VHS vs. Netflix

Remember those?

When I was a teenager, I was absolutely crazy about Star Trek. Like, obsessively crazy. Every week when the show came on, I set up the VCR to record each episode. I carefully edited out commercials. I recorded these so that during the week I could rewatch the episode as often as I wanted. I could get six episodes on a VHS, if I used the worst-quality recording (which I did. I was buying the videos). By the time I went to college, I had almost a dozen recorded VHS.

If only I could've seen the future.


I no longer have a VCR. I don't own a VHS. I have no idea what happened to those. And you know what? It doesn't really matter. Because now we have things like Netflix, with instant streaming from the internet. Yesterday, I turned on Netflix streaming while I took down Christmas and cleaned the house.

I got through all of season one.

Ah, what fun. And if I'd only known, I could've saved myself a lot of money as a teenager.

My New Love

All hail the mighty Netflix.

I've been tired a lot lately. So I haven't done much. Except watch movies.

My husband and I try hard to be frugal. (Though you wouldn't know it today, if you saw how much I spent on my 4-year-old's b-day party and gifts.) So we rent movies from the store down the road, Take 2, which lets you rent 2 for the price of 1. We don't rent new releases, those are $4 each! We get the oldies. $2 each. So for $2 a week, we get 4 movies. That's only $8 a month.

Except I'll be honest. We watch lots of movies. If we could, we'd watch one every night (except maybe Sunday). But that means we'd spend almost $16 a month on movies.

Still not too bad. And then I discovered Netflix. Of course, I've heard of Netflix. My parents signed up ten years ago. But the last time I checked (like a year ago), their cheapest program of 1 movie out at a time was $15.

Not anymore. It's now $9 a month. PLUS you get to watch an unlimited amount of movies on your computer (or if you're lucky, your TV via your X-Box or something like that). PLUS you get the first month free.

We joined. Last night we watched our second movie on my computer. Actually we watched two, because the first one was really crummy and we didn't want to finish it. No problem! Ha! Didn't cost us anything! Just close the window and find another one!

I'm in love.

Please tell me we're not the only ones who watch tons of movies...and tell me which ones I should be putting in my queue!