Netflix is running a promotion, now through May 16th, where you can try their service out for free for a month. Their usual trial period (the one that got me hooked) is two weeks. But you, dear wheatblog readers, by nature of being close, personal friends, are entitled to better. So, if you’re interested, it’s wheat at wheatdesign dot com.
This isn’t a scam or an affiliate program of some sort (they do have an affiliate program, but I just found out about it and am not enrolled in it). It is one of those, “if you don’t cancel, we start charging you” sorts of things. But Netflix lets you cancel any time; there’s not any sort of enforced membership period. And, seriously, Netflix is crack for movie buffs. If you sign up, you won’t want to quick–not now, not ever. You’ve been warned.
Netflix has a new feature I haven’t tried yet whereby you can watch movies instantly on your computer. You have to download some player and, as far as I know, it only runs on Windows. But you can rent quite a few (one hour’s worth for every dollar per month you spend on your plan) and they don’t count against your account or your queue. I suspect they rolled that out to compete with Blockbuster (a place I haven’t visited since I signed up for Netflix). I don’t know for sure that the “watch now” feature is included with the free trial, but I assume it is.