the corner office

So a couple of weeks back the old PS2 packed up. This is not the kind of thing that makes a 5 year old happy. We could've said 'y'know, son, there's a valuable lesson to be learned in this, why when we were your age etc etc, and we're going to make do without computer games for a while, let's see how Christmas goes if you eat EVERY DAMNED SPRIG OF BROCCOLI BETWEEN NOW AND THEN', or, 'maybe it's about time we introduced you to the Secret Seven, young man', but instead we decided to buy a PS3.

I'm pretty annoyed that our collection of PS2 games are now USELESS. USELESS. But the PS3 is pretty cool. Partly because the processing power is such that now the racing games all have 15 opponents and not 4 like 10 years ago, and partly because the controllers have motion sensors which is just like pure bloody magic right there in your hands, but mostly because the thing is connected to the Internet and you have demos and TV and movies and my golly, human ingenuity is just something else.

So this evening Ronwen and I are doing the usual 'so what are we watching' (cause she's not interested in watching The Day of the Jackal with me and I'm not interested in watching whatever foofy stuff she has on the shelf), and we talk in circles for a bit then maybe one of us pops out to hire a DVD that is agreeable to us both. But tonight we says 'hey you know, we have a LoveFilm account now (freebie 3 weeks don't forget to cancel if you change your mind!)', and in addition to the stuff that's just arrived in the post because, well, LoveFilm just sends you stuff that gets there a day later, but it turns out we can also watch streaming movies online.

Now, I'm a South African who spent a decade putting up with Telkom. I don't trust download speeds and I still feel like I need to be worrying about that 3GB cap before the whole thing gets shut down till month-end. Sure, after 5 years of UK interwebs I'm getting over it, but watch full-blown movies on the Internet, not just a low-res Youtube clip?

Well, one The Dark Knight later and I am just blown away. Not only because we watched two and a half hours of movie without so much as one pausey-loading thing, but also because after that was done, I went digging around on LoveFilm to see what else they had. What obscure movie that I remember fondly from a long time ago could I think of? How about How to Murder Your Wife? Hey ho, there it was! I'm pretty disappointed that Benson's not available, but hey, you can't have everything. Still.

My poor long-suffering wife has no idea what she's in for. And I suspect we'll be renewing the LoveFilm subscription when the freebie period runs out.