Steven Helmer Publications

  I had to run to Wal-mart this morning before heading into the office. While there, I was debating making a stop at McDonald's to pick up a couple breakfast burritos when I came across this product in their freezer section. Since the Tina's Cantina burritos were just $1 each, I decided to give them a try. I'll start out by saying I did like the convenience of this product. All I had to do was wrap the burritos in a papertowel and microwave both of them for about 2 1/2 minutes. They came out of the microwave perfect, not too hot or overcooked and not frozen on the inside. Taste-wise, I thought this was an OK product. The burrito filling definitely didn't look anything like it does on the packaging and I didn't notice much breakfast sausage or cheese but I also didn't hate the flavor. It wasn't as good as the ones I could have purchased at McDonald's or even Kwik Trip but, for the $1 price, I was OK with them. The burritos did prove to be reasonably fill

Synopsis: After declaring bankruptcy, Terrence Mackleby is thrilled when he receives an offer for a new credit card and is accepted. Shortly after using it to buy a new car, however, Terrence realizes he is being followed by three men in black suits and he should have read the card's fine print. Who's in it? The movie stars Dan Crisafulli , Kay Whitney , Richard Garcia , Pat Cashman and Jennifer Angelucci-Medina. Review : My wife and I cam across this movie a couple days ago and, while the description was a bit vague, thought it looked interesting so I added it to our library. To be honest, I wasn't really sure what to expect from the film when we watched it last night but, at minimum, I hoped it wouldn't turn out to be yet another soft core porn film posing as a horror movie. As it turns out, it was a better movie than expected. I, personally, would not describe this as a horror movie. Yeah, some of the scenes were a little creepy but there wasn't anything overl

Synopsis: A group of passengers on a party bus heading to Burning Man are left stranded in the desert and are terrorized by a cannibalistic cult searching for their chosen one. Unable to escape or call for help, the few surviving passengers must find a way to survive the night while their tormentors, aided by their key-carrying bus driver, work to get inside the bus. Who's in it? The movie stars Tara Reid , Jillian Newton , Shelby McCullough , Sadie Katz and ViDonna Michaels. Review: My wife and I came across this movie a couple days ago and, since it sounded somewhat interesting, added it to our list. We had time to watch it last night and immediately regretted that decision. So, general rule of thumb, if a moviehas only one reasonably-recognizable actor/actress then kills off that actor/actress after only a few minutes of screen time, that's typically not a good sign. And, shame on me, when they killed off Tara Reid's character not long after the movie started and wit

Synopsis:  A dimwitted busboy, Walter, finds success as an artist when he accidentally kills his landlady's cat, covers it in clay and convinces people it is a sculpture. Determined to win the heart of the woman he secretly loves, Walter decides to repeat the process. Only, this time, he is using people. Who's in it? The movie stars Dick Miller , Barboura Morris , Antony Carbone , Ed Nelson and J udy Bamber. Review: I was running ahead of schedule this morning and had plenty of time before I needed to head to the office. Rather than risk waking everyone else up by pacing the floor, I looked for a movie to watch and picked this one solely because of the relatively-short runtime (66 minutes). To be honest, I wasn't really sure if I would like this movie, mostly because the premise reminded me too much of  House of Wax . Also, when I first started watching the film, I wasn't sure if it was going to be a horror movie, comedy or social comentary about the beatnik culture.

With school back in session and both of us working again, my wife and I still need to get ourselves back into a routine when it comes to planning dinner. As a result of this, we needed to figure something out at the last second and neither of us was in the mood to thaw something from the freezer. Since the kids had already eaten at their grandmother's, I decided to just pick up something at the store. After walking around for several minutes, I ended up with this in the cart. The primary reason I picked this particular frozen skillet dinner ($6.99) versus several other choices was because it had the least amount of steps. Frozen dinners are meant to be convenient. If we have to go through a long process and prepare certain things separately (as is the case with a surprisingly large number of skillet dinners) then we might as well just make something from scratch. This dinner, in comparison, only had three steps and none of them were overly complicated. Preparing the dinner proved t

 After having to skip a year due to COVID, we continued a family tradition by taking the kids to Poynette to visit the Environmental Center again. Not much has changed, though we were disappointed we weren't allowed in one of the museums yet because of the pandemic, and we all enjoyed ourselves. Here are a few photos: