My Christmas Movie Snow Day

Yesterday Jeff signed up for the free netflix trial (we already have Blockbuster online) to try out the whole “watch it now on your xbox” thing. It’s interesting. Most of the newer movies aren’t available that way, but he’s found a ton of anime and other movies that he will like, and I even managed to find a few to add. Today I ended up having half a snow day so my afternoon was spent watching some of the Christmas movies I added, and dozing off while watching them. I watched The Christmas that Almost Didn’t Happen (with Rudolph’s unappreciated brother Rusty), A Christmas Too Many (it’s very…. odd), and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it before… but it’s good). I recommend the last one above the others, it’s got the best story. And of course, our favorite characters. And I just realized that I confused Kevin Pollak with Gary Sinise somehow… dressed up as Cupid they would apparently look more alike. Or at least that’s the story I’m sticking to.

One problem with the netflix via xbox situation is the internet connection. Every so often it would pause the movie and tell me that my connection slowed so it was re-something-ing so that there wouldn’t be any more interruptions. Then the movie would pick back up and the quality was noticeably less… and it seemed to do that every 10 minutes or so this afternoon. To the point that by the end of the movie about Rusty the Reindeer, the picture was a very small square (though not miniscule) in the center of the screen. Like… about a 6″ black screen border all the way around the movie on our 36″ tv… so it was still large enough to watch, but annoying nonetheless.