NetVic's

I bought Ray and The Grudge this week, increasing my obscenely large dvd collection. I’d say I average about one dvd per week–I tend to buy them as they come out. It’s a practice that started in college. My roommate and I used to rent movies from Blockbuster, but we were really bad about returning them on time. It actually became cheaper to buy the movie than to rent it, so that’s what I often wound up doing.

I can’t remember the last time I actually rented a video. I buy so many that I don’t even have the time to watch them all. However, they do all get watched–I lend movies out regularly to friends and coworkers. My coworkers have taken to calling me NetVic’s, as a take on the dvd mail-order service NetFlix. The rules are pretty similar–I’ll hand them a couple movies, and they can hold on to them as long as they need. They bring them back and then they can take more.

So far people seem pretty pleased about this. Obviously the price is right (free), so nobody really complains. Of course, while I have an extensive collection, I don’t have everything. For example, you won’t find the latest Jennifer Lopez crapfest at NetVic’s. However, you have the opportunity to borrow any installment of the Friday the 13th series (actually, NetVic’s is probably much more satisfying if you really like cheesy horror films).

I realize that I spend too much money on dvds. Still, it’s nice when people come over to the crib (I apologize–I just really wanted to refer to my apartment as a "crib") to hang out because I’m almost certainly likely to have something they’d want to watch. Also it’s nice when my sister invites me over to visit and asks me to bring movies, and I can bring an assortment of twenty or so for her to choose from.

I used to do movie nights–double-feature evenings that usually had a theme, like "Scary Movie Night" or "Janeane Garofalo Night" (I realize that some people may find that redundant). The movie nights used to be very successful, but have fallen off in recent years. Maybe people just don’t want to drive out to The Valley to watch movies. West Side snobs...

I see that the Wonderfalls complete series dvd box set came out this week also. I’ll have to pick that up too. Great show–I highly recommend it to everyone. Perhaps I’ll have a Wonderfalls marathon this weekend...that is, if I can finish up my 21 Jump Street Season One marathon...

Oh, come on–everyone loves Johnny Depp...