Birthday update (Netflix and car wreck)
Oct. 30th, 2008 12:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rickvsFirst, loot. Then, the most convenient car accident you ever heard of.
With some of the birthday money I received, I bought myself a Roku box that broadcasts Netflix shows to my television. I've got a decent internet connection, so the picture quality is better than Tivo's standard mode, but not quite as good as a DVD. Netflix has about ten percent of their total library available for network viewing (on the computer, also) -- and this bypasses their delays waiting for DVDs to show up in your mailbox.
The streaming wait time is negligible -- less than a minute from pushing "play" until the show starts, so far. The fast-forwarding is manageable, although you can't go skipping tra-la through the show quite as quickly as on a DVD. Other red flags that don't bother me too much: no closed-captioning, and the signal is broadcast with, I think, Macrovision copy-protection. (That last wouldn't bother me if my TV's coaxial input wasn't so dodgy, leaving my VCR the only widget capable of sending the final signal through the red/white/yellow RCA jacks. So unless I buy a new converter, I'll need to plug Roku's magic box in manually every time I want to use it).
Overall, this toy makes me very happy-in-my-pants. Ten percent of Netflix's catalog still represents about twelve thousand disks, and many of those are complete-series collections. I feel like I'm being allowed to drink from Mister Fire Hose, if you've ever seen _UHF_.
Ah, yes, I almost forgot about the car wreck.
I've been lending our extra car to a neighbor, who also works less than a mile from our apartment complex. Yesterday, she was toodling along, minding her own business, when some oncoming fool in a BMW tried to make a left turn in front of her, and failed (about thirty yards from of my place of work). Nobody was hurt, particularly, although her airbags went off. The front of my car is bashed in, which means that the grill that got cracked months ago by another friend will get payed for by this new fool. It should not amuse me as much as it does that the fool's car got *totaled*. That's what he gets for bringing a BMW to a Crown Vic fight...
So until the insurance provides a rental car, I'm driving my neighbor around, but we both live and work so close that the situation isn't intrusive at all. And it looks like my extra car will come back in better shape than when it was given to me. W00t!
With some of the birthday money I received, I bought myself a Roku box that broadcasts Netflix shows to my television. I've got a decent internet connection, so the picture quality is better than Tivo's standard mode, but not quite as good as a DVD. Netflix has about ten percent of their total library available for network viewing (on the computer, also) -- and this bypasses their delays waiting for DVDs to show up in your mailbox.
The streaming wait time is negligible -- less than a minute from pushing "play" until the show starts, so far. The fast-forwarding is manageable, although you can't go skipping tra-la through the show quite as quickly as on a DVD. Other red flags that don't bother me too much: no closed-captioning, and the signal is broadcast with, I think, Macrovision copy-protection. (That last wouldn't bother me if my TV's coaxial input wasn't so dodgy, leaving my VCR the only widget capable of sending the final signal through the red/white/yellow RCA jacks. So unless I buy a new converter, I'll need to plug Roku's magic box in manually every time I want to use it).
Overall, this toy makes me very happy-in-my-pants. Ten percent of Netflix's catalog still represents about twelve thousand disks, and many of those are complete-series collections. I feel like I'm being allowed to drink from Mister Fire Hose, if you've ever seen _UHF_.
Ah, yes, I almost forgot about the car wreck.
I've been lending our extra car to a neighbor, who also works less than a mile from our apartment complex. Yesterday, she was toodling along, minding her own business, when some oncoming fool in a BMW tried to make a left turn in front of her, and failed (about thirty yards from of my place of work). Nobody was hurt, particularly, although her airbags went off. The front of my car is bashed in, which means that the grill that got cracked months ago by another friend will get payed for by this new fool. It should not amuse me as much as it does that the fool's car got *totaled*. That's what he gets for bringing a BMW to a Crown Vic fight...
So until the insurance provides a rental car, I'm driving my neighbor around, but we both live and work so close that the situation isn't intrusive at all. And it looks like my extra car will come back in better shape than when it was given to me. W00t!
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-31 02:43 pm (UTC)Birthday hugs to you and everyday hugs to R.
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Date: 2008-10-31 02:48 pm (UTC)> "happy in my pants" to not give me a disturbing visual!
I'm just glad my mom doesn't read this journal. Well, I'm pretty sure she doesn't.
She's got enough embarrassing stories from my youth to carpet-bomb me into silence...