Monday, November 09, 2009

Too, too Twain

Abbey, helping me to enjoy Mark Twain

There is very little wiggle room in our entertainment budget these days, but I decided that my share of the whopping $30 a month (this includes gas money to get to wherever we are to be "entertained") would be a basic subscription to Netflix.

I'll admit that I really didn't get the concept of Netflix when it first came out and, to be honest, my public library has a huge selection of DVDs -- not this year's (or even last year's) releases but, if you're patient, you eventually get to see what you want. And, naturally, we have video rental places, but even those are pretty much out of the budget range, not so much because we can't afford the rental, but because a per-night rental fee is really not cost-effective.

Anyway, I signed us up for a trial period and was pleased to see how accommodating Netflix is about enabling you to cancel after the trial period (which I'm not going to do). We signed for the absolute lowest cost, which enables us to receive only one movie at a time, return it, then wait for them to receive the return and send us another. What this means is that for approximately $9 a month, we receive two movies a week, plus all the online stuff we want.

How pathetic is my life that this entire arrangement makes me so exceedingly happy that I feel the urge to post about it? When I say all this out loud to people, it sounds really lame. Saturday, when I came home from work and found myself completely alone, I watched all 3-1/2 hours of the Ken Burns documentary on Mark Twain on the Netflix website. I haven't been so happy in a long time (exclamation point excluded due to overuse).

Tonight we're watching Cold Comfort Farm, which I've seen several times (originally at the recommendation of John Boy -- go figure) and has become one of my favorite movies.

Honestly, I do try to keep Dirtman's interests in mind as I add to my Netflix queue, but after a while, I can't help myself. I start clicking on all the Myrna Loy movies, all the Spencer Tracy movies, Cary Grants, Katherine Hepburns, all the pretty-costumes-that-might-possibly-translate-into-everyday-wear movies, all the "I think that too" movies and, most of all, all the "I want to click my heels three times and be inside of this" movies.

Dirtman doesn't stand a chance. He doesn't try.

Dirtman has seen about 15 minutes of each movie picked and promptly falls asleep in his chair -- even the movies he's personally chosen. So I have absolutely no remorse in chirping "Tonight we're watching Henry V!" (Sorry-- I figured I'd have to use the exclamation point with a verb like 'chirping').

I might add that most nights I'm here all by myself, so a steady stream of Thin Man movies isn't going to bother anyone. And -- I might add -- I live with a man who watches Dog, the Bounty Hunter (the mention of which made me throw up a little in my mouth).

I rest my case.

9 comments:

Gwynne said...

Your exclamation point button might fall off one day. Then, what will you do?

Netflix is cool, but I finally realized that what I liked best about it was no late fees...I just don't watch that many movies (because Dog the Bounty Hunter is always on at our house too...gah!!!!)

Sisiggy said...

If I lose the exclamation point button, I'll have to resign from my job.

I think the fascination with these shows is that they are such a parade of freaks and dysfunctional morons, people can't look away. But these days there are so many freaks and dysfunctional morons, all I can do is yawn.

Trasherati said...

ABBEY!! Sorry, seeing her magnificent visage again required caps and exclamation points...

I'm a big Netflix fan. We used to use the 3 movies at a time option, but have scaled back to the same program you have now. There's just no bandwidth to watch 3 movies in our schedules. I haven't used the online option - can those be ran through the television, or just via laptop?

Sisiggy said...

I will discuss this with an Heir. I know they "sell" a device that says enables you to watch on your TV, leading me to believe there is probably a way just as effective using, say, a popsicle stick and a roll of duct tape.

And there was a problem with syncing the audio and video, but that just may be because we recently lowered the speed of our DSL to save some money.

(Abbey goes through life as "ABBEY!!")

karjak said...

well, if we had an xbox 360 we could download netflix and watch them on the screen.

just saying...

or you could plug your computer into the tv.

Sisiggy said...

How would I download Netflix when my son was constantly in front of the TV playing the Xbox?

Though I will admit that, upon investigating and seeing that I could access Netflix on the TV through a video gaming system, I knew when I blogged about it you would feel compelled to comment.

Will this be as exhaustive a campaign as the one you staged for the Dreamcast when it came out?

Trasherati said...

Oh, great...now I've kicked off a campaign. Next thing you know it'll be a movement, a la Alice's Restaurant.

Darkgarden said...

Prisoners of war got pretty jacked up when they could eat sewer grass as a nice treat. The Muslims want us to rent Netflix you know.

Sisiggy said...

Trasherati: The XBox 360 Anti-massacree Movement and all ya got ta do ta join is hound your mother until all that is left for her to do is sing:
"You can get anything you want.
If you pay for it by yourself"
EVERYBODY!

DG: I read your post over and over trying to deny I understood it. Finally, defeated, I had to admit I do -- so I guess it is quite pathetic then?