Grant Denyer loves speed
Telstra obviously doesn't feel that ADSL2+ broadband is a very exciting concept on its own.
That's probably why at last week's launch of the high-speed service, the telco trotted out celebrities left, right and centre to get the press excited.
Greeting reporters at the door were some young women in skimpy light blue outfits emblazoned with Telstra logos. Being a family man type, your reporter looked neither left nor right at this sideshow but headed straight for the conference room.
When the actual proceedings started a few minutes later, there were several famous faces -- celebrated guitarist Phil Emmanuel had a 10 minute solo performance in pure deafening hard rock style.
Bit loud for a lazy Friday morning, but Phil's effort was certainly appreciated by the audience.
Following Phil was Grant Denyer, weatherman for Channel 7's Sunrise breakfast show and heartthrob of women across Australia. "I only know his name because my friend has a crush on him," giggled one young lady sitting behind your writer.
"Today we're talking about speeding people's computers up, up to 300 times and more, so it's a very big day," Denyer told the audience. "Hello, I'm Grant Denyer."
"I was going to say I love speed, but I didn't think that would sound so good in the headlines."
Denyer went on to relate how motorsports played a big part in his life, carrying on the high-speed theme of the day.
"I was V8 ute rookie of the year in 2001, and in 2005 I was the supercar rookie of the year. And I was just able to live my dreams recently, competing as a V8 supercar driver, this year, just a month ago, luckily enough to finish 8th place in my very first Bathurst 1000."
"I'm sure it would have been a podium finish if I could reach the pedals," Denyer laughed.
Now I'm sorry to have to admit this, but I was fairly bored while these celebrities were doing their bit for Telstra. Like most of the other computer geeks in the room, I was really waiting to hear the details of the ADSL2+ launch. For this task Telstra trotted out BigPond head honcho Justin Milne.
Milne certainly went into extreme detail about how today's youth was using high-speed broadband.
"In my house, I have a Windows Media Center connected to a high-res screen via Viiv, so every night people fight over the wireless keyboard," Milne told reporters.
"They don't fight over the remote any more -- actually they do fight over the remote as well. What they're doing is toggling between Foxtel, free to air and Internet, and it's all on the same screen."
"So you can alt-tab your family?" asked one wag reporter. "That's it," replied Milne.