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We used three exclamation points as an homage to Judy Hevrdejs' lede in today's Stew. But surely no amount of punctuation would be sufficient to describe the magnitude of the event to take place early this afternoon: the first ever live web video chat hosted on the Stew will take place, as we noted, at 2PM. The goal of the chat (aside from seeing if it makes sense to do similar chats in the future), is to share with the public Monica and Kevin's perceptions of the NRA Show, which ended yesterday (you may recall that the pair have had quite a bit to say already).

Oh, did we mention that it's going to be interactive? That's right: you, the surfer/viewer, will be asking the questions. Commenters on the Stew have already lobbed queries about the cooking contests and new product samples at the show, but obviously, the sky's the limit. We're not really sure how the technological aspect of the chat will go down, but try the Tribune homepage, and maybe the Stew page as well, a few minutes before 2pm.

Our questions:

1) What was the ambient smell of the convention center?
2) Any reports of food poisoning?
3) Who won the ice sculpting competition, and what was the sculpture of?
4) Were there any of those new Indian mangoes?
5) Did anyone actually see Fred Thompson's speech?
6) What was the single most revolting thing you sampled?
7) Did any of the new products make you think the American empire is nearing collapse?

Stay tuned.

Live!!! From Tribune Tower!! It's The Stew's first video web chat! Got questions? We've got answers [The Stew]