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One thing about pop culture, there will always be movies made that help define a generation. My grandma had "Breakfast at Tiffany's," the Boomer's had "The Big Chill," Generation X had "High Fidelity" and Generation Y had "Napoleon Dynamite."

But what I find most interesting about these cult movies is that people who are not in a movie's particular generation generally hate it.

For example, when "Reality Bites" first came out, I couldn't get enough of it. I loved it. My mother absolutely loathed it. Couldn't stand it. She told me to watch the movie again when I was older and I'd understand why she hated it.

Well, here we are, however many years later, and it is still one of my favorite movies. And by the same token, I never quite got her love of "Valley of the Dolls."

But even though we may never truly "get" each other's generational movies, that doesn't change the fact that there are movies out there that get "us." That get our generation and what we are all about, including the good, the bad and the ugly haircuts.

Being that I am right inbetween Generation X and Generation Y (if not in year of birth, then at least by how I feel) my picks for the movies that helped define my generation (which I refer to as Generation XY) are:

Reality Bites

Empire Records

Garden State

Foxfire (with a young Angelina Jolie)

High Fidelity

The Goonies

Clerks

Mallrats

Heathers

Rent

Trainspotting

Kids

I'd also like to give a shout out to the TV show "My So-Called Life," which truly defined what it was like to be in high school in the mid and late 90s.

Other generational movies I love (but aren't necessarily about my generation) include:

St. Elmo's Fire

The Outsiders

Dazed and Confused

Almost Famous

Animal House

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

So what do you think? What are your picks for movies that helped define your generation?

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Well, now that all the hoopla surrounding the wed/unwed parent debate has subsided a bit, I thought I'd write a blog on much lighter topic dealing with little rugrats. And by lighter, I mean slightly creepy.

It seems two American inventors have come up with the next wave of products for your little prosti-tot: High heeled stilettos for babies.

Oh, yes, I am not kidding. According to a story in the Telegraph, the shoes are called Heelarius and are intended for babies up to six months.

Now, of course, the inventors say they are only intended for show and that any pressure put on them will cause them to collapse. They added that it's just supposed to be something funny but being that this is America, of course many nay-sayers have come out of the woodwork to say its the worse invention since Shaken Baby Syndrome.

Personally, I think this product is more like a novelty thing and not to be taken seriously. No one actually wants their baby to look sexy (save for Jon Benet's parents and the lowest of the low of pedophiles).

A lot of people are claiming that this is just another in a long line of products meant to sexualize children (hello Tesco's pole dancing kit) but I think these shoes were probably created in the spirit of dressing up babies in little cow and monkey outfits and hats with floppy ears.

Although granted, it does register slightly on the creepy scale. I mean, ask anyone who knows me and they'll tell you what a shoe-o-phile I am, but I may have to draw the line at high heels on babies.

And besides, my poor future kids are already going to be scarred enough after I make them wear those shirts with sayings like "My other car seat is in a Porsche."

But meanwhile, since these shoes are still on the shelf, we can have lots of fun making jokes, such as:

Heelarius: Endorsed by Lynn Spears and Dina Lohan

Tired of your baby being so short? Try Heelarius.

Buy a pair of Heelarius and get a push-up onesie half-off.

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Well, I held it off as long as I could but now I just have to speak up. And considering this blog is dedicated to trends, I felt it was an appropriate format to talk about the trend of unmarried couples having the babies.

It's no secret that over the past few decades, single parent households have increased (although not as much as you may think...according to the U.S. Census, single parent households were at about 9 percent from 1994 through 2006, up from 5 percent in 1970).

Some attribute it to a decline of society or family values. Others say marriage isn't really relevant anymore and many people purposely choose not to get married.

My thoughts? It's probably a combination of a lot of things.

But while people will talk until they are blue in the face about the issues surrounding unwed mothers and fathers, little seems to be said from the ones this issue affects the most: the kids.

I, myself, am the product of an unwed union. (Gasp!). My mother was 19, my father in his early 20s and nine months and one defective prophylactic later, here I am. Now granted, after they got the news, Daddio oh-so-romantically handed my mom a ring and said "You want it?" She said yes, but then decided to call the whole thing off because he happened to be an abusive drug user.

Mom felt she could do a better job on her own, especially when she gave him the ultimatum of either stop the drugs and take care of your daughter or we walk. His response? Lighting up a joint.

So we walked.

She raised me by herself and you know what? I did not end up in jail, or using public assistance programs, or become pregnant as a teen, or abuse drugs, or get low grades, or whatever other number of issues that the statistics show about us poor little children of the unwed.

Instead, I am a college-educated professional 26-year-old in a healthy relationship with a successful man (who is, if I do say so myself, wicked hot).

My mother never once used a public assistance program, managed to get her college degree while I was a toddler and by the time I was 12, she had bought a big, two story house in the country all by her lonesome.

And yet, even though my mother and I did fine with our little family of two, both of us still get "those" looks when people find out. You know what I'm talking about. That look that says my mother was a teenage tramp and I'm her juvie delinquent child.

And I'm sure other single mothers or fathers and their kids get those looks. In fact, on a recent story Advocate reporter Bj Lewis did for Father's Day, people were giving those looks via the Internet on the discussion forum. They were shocked and appalled that the paper featured a brand new father who wasn't married to the mother.

One poster even said that the child now has the odds stacked against him. To that I say, odds can be stacked against you only if you let them. I never felt odds were stacked against me. And if they were, I pushed them over and stepped daintily through them.

A couple posters even said the story made them ill.

And to that I say, I'm sorry that the way I happened to be raised makes you so sick, but you know what? It's better than if my mom had actually married my father. I'm pretty sure being raised by a junkie who had the potential to be violent would have given me many more issues as an adult than, God forbid, being raised by a single mother.

Marriage does not necessarily good parents make. Anyone can reproduce and being legally married does not change who you are. If two people marry, why does that suddenly make them upstanding citizens and capable of being a parent, which from what I've heard, is the hardest job you'll ever have?

Why do people think it is better for a child to be raised in a house where parents are always fighting, or hate each other, or end up divorced, rather than by a single parent?

Now granted, the best case scenario is when two people who love each other have a child and raised it together. But this is far from a perfect world and those that are able to have that are very lucky.

My mom wasn't so lucky but she did an incredible job raising me and she didn't need a ring on her finger to do so.

And to all single parents out there and their kids, keep your heads up. Let them judge. Let them give "those" looks. They have no idea that what it really takes to raise a great kid is love, not a legal document.

And to my own mother, thanks. Thanks for resisting the societal pressure to get married when you knew it was better for us to be on our own. Thanks for having the courage to walk away and endure all "those" looks. And thanks for passing on that strength to me.

Although I may be risking exposing my Yankee roots, I can't help but notice how uncomfortably hot it has gotten of late.

Like Ninth Circle of Hell hot. Like surface of the sun hot. Like going outside is now the equivalent of swimming in a hot bowl of pea soup hot. Like...

Okay, okay, you get it. It's friggin' hot. And humid. And summer has just started (insert hopeless sobs here).

In fact, I'm afraid by August, this Yankee girl may be curled up in the fetal position and sucking her thumb at the thought of possibly having to go outside.

And although I fully realize most South Texans are much hardier than I am (true story, once I had a native Victorian tell me "What do you mean it's hot? It can't be more than 110 degrees.") I know the heat tends to get to them from time to time too.

With that in mind, I am writing a story about how to survive the upcoming summer heat and I am looking for anyone in the area who has a good story to tell about South Texas summers. Especially if you happen to work in one of those industries that is primarily outside or have an outside hobby.

So if you've ever suffered from heat exhaustion, had your air conditioning go out in August, ended up looking like a lobster after a day at the beach, or any other story you wish to share, contact me at abrandon@vicad.com or give me a call at 361-580-6514.

Until then, try to stay cool, comrades.

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In my day, I have been known to join some pretty crazy social networking groups. I mean, on Facebook alone, I'm already a member of the groups "Jon Stewart for President," The Lee Evans Appreciation Society"," "AA is for Quitters" and "Chuck Norris Rocks!"

But then I came across this one. And I am unashamed to say that I am not quite sure how I was able live all these years not being a member of this particular online community.

It's called LostZombies.com and (true story) it is devoted to gathering definitive proof that zombies are real and to educating the world about the potential, and most likely imminent zombie apocalypse.

The best part is that people can send in their own "proof" in the form of photos and videos that zombies are real. And having searched through some of them, I can say they are the funniest proof of the undead this side of "Shaun of the Dead."

But the fun doesn't stop there, my friends. If things go right, apparently all these videos and photos will eventually be put into the world's first community generated zombie documentary.

Awesome.

What can I say? I love people with a quirky (alright, let's just say it, weird) sense of humor.

And so, I will be joining the site. Just because...I mean, how can you not? It's zombies, man.

God Bless the Internet (and 20-somethings with nothing better to do with their day).

In another example of the above 40 sect trying to stay hip with the teens and 20-somethings, a PR company has compiled a list of the new lingo us crazy kids are using today. Called the 2008 Cultural Dictionary, it was purportedly compiled by the company Cramer-Krasselt, which raked through hundreds of blogs and Web sites to find these words.

Now, having read through the list, I recognized maybe 10 of these words, which means one of two things.

1. At 26, I'm officially old and no longer hip. Or...

2. Cramer-Krasselt was so desperate to sound hip and with it, that they just randomly pulled words some 13-year-old used once in a blog.

Now, don't get me wrong. Some of these words are porntastic (see below). I just find it funny when corporate America tries to sound young by bogarting slang kids came up with.

But still, the list does show how creative and funny kids out there in cyberland can be. Some of my favorites from the list are:

Bromance: a strong heterosexual relationship between two males.

Dotcomrade: friend or acquaintance that you met online but have never met in person.

Drunkorexic: a person who starves themselves all day to offset the calories in the alcohol they consume.

Generica: features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where you go, such as strip malls and fast food places.

Googleganger: similar to that of a doppelganger, it's another person with the same name as you whose records and/or stories are mixed in with your own when you Google yourself.

Greenlashing: skeptism and backlash against decpetive and false environmental marketing.

Hobosexual: a man who cares little about his appearance, the opposite of a metrosexual.

Infosnacking: wasting time at work by surfing the Web.

Mouse potato: the on-line generation's answer to the couch potato

Porntastic: something great, but slightly edgy and racy

Retox: drinking the morning after a night out in order to hold off the effects of a hangover.

Stink-eye: euphemism for an annoyed facial expression where the face resembles one of a reaction to a bad odor (used recently in the film "Juno")

w00t: an expression of joy and excitement.

To read the entire list, click here.