Archive for February 2009
February 10th, 2009
Get the Net!
Since they made it available for the Mac, I’ve become a big fan of Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” feature. I have heard the argument from many that 90% of the movies offered through this service are not, in conventional terms, “good.” I can’t say I disagree, but I’d wager that 50% of what you find there is “watchable,” and while it can be hard to tell the total garbage from the less offensive semi-garbage you feel compelled to take from your neighbor’s curb and drag into your house, as long as you have the $8.99/month unlimited-viewing plan, you can put that particle-board shelf or dingy recliner down anywhere you want, it will magically disappear (yet somehow be right where you left it if you decide you want it again later), and you can immediately go picking through more promising trash down the block. How can one complain?
Steph’s heard much talk of “Watch Instantly”, but until a few nights ago, she’d never even been to the Netflix site. She was fine naming off the features that she wanted to see and having me add them to the DVD queue. When she had some rather monotonous sewing to do this past weekend however, she logged in for the first time to find something to watch.
The result was a rare “someone you’ve known for 10 years completely flipping out over something you never expected them to care two cents about” type-event. It was a special moment.
You see, shortly after “Watch Instantly” started working on the Mac, the items in our DVD queue ran out, and, lacking the desire to search around and restock it and lacking any recent suggestions from Steph, I simply left it empty.
When those red-and-white packages arrived at our house, we seemed to just place them on top of the TV, where they sat, unopened for weeks, sometimes months, at a time.
This, to me, is the Achilles’ heel of Netflix’s movies-by-mail model. Once you decide you’d like to see a specific film, you can’t, within the hour, be watching that film in the comfort of your own home.
I realize this sounds incredibly flippant, but, keep in mind, this is a luxury we were introduced to way back in 1985, when VHS rental began its rise to power. And keep in mind that, in my opinion anyway, near-constant internet access is only increasing our fickleness lol check this out :)
I’m almost embarrassed to say it, but there were times when we’d finally put something we’d ordered on, find we weren’t in the mood for it a quarter of the way through, and, instead of having a little patience and seeing where it went, we’d banish it to the mailbox then and there.
Though I imagine there are others that don’t get much mileage out of their Netflix discs, I can see how Steph and I would be an unusual case.
For one thing, we don’t really watch our TV. I tell you this, of course, to let you know that we are better than you. But also to explain that we have an old, dilapidated TV that it’s pretty unpleasant to watch anything on.
In addition, when we spend a night in, we usually don’t have the time for a movie. Steph has a lot of homework these days. I have a lot of stuff to do around the house. We both have innumerable hobbies. And there’s always knockin’ boots! By which I mean standing on the porch and hitting our pairs of hiking shoes against each other to get the mud out of the treads. What did you think I was saying?
All of this, I tried to explain to Steph, is why a strict “Watch Instantly” diet is perfect for us. When movies are basically white noise in the background while we’re concentrating on two-to-four other activities, a hand-delivered pressing of The Seventh Seal doesn’t seem quite as appropriate as an abortable instance of Mama’s House II.
It didn’t stop her from manically adding to our cue. According to an email I just got, The Devil and Daniel Johnston arrives tomorrow.
Tags: Household, Movies | 3 Comments »
February 6th, 2009
Site Unseen
After five years with essentially the same website design (albeit in various formats) I decided it was time for a change. Thus I present to you “rwitch.com.”
“robertwitchger.com” will, from now on, redirect to this site. I figured the main web address “rwitch.com” would be easier to spell and remember.
Obviously the look and feel of this site is different from past efforts, but the meat of it is much the same.
The major differences, other than the new layout and URL, are as follows:
- There is no more “Links” section. Links that I find interesting will now be posted on my delicious.com account, the contents of which are then pulled onto the rwitch.com homepage, in that column to the right of us. If this seems horribly roundabout to you, you’re both absolutely right, and you have had no contact with the internet in the past three years.
- This site is powered by WordPress, so it has permalinks, you can leave comments on posts by clicking the word “comments” at the end of said post, and you can instantly add a post to your Digg, Delicious, Facebook, Google Bookmarks, or Twitter account, or email it to a friend, via the icons below.
- My “Search This Site” feature now works at least halfway decently.
- Both my “Blog” and “Links” RSS feeds are functioning as intended. I had been trying to hand-code the XML for these previously, and I’m not sure I ever really got the hang of it.
All my posts and links from past sites are safe and secure on my hard drive and, while they’re not all represented here at the moment, I should have them assimilated within the month.
rwitch.com doesn’t represent every aspect of who I am, but, as the web presence for my career and my various online rantings and ravings, I’m very happy with it.
Tags: Design, Happenings | 2 Comments »
February 5th, 2009
robertwitchger.com (Version 3)
March 2007–February 2009
Tags: Design, Previous | No Comments »
