What My Instant Queue Says About Me

Ah, Netflix!

If it wasn't for Netflix and its instant streaming - and, to some extent, Hulu - I would still be shelling out buttloads of cash every month to either the evil empire known as Time Warner Cable (over $70 a month) or the slightly less evil Directv (over $60 a month).   It doesn't sound like much, and it's actually less than I pay for our wireless phone plan, which is the biggest scam on the face of the planet today, but when you watch as little live TV as I do, dropping $700-850 a year for 200 channels you MIGHT watch makes you the fool in the aphorism "a fool and his money are soon parted."

In other words, I was someone's bitch.  And I didn't want to be nobody's bitch no more.

Then along came Netflix - and yes, Hulu, you needy piece of trash, I didn't forget about you! - and I am back to being just my wife's you-know-what, which is just the way she likes it.   Netflix is better than cable or satellite, and not just because you can save money.  To me, Netflix is a far more personal experience.  Think about it: you subscribe to Time Warner Cable, or Directv, or even - ugh - DISH TV, and you pick from the same pre-packaged plans that EVERYONE picks from, which says nothing about you as an individual (except that you enjoy being economically violated once a month).  You sign up with Netflix, though, and you can customize your Instant Queue in whatever way you see fit.  Heck, you give someone with a half a brain access to your Instant Queue, and you could have an informal, yet semi-accurate, psych eval on your hands, ready or not . . . not a bad idea, now that I think of it.  I wonder what my Netflix Instant Queue says about me?  Let's take a look . . .

From Paris With Love; Daybreakers: errr, are these really in my queue?  And sitting in the number one and number three spots?!?  What was I, f*$@ing insane when I added these?   Okay - at least they have not been watched yet.

13 Assassins; all three Swedish versions of the Millennium trilogy (beginning with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo); a British made-for-TV crime trilogy, and a few British TV shows: again, not viewed yet.   Seems like I am open-minded enough to consider watching foreign cinema, but not so bored that I actually go ahead and do it.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Following, The Black Dahlia: all right!  Finally, some good dramas!

Five National Geographic documentaries (on dinosaurs);  Four BBC documentaries (on dinosaurs); one Discovery Channel documentary (on dinosaurs): and these have all been watched, multiple times . . . well, either I want to secretly be a paleontologist, or my six year-old figured out how to add shit to my Instant Queue.

Hot Tub Time Machine: yeah baby!  Funny as hell!  Now did I add this, or my kid?  Hmmm . . . .

A cartoon called Dinosaur Island?  A TV series called Dino Squad?  A TV series called Kung Fu Dino Posse - that can't be real, can it?  And two separate TV shows based on Godzilla?   Goddamn kid.

Ah - back to normal: Arrested Development; My Name is Earl; Psych; Sons of Anarchy: good TV . . .

. . . and the rest of my Instant Queue is made up of cartoons: Phineas and Ferb, no less that four versions of Spider-man, three types of X-Men, Iron Man, Thomas the Tank Engine . . . holy crap, my Instant Queue is a frigging disaster!  If people didn't know any better, they would think I was some drooling whack-job / serial- killer-waiting-to-happen, eating cereal and watching Netflix in my boxer shorts.

And I almost never do that.