• by October 17, 2005

Someone named Beauregard H. Montgomery has invited the Minute to a showdown of sorts tonight--an eating competition, to be precise. We were invited to attend the challenge via a wireless text message with a secret code. We assume we will be apprised of the venue for the event via a text message later today.

Tonight's gathering, dubbed the "Vending Machine Challenge," is hosted by an entity known as The LVHRD Foundation (www.lvhrd.com), described as "part private club, flashmob, part creative salon, part social experiment." The premise of LVHRD is to bring creative people together to clash, collaborate, interact, and otherwise, uh, hook up.

From what we can gather from Montgomery's invitation, there are two matches tonight. The first one features design firms Studio Red at Rockwell Group versus Counts Media Inc.

The title match pits creatives from J. Walter Thompson against dancers from the New York City Ballet. Sounds like a cultural clash in the making, but we'll be the judge of that one. You can't count those wiry ballerinas out just yet. But do they actually eat? Will the rowdy mob scream "Eat, eat, eat" to the spindly primas? We will see.

Hmmm, does this thing have anything at all to do with eating? Will Little Debbie snack cakes and Hostess HoHos fall from the sky like manna from heaven? Who knows.

The Vending Machine Challenge was originally conceived by IconNicholson, a digital design and technology firm, but the LVHRD Foundation says it's blowing the concept out, putting it on a much larger scale. We'll give a full report on the evening's festivities tomorrow!