When I ditched expensive digital cable television and reverted to $16/month basic cable with less than 30 channels (many of which do not broadcast in English), I decided to sign up for NetFlix. The theory was the mail-order DVDs would fill in the entertainment void due to the lack of Comedy Central, Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim (especially the black placards but also Futurama, naturally), Nick @ Nite, Discovery, TLC, and The History Channel.
The truth is when I have time for television, there’s more than enough entertainment in shows on the basic networks. Over the last year, House became one I can’t miss. Not only does the show take place in my backyard (the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital) but I’ve been a Hugh Laurie fan since seeing him in Blackadder.
I’ve also been hooked on Heroes, but I get the impression that the second half of the season won’t be nearly as good as the first.
The problem with what seems like a good number of decent network shows this year is I haven’t had time to watch much of what I’m queued up with Netflix. This is money I’m just throwing away, defeating the purpose of paying less for cable. The latest DVDs have been sitting near my television, unwatched, for a while. I don’t even remember what I have.
Additionally, when my girlfriend and I want to watch a movie that I don’t own, we usually just run to Blockbuster to pick something out.
I am not making the most of Netflix. I will most likely cancel before February’s charge unless I motivate myself to watch what I have.









