And Life Goes On

I promised to be on the regular blog schedule as of last week, and those of you that know the blog schedule know that means I blog when I have something to blog about.

Or, like today, even when I don't.

A random selection of things:

Netflix is fantastic. We were, for a year, MVP customers of Hollywood Video. There's a store about 300 yards from here, which was very convenient, and occasionally to be able to take out 3 movies at once was useful (we really do not get much time to get to the movies these days, not to mention that we couldn't possibly afford to take the entire menagerie to the flicks - the popcorn alone would break us - we have a very old big screen, a popcorn maker, and really comfortable couches, so DVD is the way to go), but with us there were two serious problems: one, we almost never had time to watch 3 movies in 5 days, and two, the movies we really want to watch are just too weird to be occupying shelf space at Hollywood Video.

We like some foreign films (49 Up), and we like obscure documentaries (What the Bleep Do We Know), and we like eclectic TV shows (Hustle) which can only occasionally be found on DVD. We also do not really know when time will permit us to sit and watch a movie. Two hours is a long time. So Netflix works extremely well for us, and it's cheaper to boot.

The thing with Netflix is that they can stock every movie ever made and it takes up no more space than a server rack. This is not quite the Amazon model, but it's certainly what Amazon would do if they could. Books don't duplicate the way DVDs and CDs do. You can put all the digital media on earth in a space no larger than my house, and then when someone wants something, no matter how obscure, you can burn them a copy and voila! Netflix.