My new Netflix

So you might be aware of my frustration with Netflix. They have a policy that involves throttling your movie allowance based on how often you rent movies. If you rent a lot, then new releases you have in your queue take longer to be sent. Most of the movies I wanted were new releases, so I cancelled my membership. I was considering BLockbuster, but then I found a kiosk in several Safeway locations. It's a service called dvdplay. The kiosk has a touch screen, and you follow the simple prompts to find the movies that you want.

Granted they mostly carry new releases, so it's somewhat limited if you're trying to find First Blood or Dreamscape, which you should check out because it stars David Patrick Kelly, whom I saw in Shakespeare's, The Tempest, in which he played Ariel...can you imagine..."Prospero...come out and pla-eee-yaaay!"

Needless to say, the dvdplay option is awesome. $1.49 a title per day, then $.99 each additional day. If you watch them that night, you take them back and go through a simple process of inserting them into a "return" slot. There's no big hassle of setting up an account, because once you initially rent, and enter an email address, the system automatically sets one up for you, and emails you your rental receipt. There's no paper involved.

Recent movie rentals for me? Cooky Mel's "Apocalypto", "The Good Shepherd" (an awesome story about the birth of the C.I.A. and its toll on the man who founded counterintelligence), "Pan's Labyrinth" (an astounding adult fairy tale set in Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls backdrop), "Stranger Than Fiction" (Will Ferrell's first serious role, and a commentary on the fragile nature of life and love), "Blood Diamond", and "The Fountain" (Daron Aronsky's take on immortality).

I heart dvdplay.

De-throttle your Netflix bottleneck

I'm a Netflix customer. I signed up because of the "unlimited 2-at-a-time" offering, and because they have a considerable library (although they don't carry "The Road Warrior" - what's up with that?), so when I started noticing that my movies weren't coming in as regularly as before I became a little *suspicious*.

Netflix engages in throttling, which basically means that if you rent a lot of movies they'll constrict your shipment of rentals in your queue. They do this because heavy renters eat away at their bottom line. Sorry Netflix, don't make such an attractive offer to your customer and then poison the relationship with introducing a bottleneck to your product. It's not exactly making us a stronger, better, and healthier couple. Aren't you committed to us? [note: the altered graphic above contains improper use of the word "your", as it's meant to be the contraction "you're" - yes, I am a grammar nazi].

Yet, all is not lost thanks to the awesome power of the Internet community. An individual conducted an informal study comparing Netflix and Blockbuster. It looks like Blockbuster won across the board. However, if you don't want to make the switch to another provider, and you find yourself being throttled with Netflix, try crossing out the address and barcode on the envelope. Long story short, this causes the envelope to be delivered to the actual nearest Netflix facility instead of rerouting it to another inventory drop point.

I tried this yesterday: shipped two movies back on Wednesday, and Netflix notified receipt today. I also received notification that my next two movies are shipping today. Everything's coming up Milhouse.