Why do we have Netflix?

(This will not be a post bitching about Netflix pricing. I maintain that if the leap from $12 a month to $18 a month hurts your finances that much... then you, my friend, have bigger financial problems than your DVD/DVD+streaming/streaming subscription(s).)

No, instead, we have it so that I can start watching the old TV show thirtysomething! I remember my parents always watched it, and I thought, heck, I'm 30 now. Let's see what it was about in the 80s instead of in the 20teens. Two episodes in, I notice:

• the clothes are amazing;
• Timothy Busfield is shockingly less handsome as a young man than as an older man;
• sound mixing has evolved leaps and bounds;
• the conversations are more realistic, and about more universal subjects, than on any sitcom I've taken in in a long while. Hmm.
  

Good Thing Friday: Past and Future.

Since I missed last week, we get two today! The future Good Thing, I am dearly hoping, is tonight's dinner in California (where I am).

http://www.dintaifungusa.com/

I will report back and take pictures if needed. But a whole restaurant of dumplings and steam buns is basically heaven to me - and my hosts here in CA have been to one of the original locations of this place in Beijing, as well as this lone USA location, and say it's fantastic.

The Good Thing from the (uh, my) past this week is television. Oh, ho, ho, wait, what? Television!? Yup. I realized this week that I barely have time for all the work, cooking, socializing, DVDs and stuff in my life... and I think as I enter Year 4 without any kind of cable or broadcast television at home, I realize I have fully adjusted to the change.

So why is it, then, the Good Thing? Because now it has shifted into becoming dessert! It's maraschino cherries, it's a slice of cake swimming in spoonfuls of heavy cream, it's warm brownies at 10 PM. I can now gleefully watch it without fearing getting too attached, I can enjoy it on vacation or when traveling, and it's a Good Thing to space out to sometimes. All things in moderation, I know I know, and so I'm letting this week end with a little mental dessert. Hello, Oprah!