Had a very nice lunch yesterday with Mary H. and her SIL, Jane M. I was pleased to see Jane; she, Mary, and I have known each other for well over half a century, as we were in the same class at Holy Spirit. We ate at Downbeach Deli and after, I went to Boscov's. Bought myself a hat and gloves, and will run down to Kohl's to get a pair of those new-fangled (probably came out 5 years ago) earmuffs today.
My last Netflix movie is "The Constant Gardener," which I have now. Pat and I watched the first half before I went to bed. It's really good, very intense, and I'm anxious to see the rest of it. The reason I'm dropping Netflix is because I don't watch much television--don't want to and I never watch in the daytime, which seems to me sad and depressing (not the shows, I guess, but the idea of watching T.V. in the daytime because there's nothing else to do).
There's another reason: Movies no longer fill the T.V. screen, and watching a little, scrunched-up picture is an entirely different experience than seeing it in a theatre. It sometimes seems to even subtly change the whole concept behind a movie. Does anyone remember Marshall McLuhan's book The Medium is the Message? Guess it's about 40 years old.
Related to that, but not exactly the same thing, I think we're being manipulated by companies in ways large and small to be consumers first and foremost and to hell with our needs. (Well, duh...)