Discovery Channel has started a new series called Download: The True Story of the Internet. Not a long series; it’s basically about the story of the World Wide Web since it’s beginning till now. The major bits, that is. I saw the first episode, which was about the IE-Netscape browsers wars - and it was quite fun. Of course, everyone has heard of the huge ‘e’ the IE team left in front of Netscape’s office, but watching actual pictures and hearing about the whole incident from the defiler and the defilee makes an interesting watch.

What really caught my attention though was the show’s host. He’s some tech journalist, who wears an attire like Bruce Willis in Die Hard 4; is bald, again like Bruce Willis; and even sports a stubble exactly like Bruce Willis’ look in Die Hard 4. He doesn’t do much, except keep walking out of street corners into the camera’s field of vision (with a Bruce Willis type swagger) talking about key bits of the story. The punch line? His name is John Heilemann. Aw shucks. Discovery should’ve stuffed him with wads of cash to make him officially change his name to John McLane, just for fun. After all, they Discovery does have a LOT of money (they blew up three jet planes).

The series is worth watching. With a title like Download: The True Story of the Internet, it would truly be ironic if they try to stop people from downloading this from peer-to-peer networks (the pirates can always claim innocence by saying they were doing what the title said).

I totally dread calling up any Vodafone numbers, just in case I run into the Vodafone Bitch while trying to get through to them. The ‘Vodafone Bitch’ happens to be that chick who tells you (the caller) so cheerfully that “the Vodafone number you’re calling is busy / not responding / not reachable”. It’s the last case which makes me really irritated - why the F should Vodafone be so goddamn excited about a phone not being reachable, that too because of THEIR fault of having poor coverage in that area? I find that really really irritating. At the other end of the spectrum (pun intended) are BSNL/MTNL recorded messages, which will put you off from making another phone call until sometime in the next decade.

BTW, noticed the Vodafone ad on call conferencing on TV these days? I think I should sue them for using Bunny-Like Laughter™ without my permission.

I thought Smash Lab had reached a high point when they brought along a jet plane to create a hurricane. I was wrong. In Wednesday’s episode, the challenge they took up was to bomb-proof an aeroplane. So what did they decide to do to test / implement it? Well, first, they blew up an unpressurized Boeing 747 rigged with C4 ‘just to see what an explosion is like’. Then, they got hold of some super-duper ultra-absorbent bubble wrap. Then they pressurized two DC-9’s to a pressure equivalent to that at 16000 feet altitude, rigged it with C4 again - and coated one plane with bubble wrap, and the other left as-it-is to ’see the difference caused’. Then they blew it up. The bubble wrap failed, but they did prove that Discovery Channel has a LOT more money to blow up - literally - than wimps like National Geographic. Oh, and since they had to make a 1-hour long episode, they also gleefully blew up a few aluminium trashcans and smashed a few airplane glass panes using explosives (as a consquence of which they also smashed glass panes of cars in a nearby parking lot).

PS - It also helps that Deanne Bell is pretty hot.