I love this. It perfectly shows the utter ridiculousness in the panic surrounding Netflix's price hike. (In case you're wondering, I'm still planning to cancel the dvd portion of my service come September 1. And no, I don't need a sponsor to give me $6 so I can keep the dvds.)
July 29, 2011
July 20, 2011
What should I do for my 30th birthday?
That's a question I've been contemplating for a while now ... and the day is rapidly approaching! Well, I now know what I'll be doing--first, I'll spend the day in staff in-service (not my first choice!), and then I'll head to Omaha for Women of Faith!
I'm very excited to attend Women of Faith this year--and I'm grateful to BookSneeze for hooking me up with tickets. The last Women of Faith conference I attended was in 1998 when I was still in high school. I went with my mom and a few ladies from our church, and this time I'm going with my mom again! I just reread my journal entry from right after the 1998 conference, and at the time, I said it was one of the greatest weekends ever. I'm really looking forward to another Women of Faith experience! I'll be blogging about it again after the weekend, so stay tuned! If you want to get your own tickets, you can click on the badge at the top right of the page. I'd love to see you there!
That's a question I've been contemplating for a while now ... and the day is rapidly approaching! Well, I now know what I'll be doing--first, I'll spend the day in staff in-service (not my first choice!), and then I'll head to Omaha for Women of Faith!
I'm very excited to attend Women of Faith this year--and I'm grateful to BookSneeze for hooking me up with tickets. The last Women of Faith conference I attended was in 1998 when I was still in high school. I went with my mom and a few ladies from our church, and this time I'm going with my mom again! I just reread my journal entry from right after the 1998 conference, and at the time, I said it was one of the greatest weekends ever. I'm really looking forward to another Women of Faith experience! I'll be blogging about it again after the weekend, so stay tuned! If you want to get your own tickets, you can click on the badge at the top right of the page. I'd love to see you there!
July 12, 2011
In the summer of 2007, I joined Netflix. Over the past four years, I've been an extremely satisfied customer. I've even blogged (rather dorkily) about my love for Netflix. At first, I loved all the dvd options suddenly available to me. I joined at the beginning of instant streaming, and at first, I could stream eight hours a month. Soon, Netflix removed the time limitations on many plans, and I could get as many dvds per month as I wanted (one at a time) and watch as much instantly as I wanted. Back then, Netflix's streaming library was pretty terrible, but in the last couple years, the streaming options have gotten much better. I'm at the point now where I watch much more instantly than I do on dvd. (This is how I watched Prison Break, Jericho, Parks & Recreation, Monarch of the Glen, Veronica Mars, and Dollhouse--shows that I absolutely loved but would never have tried if not for streaming.)
This afternoon, I heard about Netflix's new price structure. Now, dvd plans and streaming plans are separate, and to get what I currently have--one dvd at a time and unlimited streaming--I'll have to pay almost $16 per month. That's a hike of about 60%.
My first reaction was outrage--how dare they! I soon saw I wasn't alone. Netflix users tweeted their feelings in droves, and "Dear Netflix" was a trending topic. The blog post announcing the changes had 5000 comments the last time I checked, and nearly all the comments I read were negative.
Then, I stopped to think about it. Perhaps this isn't the smartest move on Netflix's part. Perhaps customers will leave in droves. Perhaps Netflix will rethink this and come up with some sort of "bundle." Perhaps Netflix will be just fine. But Netflix is providing a service that I can choose to have or not have. No one is forcing me to pay $16 per month. If I want to get dvds and streaming, then I'll pay the money. If $16 per month for Netflix is too much for me (and it is), then I have a decision to make. Netflix is a luxury, but at $8 per month (the cost of either dvd or streaming), I can afford it. So I just have to decide which plan I want to keep--dvds or streaming. I'm leaning toward streaming right now, but I have until Sept. 1 (the day the new price structure goes into place for current customers) to decide. In the meantime, I'll keep my eye on what's happening, but I'll also keep my sanity!
This afternoon, I heard about Netflix's new price structure. Now, dvd plans and streaming plans are separate, and to get what I currently have--one dvd at a time and unlimited streaming--I'll have to pay almost $16 per month. That's a hike of about 60%.
My first reaction was outrage--how dare they! I soon saw I wasn't alone. Netflix users tweeted their feelings in droves, and "Dear Netflix" was a trending topic. The blog post announcing the changes had 5000 comments the last time I checked, and nearly all the comments I read were negative.
Then, I stopped to think about it. Perhaps this isn't the smartest move on Netflix's part. Perhaps customers will leave in droves. Perhaps Netflix will rethink this and come up with some sort of "bundle." Perhaps Netflix will be just fine. But Netflix is providing a service that I can choose to have or not have. No one is forcing me to pay $16 per month. If I want to get dvds and streaming, then I'll pay the money. If $16 per month for Netflix is too much for me (and it is), then I have a decision to make. Netflix is a luxury, but at $8 per month (the cost of either dvd or streaming), I can afford it. So I just have to decide which plan I want to keep--dvds or streaming. I'm leaning toward streaming right now, but I have until Sept. 1 (the day the new price structure goes into place for current customers) to decide. In the meantime, I'll keep my eye on what's happening, but I'll also keep my sanity!
July 11, 2011
No, I didn’t actually spend a day with Ryan Reynolds. (Insert my cousin screaming, “I love Ryan Reynolds!” in the background here.) But I did dream about spending a day with him—I mean an actual dream, not a “Wouldn’t it be nice if Ryan Reynolds fell in love with me?” fantasy.
While I used to have crazy dreams all the time (like the time someone was trying to turn me into a statue by forcing me to eat crunchy Cheetos or the time there was a bucking bronco competition in our college cafeteria), I normally don’t have them any more … or at least I don’t remember them!
Here are the factors that I believe led to this dream (which I’ll soon get around to sharing with you):
So, here goes …
I went to the mall (already this dream is quite abnormal, as I usually try to avoid the mall), where I ran into Anna, an acquaintance. She looked about eight months pregnant, and after we watched a man try to sell a very large pin art toy
(so large you could do an impression of your entire body), she said she needed to get off her feet and wondered if I’d like to get a pedicure with her. We went into a nearby nail salon, but they didn’t have two open chairs, so she got her toes done while I sat on an ottoman by her feet. I glanced down the row of chairs and saw Tonya, one of my coworkers. I waved at her, but as soon as I did, I realized it wasn’t really Tonya. I was embarrassed to have been waving at a stranger, but she didn’t even notice me. The guy in the chair next to her did, though, and he waved back. He was wearing a very obviously fake blonde moustache, but I knew who he was immediately, and without thinking, I blurted out, “That’s Ryan Reynolds!” He tried to hide by pretending to look around for “himself,” but then his moustache slid down his face so it was covering his mouth at an angle, and other people started recognizing him.
Suddenly, Ryan, a crowd of girls, my sister Val, and I were in this giant old gymnasium where some old professor was giving a history lecture—but no one was listening because all the girls wanted their pictures taken with Ryan. Finally, I worked up the nerve to ask for a picture, and I handed my camera to some girl, but she couldn’t figure out how to work my simple point-and-shoot camera. She took a bunch of horrible pictures, and then I spotted Ryan Stauffer, one of my college classmates. (I guess this was just a “Ryan” kind of dream!) I asked him to take the picture of me, Ryan Reynolds, and Val, and while he was getting the camera ready, I suddenly told everyone to go to Kickstarter and support Ryan Stauffer’s movie, Murder! A Love Story. I was quite pleased when Ryan Reynolds said it sounded cool and he’d definitely look it up. Then his manager made him leave, and I shared my caramel corn (huh?) with Mr. P (the shop teacher from my high school) and his wife. Then Val and I had to hurry to catch our boat (again, huh?), but what I really wanted to do was look at the pictures. I never got a chance before I woke up.
So why did I remember it? Because when I woke up at 5:45 a.m., I thought, “If I don’t write this down, I’m going to forget it.” And then I got out of bed, grabbed a notebook, and started writing. In the dark. But almost everything is legible!
(FYI--Ryan Stauffer really is making a movie. While the Kickstarter funding project failed, you can still check out info on Murder! A Love Story at its website and on Ryan's site. It's going to be filmed in my old dorm!)
While I used to have crazy dreams all the time (like the time someone was trying to turn me into a statue by forcing me to eat crunchy Cheetos or the time there was a bucking bronco competition in our college cafeteria), I normally don’t have them any more … or at least I don’t remember them!
Here are the factors that I believe led to this dream (which I’ll soon get around to sharing with you):
- A conversation about X-Men Origins: Wolverine (specifically concerning Deadpool) at dinner.
- A less than ideal hotel room, which made me insanely uncomfortable as I attempted to go to sleep. (Seriously, never ever stay at the Travelodge in Davenport, Iowa. It was, without a doubt, the worst hotel I’ve ever stayed at.)
- Spinach. (I don’t know if spinach is known to cause weird dreams, but I ate a large amount of it in my yummy Panera lemon chicken orzo soup a couple hours before bed … and I never eat any green stuff! So let me blame it on the spinach, okay?)
So, here goes …
I went to the mall (already this dream is quite abnormal, as I usually try to avoid the mall), where I ran into Anna, an acquaintance. She looked about eight months pregnant, and after we watched a man try to sell a very large pin art toy
(so large you could do an impression of your entire body), she said she needed to get off her feet and wondered if I’d like to get a pedicure with her. We went into a nearby nail salon, but they didn’t have two open chairs, so she got her toes done while I sat on an ottoman by her feet. I glanced down the row of chairs and saw Tonya, one of my coworkers. I waved at her, but as soon as I did, I realized it wasn’t really Tonya. I was embarrassed to have been waving at a stranger, but she didn’t even notice me. The guy in the chair next to her did, though, and he waved back. He was wearing a very obviously fake blonde moustache, but I knew who he was immediately, and without thinking, I blurted out, “That’s Ryan Reynolds!” He tried to hide by pretending to look around for “himself,” but then his moustache slid down his face so it was covering his mouth at an angle, and other people started recognizing him. Suddenly, Ryan, a crowd of girls, my sister Val, and I were in this giant old gymnasium where some old professor was giving a history lecture—but no one was listening because all the girls wanted their pictures taken with Ryan. Finally, I worked up the nerve to ask for a picture, and I handed my camera to some girl, but she couldn’t figure out how to work my simple point-and-shoot camera. She took a bunch of horrible pictures, and then I spotted Ryan Stauffer, one of my college classmates. (I guess this was just a “Ryan” kind of dream!) I asked him to take the picture of me, Ryan Reynolds, and Val, and while he was getting the camera ready, I suddenly told everyone to go to Kickstarter and support Ryan Stauffer’s movie, Murder! A Love Story. I was quite pleased when Ryan Reynolds said it sounded cool and he’d definitely look it up. Then his manager made him leave, and I shared my caramel corn (huh?) with Mr. P (the shop teacher from my high school) and his wife. Then Val and I had to hurry to catch our boat (again, huh?), but what I really wanted to do was look at the pictures. I never got a chance before I woke up.
So why did I remember it? Because when I woke up at 5:45 a.m., I thought, “If I don’t write this down, I’m going to forget it.” And then I got out of bed, grabbed a notebook, and started writing. In the dark. But almost everything is legible!
(FYI--Ryan Stauffer really is making a movie. While the Kickstarter funding project failed, you can still check out info on Murder! A Love Story at its website and on Ryan's site. It's going to be filmed in my old dorm!)
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