netflops

ok, this is what you don't do. you don't let your parents get on the internet.

scratch that. you don't let your parents get on the computer. at all. ever. except maybe to play hearts. my dad seems to be able to handle that task.

but you can't sign your parents up for something like netflix and expect them to manage it themselves. this would be a fatal error.

see, my sister and i had this brilliant idea to sign my folks up on netflix for father's day last year. we'd foot the bill for six months and then after that they were on their own. we figured they'd be hooked by then. and they are. my dad loves not having to deal with going to the video (pronounced VEE-DEE-O for some unknown reason) store. he likes getting the handy little dvds in the mail and then sending them back, no muss, no fuss. (however, for some bizzare reason, he refuses to send back any dvds until all of them are watched so he can put them all in the mail at once. this sort of defeats the purpose of the three at a time deal, but he's pretty hard to reason with on some things. we have since switched to the one dvd at a time plan.)

well, the one caveat of the whole endeavor was that i had to be in charge of adding movies to their queue so they'd have a constant supply because, as i mentioned, they cannot be trusted on the internet.

well, today i was awakened with a frantic phone call from my mom telling me that i'd fallen down on my job because dad had gotten an email that there were no more movies in the queue (qway as he pronounced it. did i mention that my father has a doctorate in education? but he is from mississippi.). anyhow, he gets on the phone and tells me he's tried to go on the internet (NO!) but he can't get on the netflix site with his password because they want him to have one with more than four letters. makes no sense because his password only has four letters so i instruct him how to get to the netflix site. (takes about five minutes) then get him to the member sign in area (another five minutes). finally we get to the point where he can browse movies.

oh, by the way, i have to add that he wanted to know if he could print out a list of the thousands of movies netflix offers. i said, uh, no. why do you want to? he says so he can take it to my mom and read it to her and they can decide what they want to see. i say, wouldn't it just be easier to have mom in the room when you are on netflix deciding what you want to watch? he says, yeah, well, sometimes she's taking a nap when i want to do this. i say, i guess you need to schedule a time when she's available.

well anyhow, we get to browsing the netflix top 100 and i'm telling my dad if he wants to add a movie to his queue, he needs to click the little "add" icon. well he does it and it takes him to another screen where they're trying to push other movies because this is how netflix operates. he freaks out. but then figures out how to get back to the list. adds another movie, gets sent to the other movie promo page again, and, yep, freaks out again. he repeats this process about five times before he's ready to blow a gasket. he says, excuse me while i cuss. but he doesn't actually cuss. which i thought was kind of funny.

anyhow, i asked if he wanted me to pick the movies for him, and he said he'd appreciate it if i would. so now i'm stuck picking movies again. i ought to tell my sister it's her turn, but she'd play the baby card on me and tell me she doesn't have time.

it's really kind of difficult to pick out movies for your parents. at least it is for my parents. i'm thinking, no, that one has a lot of sex, they shouldn't see that. or that one is about drugs, they shouldn't watch it. it's like i'm trying to censor what they watch. but really, it boils down to the fact that these movies are selected by me, and and i don't want them watching certain scenes knowing that i've seen them and endorsed them.

so i have a really hard time selecting movies. i mean, i'm not going to send them 9 1/2 weeks no matter how great i thought it was. but i am running out of films along the lines of good will hunting.

i welcome any suggestions.