The Shark vacuum phenom is something I never expected to comment on. I had a series of cheap 49.95 Royal Dirt Devil bag-less vacuums that worked decently for many years. You know it's a vacuum cleaner - a necessary tool but who the hell cares, really.
A few years ago the Dyson vacuums hit the scene and all the upper middle income people had to have one. While I'm sure they work very well, they look cool and they're European which makes them better from the get go, they're vacuum cleaners - necessary tools but who the hell cares. Besides they are obscenely priced, you know European stuff like BMW's and Mercedes Benz's are just so much better and that justifies the price. Needless to say I am never going own a Dyson.
When the 3rd Dirt Devil died we found ourselves looking at the pricey vacuum cleaners at the bed and bath store. Like I said the Dyson was ridiculous upwards of $400, but next to it was a Shark Navigator for a buck seventy-nine. With the 30% discount my wife had we picked it up for around $135 I suppose.
It's a nice piece of work. It does a great job and has some really good features like the lift-away canister that more or less makes it into a portable. The brush feature can be turned off and used on hard wood floors and kitchen tile... and it has swivel steering. Pretty slick. The accessories are fairly standard and work well enough. The dust bucket empties easily - although I recommend doing it outside in the garbage can rather than the kitchen waste basket. All in all well worth the money we spent.
I like it enough to actually recommend it and even bought one as a gift. However, there is one thing that drives me crazy and makes me wonder how it ever left the design stage like this. The hose is absolutely terrible. It is so stiff and springy that it is made nearly useless. Every time you use the hose the vacuum unit falls to the floor or hits you - or worse knocks something over. It's only slightly better when used in portable mode and that's because you are holding the canister unit in your other hand. I honestly believe the designer never actually used the thing before sending it to production. Someone at Shark had to have noticed how bad this was.
The only way to manage it is to be acutely aware of the larger unit when you grab the hose for a quick aside during your cleaning activities. I have never had to worry about this sort of issue before and I think this is a serious mark against and otherwise stellar product.
3 of 5 stars
CW
Monday, January 4, 2016
Thursday, December 24, 2015
My Pillow
TV commercials drive me nuts. It's not the commercials themselves but rather the sheer volume of them. Radio isn't much better. I've taken to hitting mute button on the TV remote and changing the station on the radio. I even catch myself listening to NPR on the radio just to get a break from commercials.
Lately I've been seeing and hearing ads for My Pillow all over the place. Not much different than any other commercial it's just a product you almost never see ads for else-wise. I summarily dismissed the "hype" and got on with it. They kept coming. Soon all the talk radio hosts were giving testimonials - for a pillow no less. Still I was uninterested, they were all paid to give testimonials, right. They kept coming, like the invasion of the body snatchers and endless stream of My Pillow commercials.
All right already! It's a pillow for God's sake. I moved on. Then one day my wife brought home 2 My Pillows she received at a promotional event. I thought, what the hell, I'll take one, why not.
Well I'm here to tell you - I love my My Pillow! I am sleeping so good I can hardly believe it. Rarely do product commercials live up to the hype. My Pillow does. It is remarkable that something so innocuous like a pillow could spur such passion in me. Count me as a believer!
The first few nights take some getting used to - so it is not love at first night. It's kinda lumpy, not pillowy like a regular pillow, but therein lies the genius of the darn thing. The way the filler is constructed it locks together with its filler mates to provide a firm yet soft cushion that does not flatten as the night goes on.
I have found that I move around so much less at night than I used to. If it wasn't for my insistent badder I'd probably sleep uninterrupted every night. It truly is a remarkable thing.
I have spent upwards of $230 for a damn pillow at the Sleep Number Store to go along with my $3500 Sleep Number bed. Well the bed is wonderful, but the overpriced pillow is only OK. My Pillow is around $49 retail, and get this, it is machine washable. Mine has been washed and is still just as good as the day I got it. Amazing.
I completely endorse this product. I love my My Pillow.
My Pillow 5 of 5 stars
CW
All right already! It's a pillow for God's sake. I moved on. Then one day my wife brought home 2 My Pillows she received at a promotional event. I thought, what the hell, I'll take one, why not.
Well I'm here to tell you - I love my My Pillow! I am sleeping so good I can hardly believe it. Rarely do product commercials live up to the hype. My Pillow does. It is remarkable that something so innocuous like a pillow could spur such passion in me. Count me as a believer!
The first few nights take some getting used to - so it is not love at first night. It's kinda lumpy, not pillowy like a regular pillow, but therein lies the genius of the darn thing. The way the filler is constructed it locks together with its filler mates to provide a firm yet soft cushion that does not flatten as the night goes on.
I have found that I move around so much less at night than I used to. If it wasn't for my insistent badder I'd probably sleep uninterrupted every night. It truly is a remarkable thing.
I have spent upwards of $230 for a damn pillow at the Sleep Number Store to go along with my $3500 Sleep Number bed. Well the bed is wonderful, but the overpriced pillow is only OK. My Pillow is around $49 retail, and get this, it is machine washable. Mine has been washed and is still just as good as the day I got it. Amazing.
I completely endorse this product. I love my My Pillow.
My Pillow 5 of 5 stars
CW
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Target Field/Minnesota Twins
Product
2012
I had the opportunity to go to a Twins game Thursday night - May10th. I had not yet seen the new park in person. I come away thoroughly impressed. It was so enjoyable watching a professional baseball team outdoors in the cool, crisp night air. Oh yeah, and the Twins were there too. The Twins were pathetic. It is truly no wonder they sport the worst record in all of Major League Baseball. It was literally like watching the Bad News Bears.
Target Field is a first class facility that has a lot going for it. The layout, the accessibility, the food, the cup holders, the scoreboards and big screens and of course the field itself are all fabulous. Unfortunately the tenants are stinking up the place.
I must also say the fans were either completely bored with the product on the field or we just have the most unserious fans in all the major leagues. No one honored the simple etiquette where you keep your butt in the seat when someone is batting as to not block the view for real fans at a critical moment. However, it was such a terrible game that there were no critical moments to miss. We'll give the fans a pass on this one.
The Twins pitcher, Marqis, was awful. The catcher (not Joe) could not catch the ball - I have never seen so many dropped balls in my life - it actually became annoying. The fielding was atrocious. The Blue Jays stole bases at will, advanced bases at will and respected no one's throwing arm as the scored runs at will. As bad as the pitching and the fielding was the batting was even worse. At least 4 players laid down bunts - guess how many were successful? Yeah, none. Only the DH Willingham really drove the ball hitting his 7th home run. That was the sole highlight. The team looked uninspired, distracted, and bored. The Blue Jays on the other hand hustled on every play, they deserved to win.
And yeah the mighty Joe Mauer sucked too...
I remain skeptical that the Twins are going to turn things around, they have absolutely nothing going for them that I can see. It's a shame that the whole experience of going to this really first rate ball park is tainted by this truly lousy team.
Target Field 5 of 5 stars
Twins 1 of 5 stars
CW
Home
2012
I had the opportunity to go to a Twins game Thursday night - May10th. I had not yet seen the new park in person. I come away thoroughly impressed. It was so enjoyable watching a professional baseball team outdoors in the cool, crisp night air. Oh yeah, and the Twins were there too. The Twins were pathetic. It is truly no wonder they sport the worst record in all of Major League Baseball. It was literally like watching the Bad News Bears.Target Field is a first class facility that has a lot going for it. The layout, the accessibility, the food, the cup holders, the scoreboards and big screens and of course the field itself are all fabulous. Unfortunately the tenants are stinking up the place.
I must also say the fans were either completely bored with the product on the field or we just have the most unserious fans in all the major leagues. No one honored the simple etiquette where you keep your butt in the seat when someone is batting as to not block the view for real fans at a critical moment. However, it was such a terrible game that there were no critical moments to miss. We'll give the fans a pass on this one.
The Twins pitcher, Marqis, was awful. The catcher (not Joe) could not catch the ball - I have never seen so many dropped balls in my life - it actually became annoying. The fielding was atrocious. The Blue Jays stole bases at will, advanced bases at will and respected no one's throwing arm as the scored runs at will. As bad as the pitching and the fielding was the batting was even worse. At least 4 players laid down bunts - guess how many were successful? Yeah, none. Only the DH Willingham really drove the ball hitting his 7th home run. That was the sole highlight. The team looked uninspired, distracted, and bored. The Blue Jays on the other hand hustled on every play, they deserved to win.
And yeah the mighty Joe Mauer sucked too...
I remain skeptical that the Twins are going to turn things around, they have absolutely nothing going for them that I can see. It's a shame that the whole experience of going to this really first rate ball park is tainted by this truly lousy team.
Target Field 5 of 5 stars
Twins 1 of 5 stars
CW
Home
Monday, May 7, 2012
The Avengers
Movie
2012
Two thoughts come to mind after seeing this film. Thoroughly enjoyable from stem to stern and greater than the sum of it's parts. Everything about this movie worked - the plot, the characters, the acting, the dialogue, the effects, but most of all the timing. I never took my eyes off this 142 minute movie, I couldn't.
The one liners you grew accustomed to watching Robert Downy Jr. in the Iron Man movies where so much better, had greater impact and were far funnier in the Avengers. Better still, they came at precise moments enhancing the action in every way. A movie like this could have bogged down in the sort of gratuitous action we've seen before in these super hero movies. Not this movie. It was, in a word - great.
As for declaring the film greater than the sum of it's parts, it's neither a stretch nor necessarily obvious. The Iron Man movies were quite good, thanks in large part to Robert Downy Jr.'s confident acting and super cool technology (special effects). That said, I found the Thor movie unwatchable, I hated it, never finished it. In the Avengers the Thor character (Chris Hemsworth) was fabulous, completely likeable and totally righteous. The Hulk movies left me with a "meh" attitude. Blind rage isn't endearing in a super hero. Except in this movie it was. It was used to perfection. The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) became the star of this movie. As for the Captain America (Chris Evans) I never saw the movie. In the Avengers "old" CA was picture perfect, the glue that held the team together.
The other characters Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and The BlackWidow (Scarlett Johansson) were great and really added personality to the plot. Far from being mere eye candy Johansson shows us that the Black Widow is more than just a pretty face; she's as dangerous psychologically as she is physically. Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) Mr. S.H.I.E.L.D. himself was fine as was his sidekick Agent Maria Hill (the stunningly beautiful Cobie Smulders). Perhaps the funniest one liners were delivered by the driest of characters, Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) who we have come to know from the other Marvel movies as the recruiter for Nick Fury.
What super hero movie would be complete without a great villain? The Avengers doesn't disappoint. Meet Loki, wonderfully complex, masterfully dancing on the fine line between villainy and redemption as the god of mischief. The half brother of Thor, he is seeking his revenge on dear brother by declaring war on Thor's protectorate - the Earth. He is more than a simple megalomaniac with a great smile. A great villain will at times pull at your sympathies before showing his true colors and Loki delivers.
Whether you liked any of the Marvel movies before this you owe it to yourself to see this one. It will be the yardstick all future super hero movies will be measured against.It really is that good.
4 of 5 stars
CW
Home
2012
Two thoughts come to mind after seeing this film. Thoroughly enjoyable from stem to stern and greater than the sum of it's parts. Everything about this movie worked - the plot, the characters, the acting, the dialogue, the effects, but most of all the timing. I never took my eyes off this 142 minute movie, I couldn't.The one liners you grew accustomed to watching Robert Downy Jr. in the Iron Man movies where so much better, had greater impact and were far funnier in the Avengers. Better still, they came at precise moments enhancing the action in every way. A movie like this could have bogged down in the sort of gratuitous action we've seen before in these super hero movies. Not this movie. It was, in a word - great.
As for declaring the film greater than the sum of it's parts, it's neither a stretch nor necessarily obvious. The Iron Man movies were quite good, thanks in large part to Robert Downy Jr.'s confident acting and super cool technology (special effects). That said, I found the Thor movie unwatchable, I hated it, never finished it. In the Avengers the Thor character (Chris Hemsworth) was fabulous, completely likeable and totally righteous. The Hulk movies left me with a "meh" attitude. Blind rage isn't endearing in a super hero. Except in this movie it was. It was used to perfection. The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) became the star of this movie. As for the Captain America (Chris Evans) I never saw the movie. In the Avengers "old" CA was picture perfect, the glue that held the team together.
The other characters Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and The BlackWidow (Scarlett Johansson) were great and really added personality to the plot. Far from being mere eye candy Johansson shows us that the Black Widow is more than just a pretty face; she's as dangerous psychologically as she is physically. Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) Mr. S.H.I.E.L.D. himself was fine as was his sidekick Agent Maria Hill (the stunningly beautiful Cobie Smulders). Perhaps the funniest one liners were delivered by the driest of characters, Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) who we have come to know from the other Marvel movies as the recruiter for Nick Fury.
What super hero movie would be complete without a great villain? The Avengers doesn't disappoint. Meet Loki, wonderfully complex, masterfully dancing on the fine line between villainy and redemption as the god of mischief. The half brother of Thor, he is seeking his revenge on dear brother by declaring war on Thor's protectorate - the Earth. He is more than a simple megalomaniac with a great smile. A great villain will at times pull at your sympathies before showing his true colors and Loki delivers.
Whether you liked any of the Marvel movies before this you owe it to yourself to see this one. It will be the yardstick all future super hero movies will be measured against.It really is that good.
4 of 5 stars
CW
Home
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Midnight In Paris
Movie
2012
Midnight in Paris combines two of the people I like the least in all of Hollywood. One being Woody Allen and the other being Owen Wilson. Despite this demented duo I found that I really enjoyed this movie - and I wasn't expecting to.
Wilson is an actor I find annoying in general. I thought he was really good in that off beat movie The Royal Tannebaums and not too bad in the Wedding Crashers, but in everything else he plays the same irritating, punch me in the face character. Sure there's a little bit of "that" Owen Wilson in Midnight in Paris, but the writing is so good and the dialogue so snappy that you forget that you don't like the main protagonist at all.
I have always been a fan of Rachel McAdams and was looking forward to her contribution here, but honestly anyone could have played her part because this was Wilson's movie from the start.
Gil (Wilson) is a successful Hollywood writer who had grown bored and now has set off to write his first novel. Unfortunately it was not going well. Inez, his fiance, (McAdams) takes him to Paris piggybacking on her father's business trip. Gil falls in love with Paris and thinks they should live there after they get married. Inez scoffs at his romantic notions of the city, brushing his suggestions aside as just crazy talk.
Ultimately Inez bores him with her pretentious friends and culturally bitter parents, causing Gil to seek inspiration by drunkenly wandering that streets of Paris at night. And that's where the fun begins...
At the strike of midnight he is invited into a party car that transports him back to the 1920s where he meets the people that he most admired. To his utter bemusement and delight he meets F.Scott Fitzgerald, his wife Zelda, Hemingway, Picasso, Cole Porter, Gertrude Stein and the delightful Salvador Dali (and his obsession with rhinoceros'). Night after night at the strike of midnight he enters the Golden Age of literature and art to find a special something (and someone) that leads to a breakthrough in his own work.
Adriana, played by the Oscar winning Marion Cotillard, once Picasso's girlfriend soon becomes Gil's muse and the object of his desire. She is also pining for a Golden Era of her own - convinced the1890's Europe was the pinnacle of all culture.
Woody Allen put together an interesting and snappy screenplay that was simultaneously clever and funny. After watching the film I'm not surprised he won the Oscar this year. I was sure Allen had lost his edge decades ago. He put together a fine cast including Kathy Bates, Allison Pill, Adrien Brody, Michael Sheen and Corey Stall as Hemingway. Although I still don't like Allen or Wilson I am big enough to give them both a hat tip for this gem.
4 of 5 stars
CW
Home page
2012
Midnight in Paris combines two of the people I like the least in all of Hollywood. One being Woody Allen and the other being Owen Wilson. Despite this demented duo I found that I really enjoyed this movie - and I wasn't expecting to.Wilson is an actor I find annoying in general. I thought he was really good in that off beat movie The Royal Tannebaums and not too bad in the Wedding Crashers, but in everything else he plays the same irritating, punch me in the face character. Sure there's a little bit of "that" Owen Wilson in Midnight in Paris, but the writing is so good and the dialogue so snappy that you forget that you don't like the main protagonist at all.
I have always been a fan of Rachel McAdams and was looking forward to her contribution here, but honestly anyone could have played her part because this was Wilson's movie from the start.
Gil (Wilson) is a successful Hollywood writer who had grown bored and now has set off to write his first novel. Unfortunately it was not going well. Inez, his fiance, (McAdams) takes him to Paris piggybacking on her father's business trip. Gil falls in love with Paris and thinks they should live there after they get married. Inez scoffs at his romantic notions of the city, brushing his suggestions aside as just crazy talk.
Ultimately Inez bores him with her pretentious friends and culturally bitter parents, causing Gil to seek inspiration by drunkenly wandering that streets of Paris at night. And that's where the fun begins...
At the strike of midnight he is invited into a party car that transports him back to the 1920s where he meets the people that he most admired. To his utter bemusement and delight he meets F.Scott Fitzgerald, his wife Zelda, Hemingway, Picasso, Cole Porter, Gertrude Stein and the delightful Salvador Dali (and his obsession with rhinoceros'). Night after night at the strike of midnight he enters the Golden Age of literature and art to find a special something (and someone) that leads to a breakthrough in his own work.
Adriana, played by the Oscar winning Marion Cotillard, once Picasso's girlfriend soon becomes Gil's muse and the object of his desire. She is also pining for a Golden Era of her own - convinced the1890's Europe was the pinnacle of all culture.
Woody Allen put together an interesting and snappy screenplay that was simultaneously clever and funny. After watching the film I'm not surprised he won the Oscar this year. I was sure Allen had lost his edge decades ago. He put together a fine cast including Kathy Bates, Allison Pill, Adrien Brody, Michael Sheen and Corey Stall as Hemingway. Although I still don't like Allen or Wilson I am big enough to give them both a hat tip for this gem.
4 of 5 stars
CW
Home page
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Dashboard Confessional
Music
2012
In my quest for discovering new music (new to me anyway) a few years ago I came across a song while listening to Pandora.com that perked up my ears. It was called "Stolen" by a band I had never heard of - Dashboard Confessional. Wow, I thought, that's just good songwriting. Eventually I downloaded the mp3 and put it on my IPod and went on my way. As the song would pop up in the random rotation I would think wow, that's just damn good songwriting.
You see I fancy myself a songwriter too - I have an album coming out soon myself (more on that some other time) - and I am continually amazed at the plethora of good writers out there. Some shine brighter than others, and some can sustain that over the years, album after album. Christopher Carrabba's Dashboard Confessional has done just that.
Dashboard Confessional started as a side project for Carrabba in an effort to become more intimate and personal with his music. With his success a new genre of music was legitimized and has crawled out of the underground. I'm still not exactly sure what Emo is but it is described as a style of rock music characterized by melodic musicianship and expressive, often confessional lyrics. And yes that describes Dashboard Confessional exactly. According to the article on Wikipedia - Emo broke into mainstream culture in the early 2000's with the platinum-selling success of Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional...
Leaving his band Further Seems Forever to pursue a solo career in the early 2000's Carrabba's first recordings were just him and his guitar. Even then he started to gather a legion of devotees. Later in 2002 the full-length album "The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most" was released and featured a full band on several tracks. From that album the heart-rending single "Screaming Infidelities" found an immediate home on modern rock radio.
By 2003 with a permanent lineup (with bassist Scott Schoenbeck, guitarist/pianist Johnny Lefler, and drummer Mike Marsh) and a new album, "A Mark, a Mission, a Brand, a Scar" Dashboard Confessional was on it's way. The album topped the Billboard charts and spawned another hit single, "Hands Down," which peaked at number eight.
The thing put the band in the spotlight was the inclusion of the song "Vindicated" on 2004's Spider-Man 2 soundtrack. The band now had a wide audience, and a song that rose to number two. The album that featured Vindicated - Dusk and Summer - also featured the hit single "Don't Wait" which really epitomizes the whole emotional nakedness of the genre. Carrabba sets up the listener with a pensive, heartfelt verse then ratchets it up 10 notches as he delivers the punchline chorus:
Over the years Carrabba and Dashboard Confessional have been savaged by the critics. The theme repeats itself over and over claiming Carrabba abandoned the true Emo purity he himself pioneered. As if it is a crime for artists to grow and change from album to album. You know the Beatles abandoned holding hands and Norwegian wood too. While DC may not be your thing the talent here is undeniable.
I find the songwriting - as mentioned, very, very strong - and the performances led by Carrabba's emotive vocals backed by solid rock components make for exciting music with rib-sticking hooks. I find myself humming these tunes long after the final notes fade away.
My favorite tracks are:
4 of 5 stars
CW
2012
In my quest for discovering new music (new to me anyway) a few years ago I came across a song while listening to Pandora.com that perked up my ears. It was called "Stolen" by a band I had never heard of - Dashboard Confessional. Wow, I thought, that's just good songwriting. Eventually I downloaded the mp3 and put it on my IPod and went on my way. As the song would pop up in the random rotation I would think wow, that's just damn good songwriting.You see I fancy myself a songwriter too - I have an album coming out soon myself (more on that some other time) - and I am continually amazed at the plethora of good writers out there. Some shine brighter than others, and some can sustain that over the years, album after album. Christopher Carrabba's Dashboard Confessional has done just that.
Dashboard Confessional started as a side project for Carrabba in an effort to become more intimate and personal with his music. With his success a new genre of music was legitimized and has crawled out of the underground. I'm still not exactly sure what Emo is but it is described as a style of rock music characterized by melodic musicianship and expressive, often confessional lyrics. And yes that describes Dashboard Confessional exactly. According to the article on Wikipedia - Emo broke into mainstream culture in the early 2000's with the platinum-selling success of Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional...
Leaving his band Further Seems Forever to pursue a solo career in the early 2000's Carrabba's first recordings were just him and his guitar. Even then he started to gather a legion of devotees. Later in 2002 the full-length album "The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most" was released and featured a full band on several tracks. From that album the heart-rending single "Screaming Infidelities" found an immediate home on modern rock radio.
By 2003 with a permanent lineup (with bassist Scott Schoenbeck, guitarist/pianist Johnny Lefler, and drummer Mike Marsh) and a new album, "A Mark, a Mission, a Brand, a Scar" Dashboard Confessional was on it's way. The album topped the Billboard charts and spawned another hit single, "Hands Down," which peaked at number eight.
The thing put the band in the spotlight was the inclusion of the song "Vindicated" on 2004's Spider-Man 2 soundtrack. The band now had a wide audience, and a song that rose to number two. The album that featured Vindicated - Dusk and Summer - also featured the hit single "Don't Wait" which really epitomizes the whole emotional nakedness of the genre. Carrabba sets up the listener with a pensive, heartfelt verse then ratchets it up 10 notches as he delivers the punchline chorus:
Don't wait, Don't wait
The road is now a sudden sea
And suddenly, you're deep enough
To lay your armor down
To lay your armor down
To lay your armor down
The road is now a sudden sea
And suddenly, you're deep enough
To lay your armor down
To lay your armor down
To lay your armor down
Over the years Carrabba and Dashboard Confessional have been savaged by the critics. The theme repeats itself over and over claiming Carrabba abandoned the true Emo purity he himself pioneered. As if it is a crime for artists to grow and change from album to album. You know the Beatles abandoned holding hands and Norwegian wood too. While DC may not be your thing the talent here is undeniable.
I find the songwriting - as mentioned, very, very strong - and the performances led by Carrabba's emotive vocals backed by solid rock components make for exciting music with rib-sticking hooks. I find myself humming these tunes long after the final notes fade away.
My favorite tracks are:
- Stolen
- Don't Wait
- Vindicated
- Until Morning
- Belle of the Boulevard
- Hands Down
4 of 5 stars
CW
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Netflix (Streaming version)
Product
2012
We got a Nintendo Wii machine at Christmas-time and it came with a "free" month of Netflix. We were excited since the avenue for renting movies in a retail setting has really dried up in the last two years. We have rather old TV's and none with an HDMI connection and certainly none with built-in wi-fi. Ordering a movie through Comcast's On Demand is a serious rip-off - isn't that monthly bill high enough already???
So the Netflix offer through the Wii seemed a perfect solution. It was easy enough to get the Wii connected to the home wireless network, quite slick in fact. The Netflix app installed seamlessly and an account was created, so far, so good. The rest, however, is not so good.
I spent a good hour pouring through the initial offerings listed in several different categories only to become more and more disappointed. The movies were old and were repeated over and over within the different categories. OK, well, they have a search feature, surely the movies I wanted were just not "on the shelves" so to speak. I was interested in a Matt Damon movie called "The Adjustment Bureau". It was old enough that it would easily have been on the shelf at Blockbuster by now. Nope not on Netflix. How about that movie "Captain America"? Nope. My son wanted to see and old Ed Burns sci-fi movie called "Sound of Thunder". Not there either. My wife was interested in a TV series called "Justified". She wanted to see it from the first episode because it was one of those shows that won't make sense coming in half way through season two. That also was not there.
We went online to the Netflix site only to learn that the DVD service and the streaming service did not share the same content. Of course they don't share the same subscription either. You would have to pay double to have both. Not going to happen.
I would opt for the the DVD service if anything, but then we would have to weigh how many movies we would watch in a month as it compares to a service like Red Box. I have learned that Red Box is a pretty good deal and it has a slick reservation service too. The only issue I have is that our movie watching habits are schizophrenic and we would probably rent movies we never end up watching or endure daily late fees. Red Box only makes sense if you are disciplined. We are not. The Netflix DVD service is more forgiving for people like us.
Needless to say I will be dropping the Netflix Streaming service - it just not right for us. Perhaps it will get better with time. We can also explore Hulu and other online services once we join the 21st century and get a modern - connectable - TV.
1 of 5 stars
CW
2012
We got a Nintendo Wii machine at Christmas-time and it came with a "free" month of Netflix. We were excited since the avenue for renting movies in a retail setting has really dried up in the last two years. We have rather old TV's and none with an HDMI connection and certainly none with built-in wi-fi. Ordering a movie through Comcast's On Demand is a serious rip-off - isn't that monthly bill high enough already???So the Netflix offer through the Wii seemed a perfect solution. It was easy enough to get the Wii connected to the home wireless network, quite slick in fact. The Netflix app installed seamlessly and an account was created, so far, so good. The rest, however, is not so good.
I spent a good hour pouring through the initial offerings listed in several different categories only to become more and more disappointed. The movies were old and were repeated over and over within the different categories. OK, well, they have a search feature, surely the movies I wanted were just not "on the shelves" so to speak. I was interested in a Matt Damon movie called "The Adjustment Bureau". It was old enough that it would easily have been on the shelf at Blockbuster by now. Nope not on Netflix. How about that movie "Captain America"? Nope. My son wanted to see and old Ed Burns sci-fi movie called "Sound of Thunder". Not there either. My wife was interested in a TV series called "Justified". She wanted to see it from the first episode because it was one of those shows that won't make sense coming in half way through season two. That also was not there.
We went online to the Netflix site only to learn that the DVD service and the streaming service did not share the same content. Of course they don't share the same subscription either. You would have to pay double to have both. Not going to happen.
I would opt for the the DVD service if anything, but then we would have to weigh how many movies we would watch in a month as it compares to a service like Red Box. I have learned that Red Box is a pretty good deal and it has a slick reservation service too. The only issue I have is that our movie watching habits are schizophrenic and we would probably rent movies we never end up watching or endure daily late fees. Red Box only makes sense if you are disciplined. We are not. The Netflix DVD service is more forgiving for people like us.
Needless to say I will be dropping the Netflix Streaming service - it just not right for us. Perhaps it will get better with time. We can also explore Hulu and other online services once we join the 21st century and get a modern - connectable - TV.
1 of 5 stars
CW
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