidentally used to host the similarly themed G-FEST (Godzilla Festival). After attending G-FEST for over twenty years, my eldest son, Alex, and I were curious how they’d compare.

Svengoolie’s Celebrity C2E2 Saturday

Svengoolie’s Saturday morning at C2E2 matched Friday, though things didn’t go as smoothly with the autographs. A convention crew member erred in capping the line, inadvertently creating two separate ones. Once discovered, it was impossible to distinguish late arrivals from the new ones, leaving us no choice but to alternate between the two. Fortunately, this only angered a couple of people, which I consider a minor miracle.