They don't make 'em like they used to...

So I take a break from playing Power Rangers with my sons last night, plop down on the couch and begin flipping channels. I scroll on over to ABC Family, and I'm greeted by the greatness that is Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall. "Sixteen Candles" is on!!! After I overcome the shock that "Sixteen Candles" is on a "family" network (that's a blog for another day), I order the family to leave me alone so I can enjoy a movie that I've only seen 50 other times.

And though I've seen it 50 times, I still find the same parts equally hilarious...

-Molly Ringwald getting fondled by her grandmother
-The entrance of Long Duck Dong (one of the more under-rated characters in movie history)
-Mom complaining about having to eat dinner with the Rice Chex (Rischecks).
-A neck-braced Joan Cusack and a pre-diet Ricki Lake dancing together at the school dance
-Anthony Michael Hall leading Bryce (John Cusack) and Wheez to the senior party
-A drunken L.D.D. detailing the demise of "grandfather's automobile."

Throughout the movie I found myself thinking, "They don't make 'em like they used to." There isn't a 'brat pack' making movies that teens can relate to. There's no classic nerd like Anthony Michael Hall who's in the Math Club, the Latin Club, and the Physics Club ("dimented and sad...but social" -- The Breakfast Club, anyone?). There's no Andrew McCarthy, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy (my favorite), or Emilio Estevez to make movies that teens see over and over and over again and quote lines from (sorry -- Napoleon Dynamite doesn't count!).

Or maybe those movies do exist. Maybe they're out there, and kids are seeing them countless numbers of times; and they're memorizing the lines; and they're quoting them in response to everything they hear. Maybe they're out there...and I'm still just stuck in the 80's.

Oh well....maybe I'll luck out, and there will be a triple feature of St. Elmo's Fire, The Breakfast Club, and Red Dawn this weekend!

"Who am I? Why am I here?"

During the 1992 presidential election, those words were uttered by a man who was clearly a fish out of water. Admiral James Stockdale led the first bombing mission on North Vietnam in 1964. Later that year he was shot down, and endured torture and captivity for eight grueling years. He was a man's man, and his story was a testimony to the human spirit, and to the strength, stamina, and determination of American bravery.

Yet he will always be remembered as a bumbling, ill-prepared bystander during the 1992 Vice Presidential debate with Dan Quayle and Al Gore.

Today, as I take my maiden voyage into the world of blogging...I hope to enlighten any interested readers...and I hope to answer the questions: Who am I? Why am I here?