Netflix

The other day, I wondered to myself, "Why haven't I subscribed to Netflix?" Truthfully we don't watch that many movies - when I have that much free time, I'd rather play a game or read a book. But Netflix is pretty cheap. We're starting on the "3 movies at a time for $17 a month" plan. That's the price of buying one DVD! Our first batch of movies is supposed to be arriving today.

Netflix almost seems too good to be true. I used to buy a lot of DVDs until I realized one day that I had over a thousand dollars worth of DVDs on my shelf that I'd only watched once or twice, most that I'd probably never watch again. In 2006, I put a stop to this. I literally bought probably three DVDs the entire year. So far in 2007 I've bought one. So Netflix seems like an obvious choice. If we choose a movie and it ends up being bad, we'll simply turn it off, send it back, and wait for Netflix to send the next one. No buyer's remorse.

We have a nice TV and a decent sound system, but we don't watch that much TV. I feel we should watch more movies so we're getting our money's worth. Plus, if we have movies to watch we're less likely to say "Let's go shopping" or "Let's go out to eat," both of which are problems for us.

So tonight I may be watching The Prestige or The Guardian, and the third one is a movie about dancing that I picked for Karen. She likes movies about dancing - go figure.

I don't know why I'm so excited. It's just a DVD, and I've seen hundreds of them. What is the big deal? I guess it's going to their website, picking literally any movie I can think of, and then having them send it to me. Not having to drive back to Blockbuster on a Wednesday night at 10 o'clock because we forgot to return the movie will be nice, too.

Now I'll just have to see if their service is what it claims to be. We're on a two-week trial now, and their website actually has a "cancel now" button which astounds me. Usually anything you sing up for, it's never that easy to cancel. You have to call them, wait on hold, and then beg them to cancel your account. But for Netflix, it appears I can just sign in, push "cancel," and that's it.