I don’t even know where to begin with this one. After the Bill Gates keynote, where the HP TouchSmart PC was unveiled officially in a video clip, an actual unit appeared in the suite, seemingly out of nowhere.

I was flabbergasted. When I first saw it, I blurted across the room to Karsten Januszewski “Hey, there’s one of the things I’ve worked on!” (during the development phase I had some good help from Karsten.) Turns out Microsoft and AMD had arranged for a unit to be unboxed at the BlogHaus after Bill’s mention of it.

Being the geek that I am, I mentioned to Scoble that I worked on one of the applications on it (yup, I work for HP). He says, “Does everyone here know about that?” I say, “No”. So he tells everyone, and next thing I know I have lights, cameras and microphones in my face and am awkwardly talking about the product and the program I was involved in. Scobleized!

There’s something about lights and cameras that makes you very uncomfortable when you’re caught off-guard like that. Still for some reason you agree to being interviewed and showing off the software you’ve worked on. I guess we’re all drawn in by whatever “fame” can come out of being on camera.

Anyway, I hobble through four or five of these nerve-wracking question-and-answer sessions feeling incredibly self-conscious and cotton-mouthed. By the last one I think I finally said something coherent, and I’m sure the guys who got me first are now regretting it.

I’m still all mixed up about this. Can’t sleep. Oh well, whatever happened happened. Can’t change it now. It’s on tape. I thought all that would happen this evening would be Bill Gates talking about the PC, and me getting a little conversation starter out of it. Oh boy was I wrong!

But it’s good to finally be able to write about this thing that I’ve been a little part of on since before PDC05.

So I’ll leave it at that for now. Let me know how much of a fool I made of myself once you see footage. I don’t even remember who all I talked to. I guess Google will be my friend.

Oh, and one more thing. I think this was the first time I’ve seen a “connector” in action. One loud sentence from Scoble into the room started it. And then he just slid back (and watched me make a fool of myself, I’m sure). That’s a connector for you.

Thanks for my 15 minutes of fame, Robert! Let’s see what happens next.