MOVIE THOUGHTS: MONSTERS VS. ALIENS

I feel as if I'm falling behind in every area of my life -- unpacking, reading scripts, and especially blogging.  My deep apologies.  I know I need to get my act in gear because summer movie season is upon us, what with the much-anticipated (at least in this household) opening of X-Men Origins: Wolverine next weekend!

But in the meantime, I have seen a few other movies (and read some books, and need to blog there, too, I know)...

Monsters Vs. Aliens, frankly, was a movie I almost forgot I

 saw.  I know many people have liked it, which makes me wonder: (a) Haven't they ever seen a movie before?  Because if they have, they've seen this one already.  Or (b) What were they smoking?  (Or maybe (c):  How little does it take to

 "entertain" an audience these days?)

Monsters vs. Aliens is the animated story of a bright young woman about to marry a jerk when she's hit by a radioactive meteorite and transformed into a 50' tall woman, soon to be known as Ginormica.  She's sequestered away with other "monsters" (a blob, a smart cockroach, etc.) by the government until the monsters are needed to fight an onslaught of alien robots.  (Hmmm... now there's a story idea for Heroes...)

Everything in this movie is predictable.  Everything feels as if it's the product of studio notes:  "What if she's having trouble in her relationship?"  "Ooh, that's fresh!"  "And kids love robots -- let's throw in a robot as well as the monsters and the aliens!"  "Marketi

ng genius!"  "And at the end, what if she decides she doesn't want to go back to the jerk boyfriend because she's found herself and doesn't need him anymore to feel fulfilled?" "Oh, that's profound.  Deep, even."

I found no one in this movie to like.  In her pre-Ginormica stage, Susan is just an idiot for being so head-over-heels over a guy who's so clearly an a**hole (she takes a long time to figure out what the audience knew from his first scene).  Her emotional "arc" is boring and predictable.  The other "monsters" are superficial and not nearly funny enough.  Overall, it's 2 hours of eh.

Now, I must admit we did not see this in 3D, which presumably adds some spice to the experience.  I'm just not a huge 3D fan (don't like wearing 2 pairs

 of glasses at a time, and rarely find it worthwhile to do so), and didn't want to 

pay the surcharge.  So maybe we missed something.

But wait -- I did like something in this movie.  Stephen Colbert is hilarious in a brief turn as the President of the U.S., especially when he tries to communicate with the alien spacecraft via music.  Loved every moment of this.  Unfortunately, every moment totaled out to maybe 5 minutes.  Sigh.

Monsters vs. Aliens isn't painful to watch.  I'll give it that much.  But there are better movies coming.  Let this one go.  After all, why spend $10 on a movie you won't remember you saw?

STILL UNPACKING.

Yes, I should be posting about last quarter's books, about my re-read of Harry Potter.  But I am still digging out.

The good news is that, after 12 days here, we finally have working phones and working cable TV.  This means the bulk of the aggravation is over (also the bulk of the waiting on hold).

The bad news is that we don't yet have our washing machine.  The dryer, yes.  But the installers couldn't get the washer to work.  So we get a new one tomorrow.  Though for that to happen, the installers have to arrive within a 2-hour window.  This means that I'm already planning the next trip to Target for more socks and underwear.

We also still 

can't get the L.A. Times to deliver our newspaper for more than one day in a row.  I will call them again today and patiently remind (or inform) the folks in India that delivering the newspaper is a job that 10-year-old boys used to do quite well.  I may despair of ever receiving the $20 In-n-Out gift card that was supposed to come with our new subscription.

Other than that, we are settled in.  Oh, and we still have about 250 boxes to open.  So other than that, we are settled in.

More posting soon.  Really.  I mean it.

MY CUP RUNNETH OVER

So we have more or less moved into our new home.  I still can't find my purple jacket that I love so much and that I fear fell into one of the movers' wardrobe boxes, never to be seen again.  Still can't find our good tablecloths or some of our good wine glasses.  

Still don't have my office set up, still don't have fully-functional internet, and really no phone service to speak of.   Still can't figure out how to reset the clock on the built-in microwaves after the neighborhood had a power outage -- though we did figure out how to reset the tankless water heater (apparently, you're supposed to push the big red button marked "On").  And don't even ask me about clean clothes!

But the washer and dryer will be delivered on Tuesday, and the guy comes to fix the phones on Wednesday, and we discover new treasures (or junk) with each box we unpack.  So slowly, slowly, we are settling in.

I won't go into the details as to how this house came to us (or how we came to it), but suffice it to say that it is without a doubt a gift of God to us.  Yet after the straitened circumstances in which we have been living the last months, it has seemed, well, too much, with its enormous rooms and wildly fabulous kitchen and two-spout keginator and 64" TV and all.

..

And the first night we were here, I found myself awake in the middle of the night, listening to the unfamiliar sounds around me, feeling so blessed, yet feeling just a bit panicked as well.

"We don't need a house like this!" my mind raced.  "We've survived with so much less, maybe we haven't thrived, but certainly survived.  It's too much!  It's so much more than we need!  It's really a waste to give all this to us."

Seesawing back between the blessedness and the panic, I tried to calm my mind down by reciting the 23rd Psalm to myself.  And when I got to "My cup overflows... " or "runneth over," if you will, something clicked.

To pour a cup to overflowing is definitionally wasteful.  You're wasting good wine, dumping onto the table or the ground, wine that now can't be used for anything.  Or if it's water you're pouring, you're wasting your very life blood -- remember, David is in a desert when he writes this, and L.A. is enough of a desert for me to know that you simply don't waste water.

And yet David writes this line as a statement of rejoicing.  But how can it be a matter of rejoicing to waste a valuable resource?

The only way it makes sense is if you're blessed with such abundance that it doesn't matter if you waste your resources -- there's always more!  Now, that may not make sense if you're pouring water on the desert sand, but it makes sense in the light of God's abundance.

And I realized, that's what this house is to us:  God's abundance to us, pouring out so much more than we need, just because He can.

And with that realization, I relaxed and fell back asleep right away.  

We don't know how long we'll be here -- we hope for a long, long time, but we have learned not to make plans for tomorrow.  But for now, for this time, at this Holy Week, we are intensely grateful for and humbled by God's abundance toward us.

My cup indeed overflows.

EVERYTHING'S AMAZING BUT NOTHING WORKS

We are moved in to the most amazing house we have ever lived in.  Truly our cup overflows (more on that in a day or so). 

But moving these days involves more than opening your 564 boxes and finding the right space for everything.  It also involves hooking up enough technology to earn an IT degree, if such a thing existed.  And in our case, none of it seems to work.  

The problem isn't the technology itself.  It's the work done (or not done) by the various companies providing (or failing to provide) the tech services.

The phones.  I actually tend to have good experiences with AT&T, and I was happy when I learned that our new landline provider would be AT&T rather than Verizon (with whom my experience has been disastrous).

But not so much this time.  I called weeks in advance.  Set up the service.  Easy as pie.

Until we moved in.  I couldn't get voicemail set up.  That's odd.  Oh well, a simple call to AT&T should take care of it.

So I call.  I start punching numbers as requested.  And an automated voice says, "I see you're dialing from..." and lists a different phone number than our new number.  A completely different number.

Huh?

Eventually I get to a person.  I ask her about that number that I'm supposedly dialing from.  Yes, she confirms, that odd number is the number of our phone.

She transfers me to Repair.    But Repair is the wrong department.  Repair transfers me to the right department -- but in Texas.  Oops.  (I guess I should be glad it wasn't India!)  

Eventually I'm transferred to the right person.  And she's actually very good.  She looks through the original order.  Apparently the guy who took our order didn't take it as a new line; he filed the order as adding an additional line to existing phone service, and didn't cancel the previous service at all.  So we have both lines in the house currently -- and sometimes the phone rings, sometimes it doesn't.  

A technician needs to come out and rewire the house.  But they can't get anyone out here for a week.  And our cell phones don't work reliably up here.  So it's just going to be very quiet for a week.

Oh, and that missing voicemail?  Turns out the guy who took the original order gave us the completely wrong package.  Sigh.

I have to give A&T some props though -- the woman who fixed the mess made a point of writing up a report on all the mistakes that were made so they can make sure the guy who "helped" us gets retrained and it doesn't happen to anyone else.

The TV.  It took Time Warner cable three hours to set up the cable for our three TVs.  Except they forgot to do it for one of the TVs.  So we're paying for three, but only have two.  I haven't been able to get through to them to get it fixed yet.

(But we are very grateful to our friends Thom and Ryan for helping us get the rest of the electronics set up!!)

The Internet.  Time Warner cable again.   First the cable modem wasn't working.  I spent a long time on the phone with a guy from India rebooting the modem over and over and over till it got the right signal.  But when it was all done, the wireless router, which had been working, was no longer working.  So right now, I'm plugged in to the modem with an ethernet cable, and we have no wi-fi at all.  Imagine Cory's frustration.  Tomorrow I dive into the internet issue.  Wish me luck.

The newspaper.  Okay, it's not technology, but it is a conveying of data, just old school.  So you'd think it'd be easier to get right, right?

Apparently not.  I ordered the newspaper back on March 13, because there was a promotional offer (a gift card to In-n-Out Burger!) if we did it by the 15th.  Because it was so early, I even called back to confirm the subscription order (and the gift card!) before we moved.  No problem, I was assured -- they'll both be waiting for you the day after you move.  The In-n-Out card will be included with the first newspaper.

The day after we move... no newspaper.  The next day... no newspaper.

I call the L.A. Times.  I end up talking to someone in India (who insists for a very long time that she is actually an employee of the L.A. Times, and won't admit she's out of the country till the conversation is over half an hour later).  It turns out they have no record of our subscription at all.  None.  Even though I confirmed it.  And I have a confirmation number.

They promise to start the newspaper Thursday (even though I'm calling on Monday).  But no, the In-n-Out card won't be there.  They'll have to mail it to me, and it'll take about 6 weeks.

.....Sigh.  It'll all work out.  We are so blessed to be here, a week without phones, newspaper, internet, TV ultimately isn't a problem.   

Nevertheless, let's hear it for good customer service when it does occur!

SORRY. MOVING. UNPACKING. MORE SOON.

We have moved.  We are unpacking.  It took two days to get the phones up.  We still don't have internet without physically plugging in.  The electronics are indeed hooked up, but we don't quite understand how to work the myriad of remotes.

I will post more when I have real internet access.  Promise!