My farewell to Netflix DVDs

Yes, the time has come to say so long. Cue Carol Burnett.

I made the plunge the other day. I cut back my Netflix account to streaming only. I can't justify the extra cost. Plus, I'm going to be busy getting married during the month of September.

I remember when my first batch of movies arrived in the mail back in 2005. I was recovering from surgery to remove a kidney stone. The upstairs air conditioning unit at my grandparents' house was low on Freon. My first discs were the first batch of "Upstairs Downstairs" episodes and "Eight Men Out." I can't for the life of me remember what the third disc was.

Somewhere along the way I dropped back to the one-out-at-a-time unlimited plan. I finally got the streaming option as part of that plan but I didn't use it much until earlier this year when Jennifer brought over the Wii she'd never taken out of the box. I didn't like watching movies on my laptop. I do like being able to stream them onto the TV set.

Tonight I watched what is probably my Netflix DVD swan song -- the documentary "Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and 'To Kill A Mockingbird.'" Great flick. Everybody from Tom Brokaw to Oprah Winfrey to Mary "Scout" Badham reads portions of the novel. Writers, actors, TV stars and even Harper Lee's 90-year-old sister take turns talking about the book and the film and what it all means. The director even unearthed an audio recording of the last interview Harper Lee gave, to a radio station, in 1964.

It's long been suggested that Lee isn't Scout. She's Boo Radley. And why not? If I had the cash and had produced such a fine work of art, I'd tell the world to leave me alone, too.

It also makes me wonder what's in the water down in Monroeville, Alabama. Harper Lee and Truman Capote grew up next door to one another. The guy who wrote "Crazy in Alabama" is from there, too.

It's funny. Browsing my Netflix queue, I see films I put on the list back in '05. Never got around to them. Yeah, I'll probably miss the occasional episodes of "Perry Mason." No, I don't think my life will be any poorer because I didn't make it down to "Danger Man."

I'm not happy about the price increase. But it's obvious that streaming video is the wave of the future. Netflix is pumping more money into it. They don't have to worry about the skyrocketing cost of postage. Plus, the streaming video feeds our modern desire for instant gratification.

I like old movies and documentaries. Streaming Netflix offers a plethora of both. Life goes on.

Still, I'll miss seeing those red envelopes in the mailbox. It was always nice to get something in the post besides a bill.