Derek Bodner’s Blog

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The Metropolitan Fire Service (MFS) in Adelaide says it is worrying that two girls lost in a stormwater drain raised the alert on a social networking site rather than ringing triple-0.

The 10- and 12-year-old girls updated a Facebook status to say they were lost in a drain on Honeypot Road at Hackham in Adelaide’s southern suburbs on Sunday night

Of course, had this been posted on twitter, it would probably be something like:

Help!! I’m stuck in a drain. Hurt badly. I think my leg is broken. I’m not sure how much longer I can stay down here. You can find me at

This one’s just a shame on so many levels.

200 pound domesticated Chimpanzee mauls 55 year old.

Obviously, our thoughts go out to the 55 year old Charla Nash, who is still in the hospital with critical injuries to her face and hands. To say that she is the most tragic case in this ordeal is obvious.

But I can’t help feel sorry for the animal in these situations. That goes for exotic animals that shouldn’t be held as private pets, and as well as dogs. 99 times out of 100, when a dog becomes aggressive, it’s due to a bad owner, either intentionally raising the dog to be aggressive (or defensive), or simply being ignorant of how to handle the animal. Big dogs get the worst rap, not because they’re inherently worse animals, but because an aggressive Rottweiler is a much bigger problem than an aggressive Chihuahua.

Likewise, it’s why a 200 lb Chimpanzee can be a great loving pet for 14 years, yet still be a threat. Something sets him off, something gets him scared, something gets him feeling he’s threatened, and his instinctual reaction can be deadly.

Obviously, we really have no idea how a Chimpanzee reacts to Xanax or the Lyme Disease medication it was on. And, while the animal has been domesticated, it’s still far too close to being wild to get rid of its instincts and “fight or flight” reactions. 99% of the time, the Chimpanzee was probably consciously making attempts to fit in with the society it lived in. And, from all accounts, this Chimp was a well-behaved, loving creature for every moment of its 14 year life up until this point. I have no doubt that something, somewhere, set this Chimpanzee into a panic. Something made it fear that its life was in jeopardy. And he reacted like we would expect any animal to react. That’s not to say the owner or friend did anything to instigate it, but we simply don’t fully understand the reactions of these creatures. We don’t understand their mannerisms or tells.

When the chips are down, and a wild animal feels its life is in jeopardy, there’s only one way I expect him to react. We, as humans, have been trained over and over to remove this instinct. We can get hit by cars going 70 miles per hour, and we don’t react. We can get punched by a stranger, and know to hold up. Animals don’t know that.

So, here is an animal who probably felt his life was in jeopardy, knowing only one way to react. He reacts. Moments later someone he considers a mother to him s trying to mortally stab him. The Chimpanzee is obviously confused, and the result is tragic.

This just echo’s why exotic pets (particularly exotic pets of this size) are a bad idea. We don’t know them. We don’t understand them. And they’re far too close to their wild brethren to be effectively domesticated fully. Dogs, while large animals, are a thousand plus year work in progress, and why they can trust us to the point of throwing their instincts to the wind. And even that doesn’t happen all the time with poorly trained dogs. No matter how good of a Chimpanzee Travis was, no matter how domesticated he was, and no matter how good-natured he was, if something sets him off where he thinks he’s fighting for his life, situation’s such as this arise. Which are tragic for both humans and animal. Just a shame all around.

Apparently singer Chris Brown has withdrawn from performing at the NBA All-star events due to accusations of domestic violence.

Which, in and of itself is a shame. But that’s not what really irked me.

(I mean, it does. But I could have pulled a domestic violence accusation from hundreds of newspapers across the country each day, sadly).

What caught my eye is Wrigley, one of his sponsors, pulling advertisements he was in.

“Wrigley is concerned by the serious allegations made against Chris Brown,” a company spokesperson tells Us. “We believe Mr. Brown should be afforded the same due process as any citizen.

“However, we have made the decision to suspend the current advertising featuring Brown and any related marketing communications until the matter is resolved,” the statement continued.

I love PR speak. “We believe in due process. Except we’re going to go by the court of public opinion”.

Not that I disagree with their decision to pull his advertisements, but be up front about it. Don’t tell me in one breath that you believe in due process, then in the next breath tell me you’re condemning him before he’s been convicted.

Just some rants about various topics before I head out for the weekend:
Global Warming
- Every time there’s a warm day during the winter, people screaming “global warming”. No. While I’m not going to completely rule out global warming as a threat, most estimates have the average temperature increasing about 1.5 degrees farenheit over the last 30 years. When people go “god, it’s so hot out, this is proof of Global Warming”, shut up. That 1.5 degrees is not make a substantial impact on your warmth.

And really, try to have a global perspective. Have you heard about it being the 2nd coldest january in the last 15 years? Have you heard about China’s historically cold winter? Or about Greenland’s winter? Of course not. Because it doesn’t fit the chic story. I’m not saying global warming doesn’t exist, but please don’t use the last week’s temperature at your locale as proof.

Change

“I’m the candidate for change”. Oh jesus. I haven’t yet fully decided on who I want to vote for in the democratic primary, much less the general election. But dear god, if I have to hear about the rhetoric for “change” any more, I might throw up. That crap from Obama might just push me away from him. It’s as much the media’s fault as it is the candidates, but every non-incumbent candidate since the dawn of time has used that as a platform. I’d like to think our presidential candidates have a little more depth than that, and that our voters are a little more educated than that. I sometimes worry I’m going to be disappointed on both fronts.

Dropped Elyssa off at 30th street station. As I was walking through the station to go back to my car, I walked by a newsstand, and noticed a magazine (I forget which one), which had Tom Cruise on the cover and said:
“Tom and Kate: 1 year!
Working through things”

Well, congratulations. What an amazing accomplishment. I mean, 1 year. You really deserve an award.

MythBusters plans on doing an experiment to see if cockroaches could survive a nuclear holocaust. From the article:

The bugs will be watched over the next couple of weeks to see how soon they die.

Now, if they were a cute animal, PETA would be all over this. But since they’re generally disliked, you don’t hear a word about it.

Yesterday my boss brought his dog into work for the day. The dog’s a golden lab pup, and for some reason just really livened up the day. I started wondering about why this is, and this is the conclusion I took from it.

In my opinion, we tend to overcomplicate our lives. “In order to be happy, this has to happen in my career”. I think a lot of times people tend to spend their lives thinking about what they want people to think, moreso than what they actually want. As long as our outward appearance is that we’re successful, and hardworking, and “amazing” in our field, we’ll be happy. We spend so much time worrying about what we don’t have that we end up not appreciating what we do have. You see it all the time, where celebrities end up not being happy. Success doesn’t make one happy if the road to success isn’t happy. And that’s how I try to base my life. Sure, I take my work seriously. I’m on call 24/7, so I’m never truly “away”. But when I get home, and see my family, that’s what I’m concentrating on. That’s what’s important to me. I don’t want to sit at home and be worried about the project I’m going to have to work on tomorrow when I get in. I want to enjoy the time I have with the people I love.

And that’s what’s refreshing about dogs. They remind you of that. You watch a dog, and all he cares about is the joy he gets from being with you. You watch him wag his tail and bark when you leave the room, and jump up at you when you walk back in. The simplicity in their exuberance is refreshing, and something our culture of “if you’re not being productive, you’re being unproductive” has forgotten.

Today I was sitting at work and my phone rang, and on the Caller ID it was listed as being for a 1800 number I have. I previously had my own business, which I stopped doing about 2 years ago. I retained this number, but it hasn’t been published or in use since that time.

So when I got the call to that number, I ignored it and let it go to the answering machine I have setup for that number, because I know anyone calling there has to have a wrong number. So I get an e-mail alert that I have a new voicemail. She was “returning my phone call about the foreclosure I called her about”, and asked if I could return her call. Whatever, I ignore it. Five minutes later she calls again, this time giving me her social security number to boot.

Keep in mind, the message I have for this phone number clearly states who I am, and what my business is. If you’re paying attention to the message, you’ll know that I had an internet company (webhosting and development at the time), and nothing to do with foreclosures.

So not only did she have the wrong number, and not only was she not paying attention AT ALL, but she then proceeded to give me her name and social security number without even giving it a second thought.

I wish I could say this was an isolated incident. How freely people are willing to give up this kind of information is really disturbing. No wonder identity theft is as rampant as it is.

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That is when Masters allegedly delivered “a backhanded punch to the chest” and took off running, police said.

“That made her mad,” Gibbs recalled.

The woman, who was uninjured, jumped in her car and called police as she chased Masters. He was arrested minutes later.

Farmington Police Chief Rick Baker said the two incidents taken separately equaled two misdemeanors: shoplifting and minor third-degree assault. Together, they make for second-degree robbery, a class B felony, defined in state law as forcibly stealing property. The amount of force and the amount of property does not matter.

I don’t know, this just seems wrong to me. You take two misdemeanors, combine them together, and now you’re facing 30 years to life? The amount stolen and amount of force aren’t taken into the equation? So you’re telling me stealing a diamond after beating a guy unconscious carries the same weight as someone who stole a doughnut, panicked, and pushed aside a lady?

Please. The punishment certainly does not fit the crime (unless there’s something drastic that’s being left out of the story.