Why I Hate Verizon

Okay, I don’t want to be all Negative Nancy or anything, but I have to go off on Verizon here for a bit.  To give some back story without going all crazy, I used to have Verizon home phone and internet.  I had no problems until I did the One Bill thing to combine home and cell.  Big Mistake.  I had so many problems I don’t even know where to begin.  Let’s just say that at one point they told me the name on my account had been changed and when I asked to whom (since I was the only one who could authorize such a thing and I had not done so), they told me they couldn’t tell me whose name it was under because my name was no longer on the account.

 

Needless to say, things got worse.  I wrote a nasty-gram to the president, vice president and any other person that I could think of and have never used Verizon since.  Their cell company I have no problems with and never have.  So, one day earlier this year I decide to see if I could get Fios for cheaper that I get Comcast.  You’d think I’d learned by that point.  After 3 answers unrelated to my question, 7 transfers 3 people with attitude and over 30 minutes on the phone (also being told they couldn’t/wouldn’t give me any specials that would be cheaper than Comcast), I vowed to never call them again.

 

It is this vow that has sparked this entry.  Yes, my first entry in months is to gripe about Verizon.  Anyhoo, last night two of my friends were over to watch the season finale of True Blood (totally disappointing by the way), when there’s a knock at my door.  At 8:30pm on a Sunday night, there was a guy from Verizon coming around door to door to talk about Fios lines.  I tried be polite and actually answered a number of questions when I realized he wasn’t going away anytime soon.  I told him that I had guests over and we were trying to watch something and I didn’t really have time for this right now.  He immediately got an attitude with me and said “Well, no one else that I’ve talked to tonight said that.”  Big effing deal!!!  Then I was pissed and told him that I wasn’t trying to get an attitude with him and I don’t appreciate him getting one with me simply because I don’t want to deal with an unsolicited sales pitch while I have company.

 

My friend was so upset over his behavior that she called Verizon, but no one was working.  She tried to send an email, but you can’t email them without an account number, and then she tried to put a posting on their message board but had to change it because you aren’t allowed to post anything on Verizon’s website with the word “no” in it.  Ballsy, huh?  I was going to call this morning to complain, but I couldn’t stomach the idea of having to talk to them and have them piss me off more in my attempt to vent.

 

So now you get to have the pleasure of my pointless rant about their habitually ignorant and condescending employees.  Sorry you had to be subjected to this, I’ll give you something more positive soon!

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A Bunch of Quick Reviews

Since it's been so long since I've done any reviews and I prefer to do them immediatly after watching, due to my horrible excuse for a memory (I explain it as a photographic memory, there's just no film in my camera), I figured I do a bunch of really quick reviews on movies that I've seen over the past few months.  This includes a few made for tv movies. . .

 

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief - Theatre - I really liked this movie!  I excitedly came home from vacation, called my dad to see when we were going to watch it and was horribly dissappointed to learn that he had no interest in seeing it.  This was quite surprising as this is a typical movie that we would go see together.  Anyway, called my friend, went and loved it (I'm still telling my dad he made a bad choice).  If you liked the Harry Potter movies I think you'll like this one too.  If you want details, sorry, it's been too long but just trust me on this one.

 

Sherlock Holmes - Undecided - From what I saw, I was really enjoying it.  Then the film melted and we never got to see the end.  Really disappointing.  If you've seen the end, don't tell me. . . I'll get to it sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.

 

Shutter Island - DVD, Maybe Cable - It was an interesting twist and if you like just the idea of suspense thrillers where you're trying to figure out what's going on, then you'll really like it.  Maybe I just put it as low as I do because I'm not that big on that genre of movie, but for what it was, it was pretty decent.  I just wouldn't pay $10 bucks for it.  I'd do a $1 redbox, but there's probably others I'd pick before this one.

 

Legion - Cable or Broadcast Network - I was tricked.  Or my brother was tricked by deceitful ads into thinking it was cooler than it was.  Here's my take on it.  Take "From Dusk Til Dawn" change the setting from a bar in the Mexican desert to a diner in the middle of a US desert (don't remember the state), change the vampires to angels that look more like demons and change the premise of fighting for survival through the night to fighting to protect a baby whose death would mean the apocalypse.  And there you have Legion.

 

Alice In Wonderland - Theatre or DVD - I would only say theatre because some of the images would be better large so you can take it all in, but I didn't even do the 3-D thing and it was still good.  I mean, its Alice in Wonderland meets Tim Burton. . . how can you go wrong?

 

Clash of the Titans - Theatre - Again, I mainly say this because the images are so huge it helps to have the big screen.  I also saw this not in 3-D and thought it was just as good as I would have if it was 3-D.  (I really think 3-D is just another way of making us pay more money for things).  Epic battle scenes, good creation of the legendary creatures that he battles. . . some deviations from the original movie's details (and lacking the delicious cheesiness of the original, which isn't necessarily a bad thing), but overall pretty decent as far as epic ancient battle movies go.

 

Riverworld (Sci-Fi Channel original movie) - Maybe the plane rating. . . or never. . . hard to give a definitive rating on this one, so I'll tell you why and let you decide for yourself.  SPOILER ALERT: In order to tell you why it pissed me off so much, I have to give away the ending.  If you want to give it a shot, I'll recap everything then tell you when I'm about to spoil it so you can stop reading: Decent story (based on a book series) about people throughout time waking up from death on this world of rivers.  Different patches of land divided by rivers on a planet 10x larger than Earth.  You die in Riverworld, you just keep coming back (they call getting out of a difficult situation by choosing to die and come back where ever and when ever you land the "suicide express").  Some blue alien people are in charge of Riverworld and they're divided into 2 factions, 1 wants to destroy it, 1 wants to save it, so they use hapless victims of their experimental planet to play out their desires by pitting 2 guys against each other and using their love of some woman to play them.  Funny characters along the way (Mark Twain was hi-larious) and it kept me interested.  However, it was 4 hours long!!!  Here's where the SPOILER is: If I'm going to watch something for 4 hours, I don't want to finally have the big battle happen, get the partially happy ending then realize that it's just going to keep happening forever and ever and ever.  Remember, they die and keep coming back?  Yeah, well they're still the same people with the same memories every time!!  Lame ending.  And it was just the final scene that pissed me off as much as it did.  Anyway, you decide from here. . .

 

Beauty and the Briefcase (abc family original movie) - Yeah Broadcast Network movies!!! - I love cheesy movies.  Love them!!  This starred Hillary Duff (love her), the guy from Kyle XY, Jaime Pressley and some other guy that I recognize from something else.  The premise is: she's a fashion writer trying to get a piece into Cosmopolitan magazine when they assign her a peice infiltrating the business world of NY finance in order for her to find her "magic man."  I have to admit that the beginning was a bit annoying with the constant comments about "men in suits" but I hung in there and the cheesiness did not disappoint.  I especially liked that she had to be told she was in love before she realized it.  Ridiculous!!  If you like absurd family friendly/pre-teen or teen oriented movies, you'll like this!  Okay, there are not many people that fall into this category, and generally it means you'll watch just about any movie having a love story, but whatever, we all have our vices!!!!

I'm Such A Dork!

Okay, so we all know that I'm rarely online.  Well, I've been working outside the office this week and have full internet access!!  Of course, this is the first day that I've actually stayed online for a long time. . . but what mysterious website has caused me to stay on so long??  My book website.  I don't know how many of you have checked out www.shelfari.com but it's a great site for avid readers.  I initially started on the website because I'm a bit OCD and I loved the idea that I could keep track of all the books I've read and have them show up on a virtual wood grained bookshelf (with the actual cover of the book that I read!!).  I know, dorky right?  Well, you can also get recommendations on books and read reviews, find out the rest of the books in a series you've started, and find new books to try.  Sadly it's considered a networking site (you can have "friends" and see what's on their shelf and chat about books) so I can't get to it at work either (which makes me feel very bad that I never get to respond to people's "should I read this book" requests).  But I just discovered a group on the site call Young Adult Books that Adults Should Read.  Some of you may know that I feel that the young adult genre is an undiscovered treasure trove of good books.  I literally just spent a couple of hours looking up new books and writing down what I want to try.  As if I don't have enough books I need to read (yes, need), I just discovered 6 new series that I need to start!  Six!!!  That doesn't even include the Harry Potter series that I've never gotten around to!  Or the 10 individual books that I discovered.  I had to stop before I got too carried away!!  This is clearly a dangerous website for me to be on.  Please heed this warning!!!

I'm going to go finish the book I'm currently on so that I can start the ones that I have pre-ordered from Borders so I can start all of these other new ones. . . I'm such a dork!!

My Justifiable Excuses. . .

Okay, I know it’s been a while, but in my defense the whole premise of this blog ensures that there are going to be long gaps in my entries.  It’s not my fault, I’m just a slacker when it comes to this sort of stuff!  Oh wait, that means it is my fault.  Whatever.  This time I really do have very valid reasons for my long hiatus of entries.  (This may or may not be the best time to mention that I’ve always been naturally gifted with an ability to come up with justifications, some a little convoluted and far fetched, but none-the-less, justifications for almost any ridiculous conclusion I’ve come to)  I notice that my last entry was mid-January. 

I don’t know what happened to the remainder of January, I may just not have had anything interesting to say.  However, starting in February I was house-bound by Snowpocalypse (this is referring to the more than 3 feet of snow that we received in 2 snow storms separated by 3-4 days, and was hence labeled one storm to justify federal funding in clean-up).  I went to work a couple of days, but was obviously quite busy those days, as immediately following Snowpocalypse, I went to Seattle for a week.  I was supposed to leave 5-6 days earlier, but my flight out was scheduled for the 1^st day of the 2^nd wave of the storm.  Bummer, but at least I got out.

Okay, I just thought I should point out that the beginning of this was written on 3/15/10, but I got sidetracked and now I’m trying to continue/finish. . . This is why it was such a bad idea for me to try this thing!!!  Which actually reminds me that I recently came to the conclusion that laziness is sort of a handicap, so I was wondering if I could get handicap tags for that.  You know, so I don’t have to drive around looking for a spot or walking really far?  Sort of like the “expected mother” parking at the grocery store. . . I do expect to be a mother someday.  Shouldn’t that count???

Anyhoo, back to my implausible excuses.  So then I was in Seattle, having ridiculous fun with my bro and his girlfriend (trolls under a bridge, best used book store EVER!, Archie McPhee and their bacon gumballs and mustache mirror clings, asian fish markets and Bananas Foster French Toast w/challah bread that makes you want to never eat anything else ever again).  I could go off on an entire entry about my time there, and maybe I will but may I just add now that we figured out the time by being human sun dials and saw 2 mummies and several shrunken heads.  Pretty cool, right??

After I got back, I’ve been pretty swamped at work and now that Spring is here and the weather is actually nice I’ve been almost giddy with excitement, so I forget things such as this.  My humble apologies.  Although you have to admit, Snowpocalypse, vacay, and lots and lots of actual work are pretty valid excuses!  I didn’t even start making things up!  Well, I guess I should go get ready for my meeting that’s in 20 minutes. . . I promise that I’ll try to be better.  Notice how my promise really holds no guarantees?  Trying to be better?  Than what, 3 month gaps in entries?  2 ½ months would keep me in line with that promise!  No, but I really will.  Besides, the whole premise of this was for movie reviews and I have seen quite a bit, so I have some catching up to do.  I’ll do a very brief catch-ya-up either later today or. . . sometime soon. . . .

The Lost Symbol. . . It Should Stay Lost

Okay, this is my first ever Blog Book Review and I'm doing it because I feel so strongly about the book. . . and not in a good way.  I don't know how many of you have read Dan Brown's books, but I've read all but one (Digital Fortress, something about computers.  It made me not as interested, although I'm sure I'd still like it) and have loved every single one of them.  I got so into Angels & Demons that I read it in one day.  True, I was up very late that night, but I finished it and it was better because the story took place in 1 day, it was like I was reading it in real time, 24-style.

 

Anyhoo, I read his most recent book in the Robert Langdon series, The Lost Symbol.  Ever hear the expression, know when to stop?  Yeah, it should have been prior to this book.  What, you ask, was so bad about it?  Well for once, I have specific critiques of something, so here goes.  I first want to start out by saying: Buy a thesaurus!!!  I have never seen the word "esoteric" so much in my entire life.  I would actually like to do a word count in the book.  It would be worth it to me to sit down and scan each page to find how many times he uses the word.  My friend read the book after me, with my strong warning in hand, so she actually paid attention.  She counted it over 30 times in the first chunk that she read.  She noted that sometimes it was used 2x in one sentence.  Just like many other things in this book, I say "Okay, I get it already!  Move on!"

 

Which leads me to my next issue.  I think I actually read several facts at least three times throughout the book.  Individual facts and larger themes were constantly repeated like the reader is in kindergarten and just can't be trusted to learn the first time.  I'm a big girl now.  You tell me something is important, I get it.  Next fact.

 

Now the facts.  Like all of his books, this one was chock full of little known trivia items.  Fascinating to be sure, but this is a novel, not a lesson in the architectural subliminal messages created throughout the rise of our great nation.  I readily admit that Dan Brown seems to know a lot about these topics and does an amazing amount of research for his books.  I'm sure he could teach some of the classes that his fictitious scholar teaches at Harvard, and I would actually be very interested in those classes if he offered them.  However, this is not a classroom, it's a novel. 

 

Which leads me into my main problem with the book: Most of his other books are fascinating stories that teach you interesting things along the way.  This one is the reverse.  It's almost like he decided that he knew a lot about the topic and wanted to write a book about it, so he set out to and squeezed a story around the multitude of facts.  Basically, the story comes second to the lesson, and it's very obvious.

 

If you've never read a Dan Brown book, please do not let this book be your first, for it may come to represent your future opinion of his works, which would be a mistake.  I swear, the rest of his books are really good!!!  If you've read his other books, you will be disappointed.  Let's just hope that his next work gets back to his story telling as a priority and interesting tidbits as an added bonus.

Avatar = Amazing!!

Theatre, theatre, theatre!!!!!  Wow.  This movie was so visually amazing that I'm going back to see it in theatres while I still can.  Please don't even waste your time asking if I saw in 3-D or not. . . why would anyone go see that movie not in 3-D when it's offered??  3-D.  Always 3-D.  I know that it cost an exorbitant amount of money to make this movie (even more than the Waterworld flop), but great googily-moogily, it was worth it!  Now, I don't generally rave about movies. . . yes I get obsessed with certain things occasionally and talk incessantly about them, but this isn't one of those situations.  I'm not obsessed with the movie, I'm just that impressed. 

 

Every single creature in the world that Cameron created was obviously thought through in its entirety.  At a certain point in the beginning of the movie, the main character is being chased by pantheresque creatures.  The movie showed them close-up and slowly to give you the opportunity to see the tiny details given to the animal.  And everything was like that.  From the trees to the flying pinwheel-type things.  The other part that amazed me was the colors.  There were such brilliant and beautiful colors throughout the world of Pandora.  The first scene with the flying dragon things, I couldn't even take notice of the scenery they flew by because I was so captivated by the colors of the dragony creatures.  My basic point here is that they did such an amazing job creating this world, I think everyone should go see their technological achievement. 

 

Now that I've gone off a bit on the visual stimuli, I can now tell you that the storyline was also pretty interesting.  Now, I get that this comment doesn't seem nearly as exhuberant as my description of the technological aspects, and I don't mean to downplay it.  It really was an interesting storyline, it's just that the visuals leave such an impression that everything else seems secondary, although in this case secondary is not a bad place to be either.  At a certain point you realize that something has to happen to merge the aspects of the main character and you can't really see how that can happen, until they attempt the feat on another character first.  Then you think "oh, so that's how they're going to do that." 

 

I don't want to give too much away, so I'll leave it at that.  Go.  See this movie.  In the theatre, in 3-D.  I promise you it will be worth it.  I want to hope that even non-sci-fi fans will like it, if they can appreciate what this movie has to offer beyond its genre.

My So Called Change In Perspective

(For those who don't know what "My So Called Life" is, it will be useful info for you to know that it was a semi-popular show from the 90's about teen life, centered around the main female character, that only had one season, but became popular via MTV after it was cancelled from network tv due to a horribly chosen time slot)

 

Have you ever gone back and watched one of your favorite shows from your teenage years after enough time has passed to put you in a different stage of life?  Well, I guess growing up during the creation of Nick at Nite and the resurgence of classic tv has allowed everyone to get to experience this with something.  I recently had my first, "Wow, it means something completely different to me now" moment. 

 

This past New Year's Even my friend and I did our normal plans of gorging ourselves with food and beer in the comfort of one our homes while watching tv, but this year we had a My So Called Life marathon (yeah, yeah, my friend already called me dork, but let's remember that I embrace my inner-dork and willingly admit to being one. . . of course this claim of my dorkiness came in the same minute as him telling me his main concern about losing his hard drive is based heavily on all of the episodes of Battlestar Galactica that he would lose.  Yeah, that's right, then he called me a dork!!!) 

 

Anyhoo, not to make myself sound worse, but I used to have every episode on VHS, minus the one pivotal episode of the entire show (yes, that's right, the one where Rayanne slept with Jordan. . . Catalano), and each tape was set to our favorite episode on that particular tape.  My friend and I would obviously watch these quite often, and each time, we always fast-forwarded the scenes that related only to the parental drama.  They were boring, their drama was uninteresting and frankly, the mom was a bit much, and annoying.  However, we were always very understanding of the horrific dramas that the teens went through and could relate to many of their experiences. . . although even we didn't understand some of the stupid things they did (okay Angela, we get that you're not ready to sleep with Jordan, but does that really mean that you have to break up????).

 

After not watching for several years (I recently got them on DVD, thanks again to our beloved blog creator that allows me to house them at my house so that she's forced to be social in order to watch them), we were super excited to start back from the beginning.  When we did, something strange happened.  We didn't fast-forward through the parental story lines.  The mom wasn't as annoying (still annoying, just not as much and I even felt bad for the mom several times) and the parental story lines weren't as boring.  The dad's potential affair, the mom's hurt and dismay at not knowing her daughter anymore, the crying apology to the mom after getting a dose of reality in her teenager world. . . it all had a different spin to it now.  And the kids, of course we could still remember the things they went through and understand their reactions (to an extent), they seemed different, more absurd at times.

 

Then there were the other things that I noticed before, but it meant more now.  Like when the girl bought a fake ID that said she was born yesterday.  Irony received fully this time.  I also noticed that no one had a clue what they were doing.  Not just the kids, but the adults too.  I guess as a kid I never noticed it because I didn't care about the parents enough to bother, but they were walking around in the dark just like the parents.

 

We watched these episodes with a small sense of awe at how different it seemed to us.  Of course we still loved it, we just loved more of it now.  Huh. . . I guess I am sort of growing up. . . but don't worry, not too much!!!