Time for TV

So you know how I haven't been to the movies since Harry Potter 4? The only movies I watch nowadays are whatever's on HBO. Since we've cancelled HBO on account of The Wire and Deadwood being cancelled (and they let stupid m-f-ing Entourage live? Stupid sacks of shit) the only movies I watch are soppy rom-coms on Lifetime. I do get the Sundance Channel and the Independent Film Channel but I can't really watch any of those when Aliff is around and oh so ready to happily repeat every f-word and c-word he hears.

But now we have Netflix. Not the regular Netflix where you pay a reasonably expensive monthly fee, go to their website, list out all the movies you'd like to watch and they'll mail you the DVDs one at a time and you mail them back. No. This is instant streaming on your computer Netflix. This is "We've struck a deal with Microsoft and now you can watch movies instantly on your XboxLive" Netflix. For $8.99 a month! That's the price of a single movie ticket! Less!

Now I have a queue of movies I want to watch and they are there waiting for me. If I think of a movie I'd like at 10pm, I just look it up at their webiste and it could be available for me by 10.05. No more waiting, no more DVDs, no rent fees, no mail envelopes. Woohoo!!

You'd think with this service now at my fingertips I'd have been on a three-week movie watching marathon. Not with two kids lah. The only movie I've seen so far is Lust, Caution. Dang! I can see why it was so controversial at Cannes! If you can make even the Frenchmen squirm uncomfortably in their seats, you've got a heck of an almost X-rated film. Don't worry, we saw it while the kids were asleep. Also waiting for that rare day when Aliff sleeps early: No Country for Old Men and Gone Baby Gone.

Actually, we have a lot of TV shows queued up. All those we missed because it's on when we're trying to put the kids to bed or we're too tired to be awake past 9.30pm or shows that are on Showtime, a channel we don't subscribe to. I've finally watched the first season of Weeds - funny and awesome - and I'm all caught up on the now-cancelled Dead Like Me. We have Heroes and both the US and UK version of The Office. We have Caillou for Aliff. I will soon queue up Dexter and Californication.

Why didn't we just get the DVDs before the Evil Empire made this awesome pact with Netflix? Are you kidding me? Some DVDs were going for 60 bucks. For a single season. As someone who used to live in a country where you can get three DVDs for under ten ringgit (not to mention a father who's almost a pirate himself) I balk, balk! at these exorbitant prices. With this new Netflix deal I can watch whatever show/movie I want in High-def, no less, and I don't have a lot of mismatched DVD boxes for Aliff to strew all over the house.

Also, I can access Windows Media Center from the Xbox (I'm beginning to sound like a Msft evangelist. Buy our original products! Raise our stocks!) which now acts sort of like a Tivo. We tell it to record House, Pushing Daisies and The Office and we watch it when it's convenient for us with the commercials fast-forwarded. It's so awesome, man. Except for live football games, we don't watch regular TV anymore.

Ladies and gentlemen, the purchase of that darn Xbox360 is finally justified.