By Molly Freedenberg
A party just isn’t a party without a soldering gun. That’s what I always say. At least, that’s what I’m going to say now that I’ve been to last night’s Digg user appreciation party at Mezzanine, where I made my own electronic digg counter.
For $15, I purchased a kit for the smaller-than-palm-sized blinking toy that the Make Magazine editor at the table was wearing. Then I sat down, held my Corona between my knees, and assembled the battery-powered device with the help of a cute bespectacled girl and one 700-degree sautering iron.
When I was finished, I had a new skill (I can solder!) – and a nifty device hanging from my neck that counts how many times its button has been pushed (or “dug”) and displays the number in L.E.D. lights. Sure, from afar it looked like any other annoying blinking glowing device that ravers love to wear (which is why I had to pretend to be fire-dancing with it all night), but at least **I** knew the truth: it wasn’t the sign of my affinity for pacifiers and necklaces made of candy. It was the sign of my affinity for geeks and for doing projects while drinking. Much better.
And in case you were wondering, I got over 100 diggs before I managed to break my new toy (and only, like, three quarters of them were my friends and me pushing the button over and over). Which is pretty close to the number this article got. Not bad. Not bad at all.