Back from the "Big T" in Time to Remember John Hughes

I can't say that I was an uber-John Hughes geek like many other fans of filmdom are. But, like hundreds of thousands of people within my age range, I was saddened to hear of his untimely and sudden passing this past week.

The Breakfast Club, Uncle Buck, Weird Science, Some Kind of Wonderful, Pretty in Pink, and my personal Hughes fave Ferris Bueller's Day Off were great comedies aimed at teens that spoke to them, not at them. The movies didn't portray teens as sex hungry knuckleheads , like many of the teen romp movies did during the '80's (well...Weird Science kind of did.....but who wouldn't be sex hungry after taking a shower with Kelly LaBrock?).

John Hughes' young characters were people we all could easily relate to. They all could have very easily existed at that time and place that was known as the mid eighties. These movies were something special for those of us going through our young high school lives at the same time these movies were being released.

Rather than continuing to pathetically attempt to eulogize him here, I came across a personal blog via Ain't It Cool News. It's by an outstanding woman who, as a teen, had a pen pal relationship with the late producer-director. It's pretty phenomenal reading whether you're a John Hughes fan or not.

Click HERE to take a gander.

RIP John Hughes.


In other tid bits....

I got back from the family road trip to Houston, Texas relatively unscathed. There were a couple of tense moments once we drove into Houston and got a bit off track due to some faulty directions from AAA. But, it all came together in the end.

Highlights included seeing the George Lucas exhibit at Houston's NASA center. It was quite small, but there were some cool props displayed. Perhaps I'll post some photos for all to see someday.

There was also a visit to the Kemah Boardwalk on Galveston Bay. Avery fun place, but it was waaaaaayyyyy too hot and muggy that day. We didn't stay too long. There was a visit to the USS Texas. They let you climb up into the gun emplacements and operate the side to side and up and down movements!! My Bro-In-Law regressed to ten years old each and pretended we were shootin' down zero's. We also saw the nearby battlefield at San Jacinto.

There was much eating done on that trip. I believe I ate my own weight in BBQ, pancakes, Fajitas, pizza and Korean cuisine. The bathroom breaks were plenty but well worth it to make more room for the next meal.

All in all, it was great seeing dad and my step family again. My sister got to take her "little side trip" to Dallas and myself and Bro-In-Law made great time driving back.

I hope to go back and see more of Texas. I definitely want to check out Austin someday.


What am I listening to right now? We'll I just picked up Dream Theater's "Black Clouds & Silver Linings". It's an incredible piece of music about personal pain and how it's dealt with. If the song "Wither" doesn't bring a lump in your throat, you have no soul.

We'll folks, I have a baby shower to go to this afternoon, so I gotta get movin'.

Later.

Zangz.