Steven Helmer Publications

Synopsis: After Barney ( Don Knotts ) writes Gomer Pyle (Jim Nabors) a ticket for making an illegal U-turn, Gomer turns the tables by conducting a "citizen's arrest" when he sees Barney do the same thing. Andy ( Andy Griffith ) attempts to diffuse the situation by writing Barney a $5 ticket he intends to pay himself, but an outraged Barney decides to take five nights in jail instead before handing in his letter of resignation. My Thoughts - It's probably sacrilegious to say it, but I just realized I don't like Gomer Pyle . To be clear, I think Jim Nabors was a national treasure so please don't confuse the two. I just can't stand his most famous character, at least when it's not in small doses. I think it's because everyone gives him a pass since he's always so good natured/simple minded even though this episode and others have proven he can also be kind of a jerk at times. And don't even get me started on the citizens of Mayberry. Look, I ...

Synopsis: Stuart ( Kevin Sussman ) and his friends are trapped inside a comic book, courtesy of an all-powerful entity, the Adversary (André Sogliuzzo). No longer in possession of the device, their only hope is to find the Flash (Andy Ridings) and convince them to use his abilities to transport them back to their universe before Mr. Freeze (Eric Allan Kramer), sent by the Adversary, kills them. My Thoughts:  I had some doubts because this could have gone a number of wrong ways , but it was well done. Having the Flash be the older, Jay Garrick, version was a nice touch as was having the team still being forced to sit through mundane tasks, like waiting for their flight at an airport and getting food poisoning while having it broadcast on the pages of the comic book. I was, however, left with questions about why. Assuming, of course, the Adversary is a main bad guy and not just universe specific, I think it would be safe to assume it knows just about everything about Stuart, especia...

We are waiting for our youngest daughter to get done with work and, after failing to find a new movie that looked interesting, my wife and I decided to just watch a classic horror film we've seen before. This ended up being The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which I haven't seen (at least not in its 1974 form) in nearly a decade. Here are my thoughts after seeing it again: This movie was duller than I remember. I think a big part of that was the violence being surprisingly tame, especially by today's standards. Most of the violence is filmed in a way that keeps things from being too violent. However, it also took longer than I recalled for things to get going and even then, there's quite a bit of downtime between the kills. Plus, for a film that promises a chainsaw massacre, there isn't a whole lot of chain sawing. It might as well have been called the Texas Hammer Massacre because that was Leatherface's ( Gunnar Hansen ) preferred weapon of choice for a good chunk of...

Synopsis: On August 5, 1962, Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe is found unresponsive in her bed and is later determined to have died of a drug overdose raising questions about if it was an accidental overdose, suicide or something else. This true crime book explores Marilyn's life, career and tragic death at the age of 36. Review: I wasn't sure what I was getting when I checked out The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe from my library. I'm always interested in a good biography, even one with a "true crime" twist to it, but the library had this listed as fiction, so I didn't know if it would be educational or just a book taking advantage of a tragic life/death. In the end, I think it fell somewhere in between but more toward the former than the latter. I think the thing I liked best about this book is how it manages to bring her back to life in the pages and humanizes her. She was an actress that died 13 years before I was born and my only familiarity with her was th...

After getting rain yesterday, I decided to get out with my camera today while the weather was much more cooperative.  Unfortunately, there were quite a few more people there than usual and the foot traffic ultimately resulted in me cutting the walk short. I did, however, still end up with some photos. Here are a few of them: _____________________________________________________________________ Here are some of my previous nature photos: Lunchtime Walk Photos (6/4/2026) Morning Walk Photos (6/3/2026) Lunchtime Walk Photos (7/6/2026) Lunchtime Walk Photos 9/18/2020

One of the reasons I have a habit of watching The Big Bang Theory  reruns whenever I can't find anything else is, in addition to still getting laughs despite seeing the jokes dozens of times, it is one of the few shows that I legitimately cared about the characters. However, I am also one of the first to admit the six main characters also weren't always the best people, both to themselves and others. Here are what I feel were the worst moments for each of them: Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) betrays his friends/business partners. Sheldon had a "condition" that gave him plenty of awful moments, but I think this was the biggest one.   The guidance system Sheldon built with Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Howard (Simon Helberg) wouldn't have happened without all three of them working as equal partners. So, when Sheldon went behind their backs to redesign the system for the military by himself, it was a pretty big betrayal that frankly probably should have ended their frie...