Instant streaming from Netflix rocks!

This is not meant to be an ad for Netflix; I'm not getting anything from them for promoting their service. They just took a great idea and made it work really well.

All right, so I was re-reading some of my older entries and I found one from last summer about watching TV shows online. I concluded at the time that none of them were perfect, but I liked iTunes the best because of their selection. The thing that I didn't like about iTunes (and still don't) was that you have to buy the episode before you watch it, and if it turns out you don't like it you can't get your money back. Also, the files take up a lot of space. I envisioned a service where you could pay a monthly fee and watch anything you wanted...which sounds exactly like what Netflix does. I dismissed their online streaming at the time for not having a very wide selection of TV shows.

Well, my friends, that has all changed now. The Netflix instant streaming selection has grown EXPONENTIALLY, and now there's more TV than I can watch. It all started when I decided to start watching Doctor Who, after multiple recommendations. They have all three seasons with David Tennant (who is ridiculously talented...and I have a TV crush on him) as well as some of the classic Who serials. Tom Baker is hilarious, and now I want to knit a twelve-foot scarf. Anyway, from there I decided to see what else they had to offer, TV-wise. I discovered that now you can stream Mythbusters and Heroes and Leverage and Dexter. And Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All seven seasons.

Pardon me while I go and do my happy dance. Seriously, you can't find anything from BtVS past season 2 online unless you're shelling out $50 for a DVD box set. And now I can watch any episode, any time, for free. Well, not exactly free, since I have to pay the monthly subscription fee. But there's no extra charge, so it feels like it's free.

Oh, and to top it all off now I can even watch it on my TV instead of my computer, and I didn't have to buy the hundred-dollar box. The latest way to stream movies is through the Wii, with a (free) disc that I requested in the mail. I'm constantly amazed by how easy to use everything from Netflix is.

My one complaint is that the video quality isn't that great when I'm watching on my computer, but that's probably the fault of my Internet connection more than anything else. It looks great on the TV.

In conclusion: It's good I have a life, because otherwise I'd sit and watch Netflix movies all day.