This music mix come from The Genevan Heathen, via Discobelle. See the track list after the jump.

The Music of John Hughes (Rapidshare)

Pitfall Harry's Jungle Adventure is fraught with danger. Some hazards will slow him down, while others will stop him cold in his tracks... The catastrophic hazards are the scorpions, fires, cobra rattlers, crocodiles, swamps, quicksand, and tar pits.

Oh, the quicksand. That damnable quicksand... [Atari Age]

Also, Molly and Matthew look pretty good don't they? Fortyish, sure... less nubile than they were on screen. But we're not so old yet, right?? [via HuffPo]

Photo: Jeff Slocomb/Corbis

In trying to figure out which of the archetypes (geek, basketcase, jock) Hughes most related to, Kamp points to a fascinating interview from 1986 on the Ferris Bueller DVD extras in which he refers to the "classic third wheel situation" of having Cameron tagging along, but he reveals that he was always the one with the girlfriend (Hughes and his wife Nancy met in high school), with the dopey friend in the backseat. Kamp of course goes on to say that Molly Ringwald, Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, and Anthony Michael Hall each represented a facet of Hughes' real character, which "was at once an old kid and a young fogy."

Melancholy, no? The Muppets have always been excellent arbiters of irony in pop culture. We recently Netflixed The Great Muppet Caper and were totally awed by how well its aged, so many of the jokes still zinging true.

For those who've tried to achieve YouTube fame and been obsessed with your virtual popularity, perhaps you can relate to this latest Muppet short featuring the charmingly one-note Beaker. But we have to say we're so happy to see the Jim Henson people becoming prolific in the online sphere. (In case you're not one of the 13 million to have watched their "Bohemian Rhapsody" re-do, here it is.)

Whatever. We bet you're a real ball of laughs, Allison. [via NY Mag]

We were only recently introduced to this footage of a quite extraordinary news broadcast showing the dynamiting of a dead whale back in 1970 in Florence, OR.  The footage in its original form was probably only seen by less than a 100,000 people, but via YouTube, it became the fifth most viewed viral video of all time, with over 350 million views, and is claimed as something of a touchstone for the Echo Boomers who helped pass it around. Asylum tracked down the original reporter, Paul Linnman, who's apparently proud to have become a late-in-life web sensation. It makes sense that Gen Ys touchstones are going to be, well, 9/11 (for us too), the iPod, and YouTube. But what will the web do next, besides delight, disgust and amaze us?

We suppose that a generation's defining characteristics arrive, necessarily, from their cultural output. With filmmakers like John Hughes, Richard Linklater, and John Singleton; writers like David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers, and A.M. Homes; and musicians like Kurt Cobain, Eminem, and The Smiths, one starts to see a specific picture emerge that's about non-conformity, disaffection, and a search for authenticity.  But weren't most of those characteristics also true of the Boomers who became hippies? The true defining edge for Gen X might then have to be irony, humor, and not a small degree of cynicism inherited from the failed revolution that preceded us.