You can order a pizza with just your voice through the Amazon Alexa system but can you order beer to go with that pizza pie? Yes, if you’ve installed the Handoff skill and are in their service area! I gave their new alcohol delivery service a try and here’s how things worked out… First, though, let me say that as a tech help writer and videographer, I spend a lot of time talking about how…Read More
If you follow me on social media (I’m on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, etc etc) you’ve already met our new dog Gus. Gus started in our family as a very big burr in a relatively small saddle when my son adopted him while at college, against the express wishes of his mother. His sister stepped in to help out with pup logistics and much thrashing about and a few heated conversations later, he’s our…Read More
I drive a lot of different vehicles and there are always issues or problems. The dashboard layout will be quirky, the entertainment system will feel ancient or clumsy, and the back seat passengers might be treated like second class citizens with a complete lack of amenities. Then there’s the actual drive experience too; a lot of car manufacturers seem to focus on luxury features rather than a solid, tight driving experience when behind the steering…Read More
You may still think of Netflix as a streaming video service, but it’s really become a movie studio with most of its emphasis on episodic storytelling. It’s all about the original content, with a foundation of streaming subscribers to help pay the bills. Last year’s surprise hit Roma suggested this evolution and one of the standout films of 2019 is also from Netflix Studios: The Irishman. Directed by Martin Scorsese and featuring splendid performances from…Read More
After spending a week driving the 2019 Honda Civic Touring edition, one can’t help ask whether curbside appeal is sufficient to make a car a great purchase or not. Yes, it has lots of safety features, but there are also a lot of missing elements, odd interface choices, a baffling entertainment system and a surprising lack of modern amenities. But first, let’s start on the outside, because the 2019 Civic body design is beautiful. This…Read More
The Battle of Midway was a major turning point in World War II. Prior to the December, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the US had a distinctly isolationist stance, merely watching the chaos of Hitler’s Germany invading country after country in Europe and Japan attacking all of its neighbors. One of the first scenes in the new film Midway has Japanese Admiral Yamamoto (Etsushi Toyokawa) warning American Lieutenant Commander Edwin Layton (Patrick Wilson) that…Read More
It was in the late 1970’s that a curious series of paperback books hit the shelf and completely changed how people thought of adventure stories. These stories didn’t need to be consumed in a linear fashion, heck you didn’t even need to read every page in the book. Instead, you were presented with a sequence of decisions at certain points and turned to page X or page Y based on your choice. Attack the monster?…Read More
There’s something primal and entirely rational about our fear of a relentless hunter. You can shoot them, you can throw them off a cliff, you can run them over with a truck, but they’re going to keep coming. There is no way to stop them and if their goal is to kill you, well, you’re dead. That was the underlying premise of the hugely successful 1984 film The Terminator and its even better sequel Terminator…Read More
Years ago I had a Toyota Prius. The second generation with the current body style, but still relatively early on in the car’s lifecycle. Heck, I had to wait six months after ordering it to get the vehicle I wanted, as I recall. And then there was Boulder Toyota who tried to trick me out of an additional $1000 for a “high altitude prep package” which caused me to switch dealerships for the purchase, but……Read More
I’m a big fan of cinema and have always had a special spot in my heart for monster films and creature features. That’s why when I got wind of a new board game called Horrified that was themed around the classic Universal monsters, I was definitely interested. It’s not H.P.Lovecraft and Cthulhu, a personal favorite mythos, but there’s something to be said for the archetypal monsters from 1930’s cinema. You know who I mean; Dracula,…Read More
There’s something about zombies that has captured our collective attention in this era of stark contrasts. Perhaps it’s that the zombies serve as a metaphor for the other, those people who don’t agree with you, who have starkly different and often abhorrent beliefs, values and lifestyles. Surely they can’t be thinking adults and believe what they’re espousing! Whatever the case, even 133 episodes of The Walking Dead hasn’t slowed down our undead shuffle to the…Read More
Paid promotion for Disney. All opinions are mine alone. #CelebrateMARVEL I loved comic books as a kid. What child doesn’t dream of being a hero and having friends who are heroes too? Few companies have realized the concept of contemporary hero better than MARVEL, and whether you’re a fan of their original material or some of the cool new characters that populate the MARVEL Universe, it’s all good fun. The company history is colorful too,…Read More
I was lucky enough to be invited to the grand opening of The Science Behind Pixar exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science a few days ago and naturally brought along my posse to enjoy the festivities. Pixar, of course, is the extraordinarily successful animation studio behind so many great films, including Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Inside Out, Up, Coco, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Monsters Inc., Wall-E and so many more. Pixar has won…Read More
While it’s possible to set a horror movie in a big, wide open space, the claustrophobic feeling of confinement is an important ingredient of many stories and films in the genre. If you can’t escape, how can you avoid the horrible fate that awaits you? Heck, there are horror films literally set inside a coffin where the protagonist wakes up and realizes they’re buried alive. Doesn’t get more confining than that! That’s also why I…Read More
Just to dispel any confusion up front, lead character Henry Brogan (Will Smith) is not a superhero in this film, drunk or otherwise. Though you wouldn’t know it given that director Ang Lee has offered up what can only be considered an homage to bad 80’s action films with a laughably indestructible protagonist. Brogan’s so tough, so single minded and so astonishingly good a sniper that a mysterious group affiliated with the Defense Intelligence Agency…Read More