What does it take for Deke and I to float outside our Design Premium Suite comfort zone? Well, transport us to another country, give us a new product, and hook us up with a couple of gracious Adobe evangelists. Last month, while still at the Netherlands User Group meeting in Amsterdam (Adobe User Group XL, aka #augxl) we caught up with the two keynote speakers from the conference, Serge Jespers and Jason Levine, both of whom have multi-syllabic titles at Adobe that they reveal during the show. Fortified with Jenever, Deke and I forayed into uncharted waters with our two stalwart and generous guides (who also graciously put up with the scent of raw herring wafting through dekeLounge Amsterdam).

Our first port of call was Adobe’s upcoming new application, Flash Catalyst. What, exactly, is Catalyst you ask? (Have I been reading Jr. High School newsletters you ask?) Well it’s a program that lets you, our beloved creative types, control the design of your web pages and AIR widgets, and then hand off your hard work in pixels in the form of live code for your favorite developer. And you can currently download said product in beta form from Adobe Labs. Pretty cool.

But wait, there’s more.

We also have a great side discussions with Jason and Serge about the video-friendly members of the Creative Suite that Deke and I so often ignore. And whether or not Flash will ever appear on an iPhone. All of this over Jenever with the softly wafting scent of Dutch raw herring and onion in the background. Because our guests are damn good sports.

If you’ve need a break from breaking your New Year’s resolutions, join us for this walk on the wild side. Here’s the regular-quality (128kbps) audio file. You can stream, or for best results, right-click and choose Download or Save. Be sure to download, don’t stream. And don’t forget the usual suggestion to subscribe via iTunes.

Raising our martini (or Jenever) glasses to you all, and wishing you peace and happiness (and appropriately administered cocktails) in the year ahead.