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The LAT sent a reporter into deep undercover duty for six hours of living among Sundance's swagwhores, during which he collected $11,326.89 worth of free goods—which, of course, the Times donated to charity. (We're sure the Make a Wish Foundation will find a good home for that Norelco Bodygroom "manscaping" razor.) An excerpt from the gifting suite adventure follows:

Podfitness.com, a new company selling downloadable exercise regimens from celebrity workout gurus, handed out a three-month subscription (value: $59.85). Pink, a subsidiary line of Victoria's Secret, threw in a pair of Bling PJ Lounger sweatpants with the brand's logo emblazoned across the derrière ($68). And Kröll Vodka served chilled cocktails (value: $16 each). Several publicists noted that Terrence Howard, a festival jury member, had been photographed as he downed one such drink at 10:30 a.m. (The actor also received a wireless PDA device from a company named after a fruit. It will go unnamed here after a publicist declined to aid a reporter's investigation.)


Further down the hall, up-and-coming active-wear company Five Four proffered a zippered sweatshirt ($86), So La Vie Skin/Hair System parceled out two bottles of hair/body wash ($30 each) — a fave swag item for Jennifer Aniston, the publicist said — and nearby, Blue Marlin offered a Negro Leagues replica baseball cap ($35) and a T-shirt with the logo "Vito Corleone Loan Services" ($35). Aaron Eckhart, who appears in the festival entry "Thank You for Smoking," had collected one earlier.

The Times report calls to mind our own lone, very brief, and profoundly uncomfortable swag-gathering experience at the festival: Enter suite, awkwardly stand in front of table, wait to have exciting features of women's t-shirt explained to you by a booth girl, sheepishly accept women's t-shirt and place it in paper bag, promptly forget brand of women's t-shirt to name-drop in this space (sorry), listen as publicist crosses room to explain that Shannon Elizabeth has just asked for an "extra-large" bottle of personal lubricant from Booty Parlor (That one we remember—see how it works? Celebrity + Brand = Product Recognition), escape suite before Paris Hilton shows up for fear that upon her arrival, booth girls will spontaneously explode from excitement, dreading possible death from the spangle-shrapnel from aforementioned detonating booth girls' designer jeans.