• by Kelly Samardak , July 29, 2008

Deliciously Digital, msnbc.com digital cafe, New York
July 28, 2008

The NBC Experience Store is odd. It is, there's no denying it, even if you work at NBC Universal. There are bobble head dolls, sparkly tanktops, life-size cardboard cutouts of Dwight Shrute, green "Psych" mugs, and "Monk" wet wipes. Hey, that's why it's called the NBC Experience! The real treat is up the silver spiral staircase: the recently opened, ready for action msnbc.com digital café. What could you possibly do in a digital news café? You have no idea.

Here's my prediction: last night was the only night that you would be able to maneuver (and you were't there, sorry!) through the room to poke the colorful Spectra, a fun little animated RSS feed reader of sorts that lets the user choose the headlines they want to read by fingering the touch screen (with popcorn slathered hands). Niftier than that is the soon to be installed motion-sensing, largest TV in the world that will sense what you're wearing and display that color coded news to you. I plan to wear puce to confuse it. Tasty treats swung by impatiently waiting waiters "I'll wait one more second" snarfed the grey fellow holding the puff pastries while I did my job and took pictures. My annoyance with him transformed as he eventually hunted my +1 and I down with various instantiations of meat -- stick and ball form.

I hit the free drink tank and ordered a "cybertini" which was mango deliciousness with Grey Goose. Nice touch, breaking out the top shelf stuff. DJ VJ (a tag team of two, not one guy named "VJ") were spinning the dance floor hits, but the suits weren't quite bobbing their heads. One fellow who I think was with NBC Universal just paced in front of the Spectra pods grumbling "Why isn't anyone touching the Spectra!?" while shoveling Garrett's Popcorn into his gob.

I hope the huge pillars filled with jelly bellys and M&Ms weren't just for display purposes. I was busted with a huge open bag of Garrett caramel popcorn, elbow deep in the pink M&Ms by Bob Sullivan author of "Gotcha Capitalism: How Hidden Fees Rip You Off Every Day and What You Can Do About It." Caramel coating sticking to my fingers, I stood there, guilty of planning an early retreat. It was only about 7:30 p.m., but the party was already dwindling and losing its pop. The raffle definitely happened too soon, and once over, people drizzled outta there.

Shall we get to the high and lows? Let's start high, like my roommate in college. Belle Lenz and Kristen Milligan, representing DiGennaro Communications, approached with wide, bright, honest smiles declaring their loyal readership of this column. Hi, girls! I also ran into Sam Mazur of SS+K, whom I met at the Webby's. He was hanging with one of the Ss. I reminded him of the truly precious shot I got of him leaving the after-party.

I felt sympathy pains for Catherine Captain, VP of Marketing, MSNBC.com, as she read off at least ten names for one of the raffle prizes. See, guests were automatically entered into the raffle with their RSVP (even press!), but I guess some were more than fashionably late. Usually raffles fall later in the party, an annoying but successful ploy to keep people eating and drinking longer. "Well, this is going great... I'm not sweating at all over here..." half joked Captain, drawing some yikes-chuckles from her guests.

I'm pretty sure Judith Dutch, Vice President Retail Operations and Consumer Marketing, NBC Universal, thought I was just some kid with a camera. While posing with colleagues Jeffery Rotenberg and Gennary Zaritsky, she offered a pained, "Why do you need my card?" as if my next step was to spam her with "The Monkfish Monthly." It was one of those "fun" interactions: hand over card, turn away, and close conversation with back. Good thing I didn't want to chat and get a quote or something.

Lows aside, it was fun to be in the space before it transforms into a slithering sweaty cesspool of double wide strollers filled with wiggling rat monster children and caterwauling teenagers hungry for Olive Garden before they head back to Ohio (I can say it, I'm from there). And walking home with a belly full of cheddar popcorn isn't a bad way to end the night.

Send invitations to your popcorn party to kelly@mediapost.com and you can count yourselve covered in Just An Online Minute!

See the full Spectra awesomeness in the online photo set!

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