Well my first 3 disks arrived today. Oddly, it was the 1st, 5th and 6th disks in my queue. I like that they keep disks moving even though the one you want right away is on a “very long wait”, but 5 & 6 happened to be disks 2 & 3 of a tv series. Not cool to miss the first disk. And the first one was the last disk in a series I had been watching from Netflix. This was one of those double sided dvd’s, and it’s like the layers are separating. One side played fine, but the other doesn’t play at all. So the first disk I watch is reported unplayable. Probably doesn’t help my karma with them.

So it was probably a draw of chance that my first selections flopped, but it’s not a good first impression. My first impression of Netflix seemed to be nearly brand new disks and fast shipping. These other services have been fairly scratched and sometimes unplayable disks. I wish the quality control was a little better, maybe incorporate a polishing step for disks every so often, not just when problems are reported.

Overall, I’m a little impressed how quickly these were sent out, the shipping estimate was pointing to Saturday and Monday! As I mentioned earlier, I like that the disks keep moving, but I would prefer an extra check to see if it’s part of a series (even though I unlocked this series, so I could move it around in my queue). Regardless, I’ll go drop these off at Blockbuster over the weekend and hope my “second impressions” are better than the first

My birthday was last Tuesday. I made out with Guitar Hero II bundle, some dvd’s, a Deal or No Deal game, some cashmoney, and a couple cards from family members. Erin took me out for dinner, and a showing of the Transformers movie.

I thought the Transformers movie was great. I give it 8.3 stars, with a note that I don’t think it could have done much better. When you take such a classic from my childhood and change it so much, it’s hard to live up to any expectations. That said, they did a pretty good job with it.

Erin’s b-day was Thursday, and after dinner, we saw Live Free or Die Hard. I give that one 8 stars, based simply on the fact that it was pretty good, entertaining, and a tad little less impressive than Transformers movie we saw 2 days prior. Definitely worth watching though!