Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jan 17, 2012, 1:41 pm
Alcatraz is the story of time traveling murders and the people who want to catch them before they kill again.  It’s a good show on many levels, the actors are great, the production values are high, and who doesn’t long for a glimpse of the good old days of prison life in the early 1960s? The ...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jan 3, 2012, 10:24 am
What’s wrong with the Dallas Cowboys?  Owner Jerry Jones. It’s been the tradition on local talk radio to call for the head of Jerry Jones after the final loss of the season.  But yesterday the usual rabble rousers were replaced by some college football game, so I had to listen to another spor...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jan 2, 2012, 9:10 pm
The Book of Unwritten Tales is the best adventure game to come out since last year’s Gray Matter from Jane Jensen.  It’s another throw back to the glory days of Sierra Online and LucasArts point and click games. The Book of Unwritten Tales features great voice acting, beautiful graphics, and a...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Dec 21, 2011, 9:45 pm
I liked Mission:Impossible-Ghost Protocol.  The story of four agents duking it out with a Supervillian and a Russian Cop.  Along the way things blow up, people get chased, cars crash, and there are a lot of pretty cool fights.  Ghost Protocol is the kind of movie you walk out of the theater looki...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Dec 17, 2011, 4:24 pm
Here is the tale of one man’s love for his favorite beverage: Beer.  From it’s humble beginnings as everyone’s everyday drink, to it’s latest mutations into 32 per cent proof hard core booze, Charles Bamforth explains why beer is the best of all the alcohols. I’m not a drinking man, not...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Dec 15, 2011, 9:48 pm
The story of a council block inhabited by an odd mixture of London poor, that happens to become the center of an alien invasion.    From the producers of Shane of The Dead, Attack The Block is a pretty straight forward take on a monster movie. Unlike CGI fests such as Super 8 and Cloverfield, At...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Nov 25, 2011, 10:14 pm
3D looks like it is here to stay this time-and if they could all look as good as Hugo, that would be a alright with me.  The opening shot is a long zoom from the city of Paris down to a pair of eyes and it was pretty damned impressive.  I especially liked the snow-it was one of those old school 3D...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Nov 22, 2011, 9:47 am
I like books about memory and the brain.  I must have read The Memory Book by Harry Lorayne when I was still in high school-not that it helped me with my studies, but I did learn how to memorize all kinds of random items.  I really loved Superlearning as well.  There is something amazing about ho...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Nov 20, 2011, 9:32 am
It seems there are two main types when it comes to the Paranormal, the Believers and the Skeptics.  Or so the case is put forth in Fringe-ology by Steve Volk.  He takes a look at such topics as Near Death Experiences, Ghosts, UFOs, Meditation, and Lucid Dreaming.  He tries to keep an Open Mind an...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Nov 9, 2011, 11:32 am
So, what’s the difference between success and failure?  Action, of course.  The successful people of the world do things, while the less successful sit around watching tv and playing video games.  Hmm. The 10X Rule, like most self help books, is a great read that left me feeling as if I have f...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Nov 3, 2011, 12:01 pm
In 1971 a man with a briefcase hijacked a Northwest Orient 727 flight.  He ransomed the passengers for $200,000 and then jumped out of the plane.  He has never been heard from since, leaving the end of his story open for everyone to write their own ending. Geoffrey Gray tells the story of D. B. C...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Nov 1, 2011, 9:43 pm
In the Future, people never age past 25, all cars were designed in the early 1970s, and time has replaced dollars as currency.  In Time is a familiar story, a poor guy from the bad part of Time and a rich girl from the good part of Time, go on a Robin Hood style crime spreed to help the poor and th...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Nov 1, 2011, 1:03 pm
Another low budget sort-of-science-fiction film with a lot of art house appeal.  Another Earth is about a woman who is in a car crash and crippled with guilt over her irresponsible actions. She spends years in jail and then stakes the man she plowed into.  She spends a lot of time moping around a...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Oct 31, 2011, 1:36 pm
John Gierach is a fly fisherman who has managed to turn his love into his profession.  He gets paid to roam around the country looking for little used trout streams and pull trouts out of them.  Along the way he talks about his hippie days, how he feels about the new rich, and how book tours are n...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Oct 21, 2011, 3:40 pm
I then realized I was contrasting my aesthetic sensitivity to that of some teenagers about a game that concerns itself with shooting as many zombies as possible.  It is moments like this that can make it so dispritingly difficult to care about video games. ~author Tom Bissell I’ve been an advent...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Oct 16, 2011, 6:22 pm
Harlan Ellison hasn’t sued Daniel H. Wilson-at least not yet, but it’s hard not to think of The Terminator while reading Robopocalypse.  More precisely, it bears a striking resemblance to S. M. Stirling’s trilogy sequel to Arnold’s T2.  I really loved the T2 books and I’m pretty impresse...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Oct 16, 2011, 10:14 am
The idea here is that you can change any aspect of your life-if you are just willing to follow a few simple steps.  The problem, of course, is that most of us are unable to follow a few simple steps. Near the beginning of Change Anything we are told that a recent study found that ALL diets work-if...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Sep 23, 2011, 4:01 pm
The story of an odd family told through the eyes of a young woman who can taste people’s emotions from the food they prepare.  This kind of food mind reading is not fun and our hero tends to eat as many manufactured foodstuffs as she can.  Machines have bad feelings to impart on their food. Aut...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Sep 18, 2011, 12:54 pm
Jonathan Dixon is an old man of 38 when he decides that he is tired of wandering aimlessly through life.  The path before him has become clear.  He wants to be a Chef and the best way to get there runs through the Culinary Institute of America. For the most part, the CIA is a place for the honing...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Sep 13, 2011, 10:59 pm
Contagion was not what I was expecting.  I thought it was going to be more 28 Days Later and less PBS Special on Diseases and how they are spread.  So instead of a tense story about the end of the world, we had a rather dry and boring story about the spread a virus and how it brings out the worst ...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Aug 22, 2011, 7:53 pm
Empty is a sort of post apocalyptic story, if you can call going one week without gas a post apocalyptic event.  Yes, this movie tells the tale of a world without gasoline-thus all gas tanks are Empty and anarchy reins. Empty is an ultra low budget independent film with a cast of about ten people-...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Aug 11, 2011, 12:04 pm
Harlan Ellison is odd fellow.  At age 72 when Dreams With Sharp Teeth was put together, he seems just this side of madness as he rants and raves about the world around him.  But then, he has always ranted and raved about the world around him. I have never been a huge fan of Harlan Ellison’s wri...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Aug 3, 2011, 11:04 pm
Rob Lilwall is a middle school geography teacher who is, not surprisingly, bored with his life.  He is 27 years old, has no significant other, and has no big plans for the future.  So when he his old buddy Al emails Rob and asks him to ride with for the last leg of his round-the-world cycling trip...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jul 23, 2011, 11:54 pm
In Torchwood Miracle Day death takes a holiday-and it looks more like a permanent leave.  The interesting Torchwood bit is that Captain Jack, our hero, has been immortal-until Miracle Day that is.  So is it all a plot to kill off Captain Jack for good? The first season of Torchwood had a high sex...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jul 20, 2011, 5:35 pm
I really loved The Witcher.  It was a fun game, even though it had the nasty habit of killing you every few minutes.  The new Witcher follows along in that tradition, and I am growing to love it. I bought the Witcher 2 the day it came out-and found that it was all but impossible for me to play. ...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jul 17, 2011, 3:38 pm
Spoilers-Watched the film without knowing anything about it.  It’s best not to even watch the Trailer.  Just get Wrecked and watch it.             The story of a man who finds himself at the bottom of a ravine in a wrecked car.  His leg is pinned under the dashboard.  A man is dea...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jul 16, 2011, 7:17 pm
Bird Cloud is the name of a bit of property that Annie Proulx bought in Wyoming.  Here she plans on building her dream house.  Clearly she never got around to watching the brilliant Cary Grant film called Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House-or she would have known what to expect.  As it is see fa...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jul 15, 2011, 5:42 pm
I’m one of those people who didn’t read the Harry Potter books, but I have enjoyed the movies over the years.  Well, except for those three or four in the middle that didn’t seem to make much sense or advance the plot or even tell an interesting story.  But they were still fun to watch. I a...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jul 13, 2011, 3:13 pm
The story of a writer who wakes up one day to discover that she is not as happy with her life as she would have hoped.  Much like the woman Julia Roberts plays in Larry Crowne, our hero finds that her layabout husband with his half-assed plans and never fulfilled dreams is not going to be a part of...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jul 9, 2011, 10:21 pm
Kate Winslet does a great job of portraying long suffering, unlucky in love, sharp business woman, and often incredibly dim Depression era damsel Mildred Pierce.  Mildred’s husband leaves her, one of her two daughters dies, and she starts her own business selling her famous pies. Mildred is a pr...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jul 8, 2011, 4:13 pm
I was sitting around watching some late night TV the other day when one of those fitness infomercials came on.  But this one wasn’t for the Insanity Workout or P90X, it was for some kind of Spinning Workout. So I hop over to Amazon and find about 120 Spinning DVDs.  Well, I guess I am a bit beh...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jul 7, 2011, 10:56 am
The story of a college dropout who falls in love with a married woman.  The only trouble is that her husband happens to be a homicidal maniac. He gets away with constant murder by running a circus that is always on the move. Water for Elephants is a so over the top that I found myself waiting for ...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jul 5, 2011, 6:20 pm
I’ll watch just about any science fiction that doesn’t feature giant robots that turn into cars. Falling Skies from TNT and Steven Spielberg is the story of Earth after the fall of humankind to an alien invasion.  The aliens are called Skidders and most closely resemble one of the twisted toys...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jul 1, 2011, 8:35 pm
I watched Larry Crowne because of Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman.  I especially liked Biff Henderson’s brief cameo in the restaurant. When we meet Larry Crowne he is a very happy employee at a big box store, a kind of cross between Wal-Mart and Targ...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jun 30, 2011, 7:01 pm
The writers of the Green Lantern movie must be about my age-they like the Hal Jordan version of the Green Lantern.  Neal Adams was the artist that brought my Green Lantern to life.  Those were some damned good comics. The movie stars pretty boy Ryan Renyolds as modern day test pilot Hal Jordan. ...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jun 29, 2011, 8:13 pm
I’ve got a couple of weeks off.  It’s not all that unusual, but it’s not all that common either.  So I am writing.  Sort of. I have the better part of a rough draft, which is the easy part for me.  I need to add a snappy opening, slap in a few transitions here and there, and viola! it wil...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jun 27, 2011, 10:08 pm
Good old fashioned gangster movie about the glory days of the Mob in Cleveland and one Danny Greene who remains in thorn in their side for several years.   The cast has a lot of regulars from other mobster movies, with the noticeable exception of the lead, Ray Stevenson, who seems to have been in a...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jun 25, 2011, 12:51 pm
Jim Carrey was never exactly been Sir Laurence Olivier, but he has shown from time to time that he can do more than just mug at the camera and deliver silly lines.  But in his heart of hearts, he really just wants to mug at the camera and deliver silly lines.  He does both to excess in I Love You ...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jun 22, 2011, 9:49 pm
Imagine that you are a struggling artist-or worse yet, a struggling street artist.  Not only is your art generally not worth much, but it is a crime to make it and someone doing Community Service will be along shorty to cover it up.  But all is not that bad, a handful of street artists are being t...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jun 21, 2011, 7:03 pm
Barry Levinson’s made for HBO movie is about the completely eccentric retired Doctor Jack Kevorkian, who believes that it is his duty to put people out of their misery.   With the help of his sister and his only friend in the world, who happens to run a medical supply business-Doctor Death start...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jun 18, 2011, 9:10 pm
Ah, those were the good old days One of the local Oldies radio stations has started playing reruns of Casey Kasem’s American Top 40.  They were playing one from June 17, 1978 and it was likely one that I listened to when it first aired all those years ago.  This was back when the Top 40 was an ...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jun 17, 2011, 11:36 am
There are times while reading Blood, Bone, & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton that I find myself smiling from the simple pleasure of her prose.  A good writer can tell you how she makes pasta.  A great writer makes you want to dust the flour off your hands once she has finished telling you how she ma...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jun 15, 2011, 10:27 am
Laurell K Hamilton goes old school with Anita Blake in the 20th book in the series.  Hit List is more monster hunting and vampire slaying and a lot less wicked sexual powers and Ardeur induced orgies.  This is a good thing. The story opens up with Anita and Edward investigating a series of murder...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jun 12, 2011, 8:43 pm
J.J. Abrams has made a love song to Steven Spielberg.  From the Super 8 One Sheet that bears a striking resemblance to the One Sheet for Close Encounters of The Third Kind to his story which bears a striking resemblance to both E.T. and The Goonies. Our story is set in 1979-for no clear reason oth...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jun 11, 2011, 10:01 pm
The audio book of Man in The Dark was read by author Paul Auster and he does a brilliant job of bringing this odd story to life.  His voice has a soft cadence and a deliberate touch which perfectly matches the slow paced story of a seventy-two year old man who can’t quit get to sleep. As our tal...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jun 6, 2011, 8:26 pm
I’ve always been a fan of all you can eat places-who doesn’t love having more food than they can possibly eat?  Genghis Grill sell their buffet as either one bowl-about the size of a cereal bowl- or all you can eat.  The result is that some people don’t want to spend another couple of dollar...
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Jon H. posted an article on If You Write It - Jun 5, 2011, 10:14 pm
                    You just gotta love a movie that opens with our hero as a small boy in a Nazi death camp.  Of course, Erik is not really the hero, but then, he’s not exactly the great villain either.   At about the same time, we find Charles at home at stately Wayne Mano...
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