Brace yourselves: JG and I don’t use Netflix. I hesitate to bring up this fact because it usually elicits reactions like the following conversation with Ross, from early December:
Ross: heroes is so awesome
don’t get into it or it will destroy your lifeRA: I might watch it on DVD
but my Mondays are taken
How I Met Your Mother
it is the awesomestRoss: really?
RA: really.
you will love.
rent the first season on DVDRoss: “rent”
wtf?
netflix?RA: Netflix it
I don’t like to assume that people have it!
I know, that sounded very 80s to me
we still call our local place the “video store”Ross: you should be my netflix friend!??!
RA: yeah, uh, we don’t have netflix… shifty eyes
Ross: wtf
HOW DO YOU LIVE
I swear, we didn’t always live in the Stone Age. I asked for a three-month gift subscription a couple of Christmases ago, and we baptized ourselves into the Netflix family with a string of movies like Thank You for Smoking, Wordplay, The Shop Around the Corner, and Finding Neverland. With the one-at-a-time plan, we didn’t feel like we always had to watch a movie, but it was nice to have one around. Once the trial period was over, I okayed a full-on membership and started filling up my queue.
I should have realized that I was not a Netflix person when I could only think of about a dozen movies to add to my list. Every so often, a new movie would pop into my head, but everyone else I’d encountered had a queue in the tens and hundreds, not the ones. I am not a movie buff, so I chalked it up to lack of exposure and let the mystical ratings system take hold. I managed to keep us going at about two movie viewings every week, but it was not to last.
Fall came, and along with it, a new school year, volleyball season, a new job, and television premiers. As it was, JG and I just barely managed to keep up with our television commitments, thanks to the magic of DVR. Meanwhile, the unwatched DVD of For Your Consideration taunted me from its red envelope on the coffee table. We finally pulled the plug after several weeks of no movie-watching. JG reasoned that it wasn’t worth even the $10/month because we could get a movie for three bucks at the rental place; I agreed, but I was more relieved to escape the guilt of a backlogged queue.
These days, that move has somewhat backfired with the onset of the writers’ strike and a gloomy dearth of new television episodes. I could have Netflix-ed past episodes of Heroes! We could have seen all of the movies we missed over the summer! Oh, well. I suspect that Netflix is a summer thing for us, anyway, when JG spends more time at home, and we’ve had our fill of terrible reality television. Perhaps we will just take periodic dips into the 21st century pool.
If it’s any consolation, I’m considering finally joining Evite. Maybe.
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We’re thinking about canceling Netflix, but only because we can get TiVo movies for like $4 each, and we don’t watch more than four movies in a month, so it would be cheaper that way, and there would be no waiting time with the mail.
I think if I had DVR/TiVo I would consider canceling Netflix. My boyfriend had the same Netflix movie for what I think ended up being 6 months. Yes, that means he essentially paid $60 for one movie that he ended up not even watching. I yelled at him about this. A lot.
I don’t have Netflix, Tivo, or an IPOD. Consider me a loser.
We don’t use netflix either. When we lived in Ft. Collins, there was a Blockbuster across the street from our apartment that had an unlimited rental for $25/month deal. Since we were livin’ the college life and could run across the street to pick up a movie any time, this was a GREAT deal for us. We got a lot of use out of it. I missed it when we first moved here, but now that we no longer have a lot of extra time or cash, it’s really not a big deal. We have considered netflix, but just can’t get over the fact that we can’t walk into a store and switch out a movie for whatever we want whenever we want. The mail system is convenient, but not THAT convenient.
I actually just cancelled my Netflix as well. We have so many movies at home, plus we like to go to the theater, plus we watch so many shows on DVD it wasn’t worth it to pay $15 a month for movies. Chris also has some kind of game pass where he pays $20 a month to rent one game at a time, which seems kind of like a rip-off to me but I suppose is better than buying games and having them sit there unplayed.
Heroes is great though. As is Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Deadwood, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Lost, and Extras. All of which we’ve seen on DVD.
We don’t have DVR/Tivo but we do have Netflix. But only the 2 movies a month plan. We’re lame enough that we can’t keep up with much more. We don’t even watch TV! It’s just right for us and even in the months that we don’t get our “money’s worth” it’s still worth it. The quality of movies we watch has probably tripled at least since we switched to Netflix and we don’t have to ever risk entering the video store with 2 kids in tow… But I totally understand not having it, to each his own. I haven’t joined evite yet either. And I didn’t get a cell phone until a few months ago. That’s a lot worse!
We were doing 4 movies a month (2 at a time) and were barely getting through 1! So in December we cut back to 2 a month (1 at a time). It was perfect for our busy December. Then we got 17 months worth of subscriptions for Christmas 2 a month (1 at a time). Of course, in January (with the writer’s strike), we finished our 2nd DVD mid-month! But we kind of figure that is what redbox is for.
We love our Netflix, but I have this bad feeling whenever we fall behind in our viewing. Luckily, we then go on spurts of marathon viewing, so I think it all balances out!!
This may be lightly disasterous to admit; but not only am I not on Netflix, or Evit, but I have never used Redbox, and if I had my choice the cable TV would be cut. Please still be my friend!
xox
I love how the thing he’s most excited about is you being his Netflix friend. I think it’s his goal in life to have more Netflix friends than ANYONE.
I should know because I’m married to him.
Oh and also, Ross has his own Netflix membership and my work covers mine - so yes, we have 6 Netflix movies in our house at any given time.
Listen. People. Netflix is awesome, I kind of can’t comprehend how you people live without it.
Like, YOU CAN WATCH ANY MOVIE EVER?! How exciting is that?
Here are six movies you may not have heard of that you probably can’t get from a red box:
* Butterfield 8
* Amar Akbar Anthony
* American Psycho
* Volver
* The Natural
* Casablanca
The other great thing about Netflix is you can *see* what your friends are watching. This, basically, offloads picking movies for your queue to your friends. How great is that!?
Seriously, get Netflix. DO IT.
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I once wrote a whole post about how I hate Evite but I didn’t post it because, well, who cares if I hate evite? But…what do you get if you join? I must be missing something.
We used to have Netflix. Our queue had hundreds of titles in it (but consider that we’ve got five people in the house). My mom made us get rid of it once we got cable. She said that HBO would be good enough to compensate. I’m still kind of depressed.
First, I thought Thank You For Smoking was awesome! I just watched it. It was my last Netflix movie. And it sat on top of my TV for oh, about, four months. Which means, that to watch that movie, it cost me about $50 because I rented ONE movie in that time. Yet still paid the monthly fees.
I finally cancelled. I love movies. But I’m distracted too easily by ABC Family movies to commit to watching one from NetFlix. If I’m desperate, I do pay-per-view.
Evite was created by God himself.
There’s a company here in London called LoveFilm which I assume is basically the same thing? We thought it was a great deal, getting four titles a month fairly cheaply with no fees - including tv boxsets which was pretty nifty. Turns out it’s for DISCS only - so our month includes only 2/3 of CSI Miami. For half the cost of actually BUYING the boxset.
Sigh. We’ll be cancelling once we’ve watched those discs….
What is Evite?
Don’t feel bad… we have the 3-at-a-time plan and it’s a total waste of money. Mostly because Joel confuses “unlimited” with “free” and orders all these movies that I have no desire to see… so they sit there for months, unwatched as Netflix deducts its money from our bank account each month.
I used to do Netflix.
And then I found that I had one movie sitting in my apt for 4 MONTHS because I never watched it.
I essentially paid 40 bucks for one movie.
Yea. I canceled that.
We love our Netflix, but Ted and I watch at least one movie per week. It makes sense for us. If we weren’t actively watching movies, though, I wouldn’t have joined. I know so many people who get movies that sit in their houses for months and months!
Heroes DOES ruin lives! I failed a course because of it. DARN YOU, HEROES
Netflix involves strategy! You can’t just let something sit around! If it’s sitting around for a month, send it back and get something you want to watch, that’s the secret.
I meant that, like, 30x more helpful and less belligerent than it sounded. I think about Netflix more than I think about anything else, which is weird and creepy.
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