NetFlixFax

Taking advantage of the two-week-free-trial opportunity at Net Flix, I recently became a joiner. Now, for 1/3 the cost of cable or less (which I'm banned from watching until I graduate. HURRY HURRY!!!), I can watch as many movies as I want in a month-- two at a time. How about THEM there facts?! (err-- fax, excuse me.) Oh, and they don't sell your personal info as such, but they do collect marketing data on you, and then use it to select ads from their 3-rd party vendors to include in your DVD envelopes. Trixy we are, my Precious. (Did I just say that? Oh, dear. The sky must be falling. Either that, or it's Monday.)

See... I came to the realization that I was watching a movie several nights a week, to give my brain time to rest, drain out all the academic goo, and reset itself. But, see, it gets expensive to keep BUYING DVDs when you get sick of the ones you own... and students just don't have spare change in the form of two or three $10 bills a week... and even though I am one of those odd individuals who LOVES watching the same movie over and over again... I am SICK S-I-C-K SICK of watching the movies in my collection. I mean, really, how many times can you watch "Down Periscope" before you start singing along with the songs and fastforwarding between punchlines? It was sad. S-A-D sad.

And, you know, NetFlix claims they have over 72,000 movies! That's a lot of movies. Granted, I probably don't want to watch a good 2/3 of them... and I might own about 30 of what's left... but that still leaves a lot of ground for me to cover (repeatedly) between now and graduation. I don't know about you, but I just cannot face driving to work (1 hour) working for 10 hours, driving home (1 hour) and then actually DOING anything else that day. Except, maybe, make a bowl of popcorn and pop in a movie. So that's what I do.

And, after much exploration, I have a whole 25 movie titles in my cart... which reminds me that I forgot to sign up for the movie that's been taunting me for months now, and is one of the main reasons that I finally gave in to social joinery and signed up for NetFlix. The Mummy Returns, here I come, baby! OOH-- and maybe they'll have the sequel to The Librarian! (action adventure, along the lines of Indianna Jones) One can only hope. Since I got several good laughs out of some of the titles I stumbled across in my online travels, I thought I'd pass a few of them on to you. These are all true. I swear. Although I may have misspelled "felafle."

The Watermelon
The Kiss of Debt
He Died With a Felafl In His Hand
Osmosis Jones
Smiling Fish and Goat On Fire
(I had no idea there were that many) Strawberry Shortcake Movies.
With Six You Get Eggroll
Totally Blonde
A Woman Her Men And Her Futon

Yes. I may have to rent the one about the Felafel's, just so I can tell you all not to see it.
And just so you know, I only looked through the Action-Drama, Comedy, and Family-Friendly sections so far. There was definitely a lot of overlap, somehow. I actually think I saw X-Men in all three categories, come to think of it. Having selected everything from Danny Kay's Court Jester to Disorganized Crime with Lou Diamond Phillips to Mary Poppins to Jet Li's latest... I think I confused the poor little "let me help you find more good titles" program, too. See, every time you add a movie to your que, a little helpful box appears that shows you a selection of six to eight other movies that you might like, based on your selections so far. After my first five picks, it just kept showing me the same three or four movies over and over, hoping maybe this time it was going to be right.
It wasn't.

Further bulletins as warranted.

Catina Rug

The intrepid explorer strikes again!



















This tapestry quilt hasn't been sewn together yet, hence the pins and lack of quilting lines. I call it Elemental. The four little gold squares are actually candles, and will have hand-sewn "flames" above them. As soon as I go shopping for thread. And more bobbins. It's amazing how many bobbins a self-respecting machine quilter needs to keep on hand! Did you know they even make different SIZES of bobbins? Yeah. So you have to be careful when you buy more. Most machines I've come across only take one size of bobbin. But WHICH ONE??

I'm really loving this tapestry quilt... It's going to be hard to part with. I've got a pretty good average going, though. I've only kept the very first one (also not finished yet), called FairyTails, and given (or will give once complete) the next three away-- and I have one that will be for sale once I finish it. This one is called Light Sources. It'll be going up for sale soon. Yes, you can still see pins on this one, too.




Abbigale, the intrepid explorer, has returned successfully from her mission, just in time to help me type this. Her chin has taken up residence just above the space bar.
...Due to unforeseen demands, the rest of this blog will have to be postponed indefinitely, or at least until after I pet the cat.

FYI: It ain't that bad.

FYI, if you read "Just Perfect," and are wondering what exactly inspired my most recent rant... I just spent $225 on a razor phone because it is supposed to be thin and easy to use. Only it is actually a pretty large phone, and you have to buy a thicker battery anyway if you want it to last more than 30 hours, and it has a lot more buttons than my last phone (and if you push the up arrow from the main phone screen, you connect to the internet- oops, I'm not paying for that feature!), and cost me a huge hole in my budget, and about 3 hours of my evening.
Dammit.

And I realized that all of my jeans (except one pair that gape a LOT at the waist, so I don't wear them much) have holes now, and it is just PAINFUL to go jeans shopping because nobody ever finds a pair that actually fit them, and women's jeans usually are pretty cheaply made for the steep price they charge you, and I just don't want to go through all that again, especially after what I just spent on my cell phone.

And I'm not looking forward to my tasteless breakfast tomorrow, and I ran out of vanilla soy milk, too, so it's going to be even gruckyer, and you can only add raisins to cereal for so many months before you get sick of raisins.

And my toes are cold, but I have this big heavy blanket on the bed, and I'm feeling smothered.

And I still can't believe I just spent $225 on a cell phone I don't really like... because it was the best option available.

And I canceled my cable because I'm on a budget and I'm staying away from TV while going to grad school and working and trying to get out and see my friends at least 2x/month. But I miss my shows.

And I didn't even bring up all the fuss-worthy issues I'm having with bras...

And it's past my bedtime.
And I'm just kinda grumpy right now.
And tomorrow is another big day... with no mistakes in it yet.
And I guess if I really don't like the phone, I have another 13 days to return it.
Sigh.

...You know, life ain't all that bad, really...

-I have a cat who adores me, and sometimes lets me sleep past 4:30am.
-I have a whole lot of supportive and intelligent friends that I like to spend time with.
-I have dinner, every night I stop running around long enough to make it.
-I have breakfast, such as it is, every day. (And I really could have gone to the store for soy milk today, too.)
-I have a cell phone, and a good calling plan, so I can call my friends and complain to them about cell phones and jeans and cereal and blankets and bears, oh my.
-I have a roof over my head, a bed to sleep in, more than one pair of jeans, lots of books to read, yeast on my popcorn, and sole ownership of the remote control (I still watch DVD's).
Hey-- life is GOOD!
...And I really do want world peace. (quote from Miss Congeniality. Sorry. Couldn't help it.)