And we continued to watch Casablanca at home. By the time we’ve had dinner, gone out for a walk, and Jeffrey’s done his homework, we don’t have much time before his bedtime, so we’re watching it in half-hour bursts. I’m sure that that does not do justice to the film, but it’s still awfully good — I find it hard to believe that I’ve never seen the whole thing before now.
Once we finish with the disk, I think we’re going to cancel our NetFlix subscription. The idea of being able to hold onto films as long as necessary is a good one; so is the concept of being able to turn over discs as quickly as we like. But in practice, I find that we watch an average of one to two discs a month; that makes the effective price somewhere between $10 and $20 per disc — and we can’t always get the movie we want when we want it. For us, I think it’s going to be more cost-effective and perhaps less hassle to buy the discs we want to keep and rent from a local merchant when we know we’ll have time to watch the disc, instead of pre-ordering by mail. I’m sure there are people whose viewing patterns are a perfect fit for NetFlix, but it doesn’t seem to match ours.
Web and Society, anyone?
I’m now co-chair of the Web and Society track for WWW10, next May in Hong Kong. My opposite number and I are working on the official Call for Participation on our track, but I thought I’d put out an unoffical notice here. Contact me if you’re interested.