Derek Bodner’s Blog

Or, perhaps better stated, Grunge Is Not Dead.

For the record, I used that word (grunge) while grinding my teeth. I generally dislike it, and use it more to describe a time period and geographic rock movement (RE: Seattle) than I do an actual musical genre. If Alice in Chains became popular 3 years earlier before the mainstream media coined that term they would have been a metal group. If Nirvana became popular two years earlier we’d refer to them as a punk group. If Pearl Jam became popular earlier we’d be talking about their similarity with The Who and a splash of Neil Young rather than lumping them in with Nirvana. Grunge was always a media buzz-word to create hype about the Seattle movement.

(That’s not to take anything away from what grew up out of the underground Seattle scene at that time, I just don’t consider it a musical genre).

That being said, those bands comprise some of my absolute favorite, and certainly my favorite “contemporary” (can they even be called that anymore?!) music.
Read more

1967-2009

Every three or four years Pearl Jam releases an album, an event that usually triggers a fair amount of nostalgia for me. Pearl Jam was pretty much the band that got me into music when I was an impressionable ten year old (ironically) first finding out what I liked and didn’t like. I was in the 5th grade (I believe) in 1992 when I first heard Ten and was immediately hooked. This is what music was supposed to sound like to me, and I’ve been a fan ever since. I recall buying Ten, Vs., Vitalogy and Yield when they came out (for some reason skipping No Code), taking me right through high school.
Read more

Click for full story.

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

Went to see AMC’s Best Picture Showcase, which had all 5 best picture nominees in succession. Believe it or not, I was able to sit in a movie theater for 14 hours and not go stir-crazy.

There will be spolers, so if you haven’t seen these movies and don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read on. Otherwise, click Read More.
Read more

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.

Entertainment awards shows and the Wing Bowl.

Awards Shows
Can’t stand them. A bunch of people with a huge sense of entitlement. It’s the stroking of ego’s for people who constantly need their ego’s stroked, coming to these events completely aloof of the problems of the average person, in multi-thousand dollar dresses in the middle of a recession. All they can say is how this validates them and their career, as if the constant admiration they get from us “regular” people isn’t enough, nor is the millions they get per movie. For us simple folk, a nice “good job” from our boss every now and then is all we expect and desire. Amazingly, we can function without the world giving us admiration for our job well done.

You want to have an award show celebrating the good work done by people? How about putting doctors on a national stage so we can celebrate them? Or maybe police officers who are risking their lives for us every day for a mere $40k per year? Or maybe a teacher, putting in longer hours than they should, for less pay than they should, trying to make our children the best they can be?

Actually, come to think of it, that’s probably a good thing. If those jobs attracted the type of people who are out for personal acclaim and recognition, they’re probably people I wouldn’t want in those roles anyway.

While I have an interest in the films that get awards, I can do without the hoopla of the awards shows.

Wing Bowl

I’m probably the only guy in Philadelphia who doesn’t like the Wing Bowl. Actually, I don’t have a huge problem with the event. But the lead up to the event is brutal. Annoying to listen to, and distracting from real issues that should be talked about on sports talk radio, like, well…sports. During the middle of playoff push, I don’t want to hear about how many pot pie’s some fat guy can eat, or listen to a guy describe on the radio how gorgeous a girl looks. If you want to have your event, fine. But it makes for crappy radio.

There, I said it.

Alright, so you may be wondering why I’m commenting on a movie released 7 months ago. It’s simple, really. I was so blown away leaving the theater that I couldn’t rationally and objectively rate the movie. The performance by Ledger and the overall character, from conception to execution, was so perfectly done that it completely overshadowed whatever shortcomings the movie may have had. Even if there were flaws, the sum of the movie added up to more than the individual parts.

So I waited. Waited until the movie came out on DVD. After watching it a few times…

I still leave at the end of the movie absolutely mesmerized.

There are going to be spoilers, so in the off-chance someone hasn’t yet seen the film, I’m going to put my thoughts in the “Read More” section. If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t click below.
Read more

I watch 24, and more or less enjoy it. At the very least, I have worse ways to waste an hour of my time. Suspend your belief in reality and it can be compelling at times.

But my lord, do they need a tech geek. It’s not like they can’t still have outlandish, completely implausible scenarios. Just use the right jargon. Or, at the very least, don’t use the wrong jargon. I’d rather have them literally make up words than use real words in completely the wrong context.

Phrases like “they sent this video to our subnet”, which was said in today’s episode, should not make it to the final release.

Outside of sports, there are only 2-3 shows I watch with any regularity, one of which being The Shield, which I have watched from Episode 1 of Season 1. It’s a shame to see the series go, as it was one of the more entertaining for me in recent times. I do have a few thoughts and criticisms on the way it ended. It’ll probably sound like I didn’t like the ending, when in reality I think it was one of the better ones of recent dramas. I’m just overly critical of things like this.
Read more