What The Breakfast Club meant and still means, to not only me, but a whole generation of Gen-Xers, is not just a movie, or a fun romp (I say that) movie starring the main members of the Brat Pack. It was the first, and perhaps the best, movie that spoke directly to us. Whether you were an athlete, brain, princess, criminal, a basket case, or like me, some combination of them. For most of us, there was a character in this film that was us, or enough like us to be our window into this experience. We didn’t know or care that Shermer, Illinois doesn’t really exist, or while we were watching and sucked into this film, we were in detention.
What this movie was really about was acceptance, something there was very little of at the time. Everyone had to fit into a certain group, or they would not be accepted by anyone and be a social outcast. This film, amazingly written by John Hughes, showed us that even the people who had managed to fit into a group, still felt like the rest of us who hadn’t, and also struggled with the same problems that we did.
The Breakfast Club taught Generation-X about understanding and tolerance. If it were made today, or a rebooted as is the trend in Hollywood at the moment, there would be a larger or at least a different mix of people. There would be someone to represent the LGBTQI community, the African American and Asian as well. How would this differ from The Breakfast we know and love? Look no further than today’s hit television show Glee.
Glee has picked up the baton and ran with it. It is a High School drama musical that has expanded the five types to an infinite amount of types. Like the transgendered Unique, the gay and lesbian characters like Kurt and Blaine (Klaine) or Brittany S. Pierce and Santana. There is even Coach Beist, going through a female to male gender reassignment.
My personal experience with The Breakfast Club was a fun one. I was about 13. It was summer, and for the first time I was old enough to stay home while my parents went on vacation. I rented a VHS copy of the movie, along with a few others, to watch while I had my weekend alone. I don’t remember the other movies at all. When I watched The Breakfast Club for the first time, I was sucked in to the TV and magically transported to this world. Like a good book, when it was finished, I didn’t want it to end, so taking advantage of my VCR’s newest feature, auto repeat, and my propensity for obsessing over entertainment, I embarked on a 50 hour no sleep, only stopping to run to the local convenience store for Jolt Cola and Pixie Stix, Breakfast Club marathon. Watching the film about 50 times in those two days, it became ingrained in my brain, and it’s difficult for me to differentiate the memories of the world in that film and my own. So I suspect like a lot of us, it was, and is a part of our lives.
The Breakfast Club is more than a movie, It is the definition of my generation.
“Dear Mr Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us – in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Breakfast Club.”
In the first episode of season two of a Conversation with Albie, Albie talks with his newest friend Keli Huffstutler. Albie and Keli met at his old job in a restaurant. They talk all about Keli’s life and what brought her to Albie, a little bit about their adventures together and the food service industry in general… Enjoy!
In the first episode of AdWords, Fred Talor shares his business and marketing expertise with you. Fred talks about what Google AdWords is and why it is an amazing tool to help grow your business by advertising to a specifically targeted audience already looking to buy your product or service. This is what you can do, right now, to build your business. Learn how to position yourself so potential clients will see your ad and how to make the perfect Key Phrase for your Google ad. If you are a business owner and want to capture the attention of potential clients, this is the podcast for you. If you are brand new to AdWords, or a PPC pro, this is the best place to learn and Fred Talor is the teacher to help you reach your full potential.
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” is a frequently referenced part of William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, in which Juliet seems to argue that it does not matter that Romeo is from her rival’s house of Montague, that is, that he is named “Montague.” The reference is often use to imply that the names of things do not affect what they really are.
In Act II, Scene II [1] of the play, the line is said by Juliet in reference to Romeo’s house, Montague which would imply that his name means nothing and they should be together.
Last night while we were taking these photos, Renny pointed to the Blu Rays and said “trek” then pointed to my Star Trek T-Shirt and said “trek”.
I’m a very proud daddy.
I’m at your Del Prado Cape Coral, FL location and I tried to order the new pretzel pizza without pepperoni and they refused. I even asked the manager and he refused to make me a pizza without pepperoni. Working in a restaurant myself, it’s mind-boggling to me that they would refuse my business. I was sent by my wife to specifically pick up the new pretzel pizza and she doesn’t eat pepperoni. I was also going to buy another pizza, dipping sauces and some soda. You guys must be doing amazing business to be able to treat customers like this and turn them away. I will never ever visit this location again. I wanted less product for the same money, where is the logic in refusing my business?!?
Today we had to wake up early to get to the recording of The Signal Live at 10 am. We almost have this whole big city thing down (not really). We power-walked to the subway, got from the subway to the Hilton in record time with 3 minutes to spare. Heather and I high-fived each other that we got there in time. We were in such a hurry we passed Rick Howland from Lost Girl and couldn’t even stop to say hi.
It was great to see my favorite podcast live. Seeing the faces of the voices I’ve know for 10 years now was amazing. At the end when they asked if there were any questions or comments no one got up, all of a sudden all of the signal crew started getting closer and closer to me. I realized i was walking up to the microphone. I thanked them for all they have done, and I told them how they inspired me to become a podcaster. I wanted to thank them for a decade of keeping the Firefly community alive and all the hard work, but I was very nervous. I didn’t want to plug my podcast, but Les asked me, so I told him.
After the show, I asked Kari if I could get a photo with her and Les. I was a major fan boy. I couldn’t help it.
After that I told Heather I was good, and whatever else we did that day was just extra.
We stalked Kevin Bachelder via the DragonCon App and got a photo with him. Then later we bumped into Lloyd Kaufman.
Today….. Was a better day. We started out the day with the intention of only going to Heather’s Vampire Diaries panel. We took a bus to the subway, it was the wrong bus, but Renny didn’t cry
The we transferred to the subway. When we left the station we got to the surface by taking an escalator that was so tall, you couldn’t see the top when you stepped on. It was intense. While in the middle of this escalator my senses plays tricks on me. Your brain is constantly asking which is more likely, is the tunnel at an angle or am I at an angle? Or more like “Is it the whole world? Or me?” Well I tend to choose me. Which is why it feels strange, because it is in fact it is the world, or in this case the tunnel. The whole time it feels like you are scaling the outside of a skyscraper. Crazy.
Today was a much better day because I had no expectations. So when we were able to see Beakman Live with Paul Zaloom, I was happy. It was a good show. Science is cool.
I bumped into David Blue from Stargate Universe. All I could think to say to him was “You lost a lot of weight !” I’m sure he hears that all the time, so he had a response ready, something like “I know! If you find it, let me know” that was fun. He really does look good.
The first bus we tried to get on said we had to wait for the next one, so Serenity cried. We waited the 20 minutes for the next bus, it took us past where we needed to go, I pulled the cord to try to get off the bus, the bus driver said no stopping till we get to the next bus station. So we had to double back on foot to where we were going.
We did finally get to the The sheraton hotel. We got in line to see Grant Imahara waited about an hour, we got in and had our seats and Serenity started having a meltdown. That wasn’t fair to the other Con goers so we had to leave. We headed to CVS to get Ren and Heather medicine.
There is no right choice of what to do next. We can’t go to panels, we can’t afford to get photos with celebrities. We are in downtown Atlanta with 5 day passes to DragonCon and can’t do anything with them. Our hotel is maybe 1/2 a star so it’s no fun hanging out there.
So do I cut our losses, and head for home? Was this, as big a mistake as it seems? This is Heather’s one vacation this year and she works very hard. But we are all miserable. Idk what to do. I have hit the lowest point in a long time. If we do head home it’s a nonstop drive all the way there and the AC doesn’t work so good when we get there. Idk
And then I met Walter Koenig.
So when you add everything up, any day you meet Walter Koenig has to be a good day.
After that we tried to see if there was anything we could do in our current situation, and we decided to call it a day around 5pm and head back to the hotel. We were going to take a subway to the bus, about two minutes into our journey it started to downpour rain, so for the first time in my life I got in a cab. We were at our hotel about 5 minutes later. It was better than I expected. Then showers all around, and the new Doctor Who.
I fell asleep during Doctor Who. So nap time I guess.
Tomorrow I suspect we will take jet skis to a riverboat to the convention.
Money isn’t as big a factor as I thought it would be except for making it difficult to get around downtown Atlanta.
We have to walk or take a bus to a subway station and the system is very confusing for me, I’m used to driving everywhere. If we did have money we could have stayed in one of the host hotels and we would have avoided all that. If we do come to DragonCon again it would have to be an all or nothing deal. So if I do get a “big boy” job, then we might return one day. At this time, there is so much going on and with it all being spread out through 5 hotels and the difficulty of getting around and Heather, me and Renny all being sick (but non-contagious because we’re all on antibiotics) we are missing all the things we are here to see like Jeri Ryan. It’s not a bad time, just overwhelming. We were warned by a lot of people, that this would be the situation. Trying to take it all in stride.
The other reason we are here is to help get the word out about the Quantum Leap Podcast.
Which I think we were able to do. I did my Quantum Leap panel, we gave it lobby cards with our info and T-shirts. Heather had her The Originals panel, not sure if they announced what her current projects are. And in the morning I was able to mention our show during the podcasting track kick-off.
All day we were only able to do those three things.
There about 200 things happening a day, 20 of which we desperately want to do, and we can do about 3. Sooooo idk. At this point I’m dreading the trek back into town.
6:17 am It was a very strange night. Everything tangible about this hotel is amazing, probably the best place we stayed with the exception of when Benny got us a room for when I refereed for Supercon a few years back. All that said, I had a very difficult time sleeping. There was this feeling of uneasiness. Like we were around something bad that had happened. Which makes absolutely no sense to a skeptic like myself. Now I understand what Beverly Leech was talking about when she said that feeling on the Queen Mary. Just plain weird. It’s six and I was still stirring, so I came to the lobby and got some juice and my first breakfast, western omelette , links and a biscuit w/gravy. Now to try to get a few more hours sleep. Grabbed an apple on the way back, it was good, now Heather is going for first breakfast while I lay next to Ren. I had to turn AC up, because it was too cold.
So it turns out we stayed across the street from Oak Ridge Cemetery. I must have caught a glimpse of it last night (Heather now says she told me which is entirely possible) and my mind played tricks with me all last night.
It was a smooth ride until we got a few miles from our hotel in Atlanta. We got into the city and the traffic was a lot more than my level of difficulty was comfortable with. But with Heather’s navigational skills we did it… The second time around, the first time around our GPS app Ways said we arrived at our destination when we were in the middle of the highway so we had to try one more time. This hotel, even though more expensive then the Hampton is not as many stars we’ll say. The good part it’s free parking where as at the Marriott it is $32 a day. That would’ve blown our budget right there. (Big boy job next year) we headed to the one event that we chose to do today in the Marriott at DragonCon was the Newbie walking tour. Our hotel is about 3 miles away. We took the subway for the first time In mine an Renny’s lives. We got to the tour about 5:30 because we got lost in the hotel. The room was full and there were no more tours leaving. But we did find out a lot of cool information about DragonCon and I met a podcasting icon, Mr Kevin Bachelder. We talk online all the time and he has mentored us since we worked with TV Talk. I was a little nervous, so I didn’t know quite what to say, luckily he came right up to me and shook my hand. I told him it was nice to finally meet him. By that point Ren was a squirmy worm. Kevin was real nice to us and gave us directions to where to get our shiny badges.
After we got the badges, which only took about 5 minutes, I waited in line to get lanyards while Heather kept Serenity entertained.
By the time I got the lanyards for the three of us, Ren was done so we decided to head back to our hotel.
Heather is now investigating a better way to get there in the morning. By bus maybe? We shall see.
I really need to fix this site, it’s looking a little haphazard lately. I’m gonna check out the WordPress themes recommended by http://www.goldenspiralmedia.com
I feel like a farmer getting up this early, 9:12 AM! Ouch. The wife made me get up. It’s for a good reason, so we get on the road early enough to get to today’s destination at a good time.
Speaking of, our destination for today is a nice hotel in Tifton GA. We booked this hotel yesterday with a big credit Hotels.com gave us for the inconvenience of our original hotel in GA closing and them having to find us an upgrade. Win/win for us. I cleaned the car yesterday and helped Heather as best as I could. She packed everything I think we own in an amazing way. Usually if we forget something, we buy it but we are leaving town with $18 besides gas money ($200, our life’s savings).
The packing/cleaning/watching a Mythbusters panel from last DragonCon and then a tour of Adam’s cave took till 4:30 AM, maybe that’s why I’m so tired. Today we drive, for tomorrow we may walk.
We have many fine podcasts and audio books to keep us company on the way.
10:37 first stop Dollar Tree for road snacks.
10:48 stopped for energy drinks at Publix. They’re on sale for a dollar each which is a very good cost saving measure.
11:00 filled the tank, leaving Cape Coral. On our way to Tifton, GA. Baby is asleep.
11:36 on I-75, putting into practice what I learned on mythbusters about picking a lane and sticking to it.
1:45 we have spent the last hour or so in a completely useless detour off of I-75 between Bee Ridge Road and Fruitville in Sarasota. It had us going on a 5-mile circle detour with no end. It felt like I was in the twilight zone. To make the adventure more exciting, our car seemed to have a problem with a low idle or the fuel system. So anytime it got below 1000 RPMs it would stall. So I had to drive it like it was a stick shift, going from drive to neutral, using both feet. While this was an unwelcome event in our trip, it gave us an opportunity to stop at a gas station and let Ren reach up and touch a tree and take some pictures.
2:00 back on I-75 smooth sailing from here on out.
2:14 Renny had some tummy troubles and threw up all over the place. Luckily, there was a rest stop two miles ahead. After we cleaned her up, she got to see a black bird in another tree.
After that it was smooth sailing to the Hampton Inn. This place is beautiful.
They had happy hour when we got there, so free included dinner, and then we all went swimming. Now I’m trying to get the Roku to hook up to the hotel wifi. Never leave home without it.
Apparently I have to spoof my MAC address on my Ubuntu laptop to let the network know I agree to the terms of their wifi, and the macchanger isn’t compatible with the latest Ubuntu release. So we are all going to the lobby for some coffee and hot cocoa.
All in all it was a great day.
Also the car ran much better after I put some fuel injector cleaner in it.
What The Breakfast Club meant and still means, to not only me, but a whole generation of Gen-Xers, is not just a movie, or a fun romp (I say that) movie starring the main members of the Brat Pack. It was the first, and perhaps the best, movie that spoke directly to us. Whether you were an athlete, brain, princess, criminal, a basket case, or like me, some combination of them. For most of us, there was a character in this film that was us, or enough like us to be our window into this experience. We didn’t know or care that Shermer, Illinois doesn’t really exist, or while we were watching and sucked into this film, we were in detention.
In the first episode of AdWords, Fred Talor shares his business and marketing expertise with you. Fred talks about what Google AdWords is and why it is an amazing tool to help grow your business by advertising to a specifically targeted audience already looking to buy your product or service. This is what you can do, right now, to build your business. Learn how to position yourself so potential clients will see your ad and how to make the perfect Key Phrase for your Google ad. If you are a business owner and want to capture the attention of potential clients, this is the podcast for you. If you are brand new to AdWords, or a PPC pro, this is the best place to learn and Fred Talor is the teacher to help you reach your full potential.
