The great Netflix pricing kerfluffle

It's old news by now... but Netflix has decided to separate out their streaming service from their DVD rental service in September, and charge extra in the process (up to 60% more, for people with the current unlimited one-DVD-at-a-time service). This has, of course, set off much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the Internet, because the old setup was a Good Thing for consumers... but, of course, all good things come to an end.

In my case... well, right now I'm on the two-DVD-at-a-time service level, with an extra charge for Blu-Ray discs on top. The thing is, most of my reason for having DVD service at all is to get at some older content (especially anime) that simply isn't available on anybody's streaming service legally, to the best of my knowledge. I toss in some more "normal" fare between those discs, and sometimes I stumble across something more than "just OK" that way, but few and far between... and, more and more, the old discs are slowly fading from the Netflix library, which can be really annoying if you've watched the first few discs of a multi-disc series.

So, barring a sudden reversal by Netflix, I think I'm going to go on an anime binge, and round out any disc-based series that I'm mid-way through. After that, I'll likely hold on to the streaming account for the time being... so long as the price on that doesn't start creeping up needlessly, and the available selection continues to work for me, and streaming quality through Comcast doesn't go back downhill again, it's a reasonable price. Of course, should Amazon improve their selection and give better queue-management tools, or some other service comes out that I can use my Roku box with and that I think I'll like better, I'll jump ship in a heartbeat.

More games to waste time you dont have

And here I thought it was going to be a fairly sedate, relaxed sort of weekend... instead, I find myself sleep-deprived and desperately wanting to play on the PC, but not daring to, lest I miss my regularly-scheduled Sunday afternoon activities.

First, it's worth mentioning that CivWorld has entered open beta on Facebook. It's nicely set up to let you either obsess over it throughout the day, or come back every so often for a longer play session... in my case, it comes out to about an hour a day to take care of things there. It's still not quite ready for prime time, but it's worth your while to check out, if you're into Civilization-style games with little mini-games attached.

Then, there's a little slice of evil called Terraria... I picked it up on sale from Steam the other day for $2.50, so my expectations weren't all that high. Next thing I know, it's after midnight, and I'm considering One More Trip into the depths... so, if exploration and crafting are up your alley, this game is for you, even at the regular $10 they usually charge. Most people think of it as a 2-d version of Minecraft, and they're right insofar as working out what to do to get started is pretty well impossible without referring to online help... but to me, it's more like that Miner Dig Deep game I blogged about earlier this year, with a huge world to play in, build in, and fight various monsters in to boot.

Suffice it to say, I'll be playing CivWorld most evenings, after I get home from work... while Terraria falls into the category of "early weekend only" games, so I can continue to be a somewhat-productive member of society.