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[cjsmith]

What do you get as a birthday gift for someone who not only has everything but is overwhelmed with trying to find a place to put it?

I can't afford real estate. Nice idea though.

And oh yeah, I have two hours.

Comments

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

If he does DVDs, would netflix appeal to him?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I don't know. How does netflix work?

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

Basically, there's a monthly subscription which allows
you to have N (typically, N=3) DVDs checked out at any
time. They're managed through an internet queue. E.g.,
I go to the netflix web site, enter 20 or so movies
I want to see, and they send the first three (in order)
to me. If I watch one and send it back, they send me
the next one. I can reorg the list whenever I want.
In some cases they'll send the 2nd one on the list if
the first one is in short supply, but usually there's
not much trouble in that regard. You end up getting
to see a lot of DVDs, but you never collect a bunch.
The DVDs arrive in mailers, inside of which are the
appropriate return envelopes. It's very low-stress and
easy for me, I end up watching a lot of DVDs that way.

I personally love it, I don't have to maintain a bunch
of DVDs that I only want to see once, and I don't have
to drive to the store to rent them. There's a flat
per month fee--no late fees because I always have
3 checked out. I think it's roughly $30/month for
N=3, though.

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

(If the comment about no late fees didn't make sense,
I can explain more, I was just trying to justify why
Netflix doesn't care whether you hold a CD for a long
time or turn them back in at a high rate.)

Their ship point is San Jose, so the mail is pretty
fast 'round these parts.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, that sounds pretty cool. So a person can buy a "subscription" for someone else? Wonder what happens if you let the per month fee lapse and you still have 3 DVDs... Time to go poking around on the web!

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that they have an official process for gifts,
which could be an issue. The netflix web site is pretty
good, I hope this isn't a wild goose chase for you, I'm just
casting around thinking of ideas, and I had two DVDs in
my incoming mail. :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

OK, one more Netflix question. You can buy a gift certificate if you want, but only people who do not already have Netflix accounts can redeem gift certificates. I'm PRETTY sure he diesn't already have an account, but can I ask Netflix to be certain?

(Maybe that would violate their privacy policy - wouldn't be surprised - but I don't want to goof up, either.)

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

Try to log in with his email address, if he has only one.
Amazingly, the login screen from my testing appears to
distinguish "we don't know that email" from "you gave
us the wrong password". Bwaha!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Good idea! I tried both addresses I know about and they both "didn't match any address in the database". Cool. I'm sufficiently confident that he doesn't have any other e-mail addresses that I could go ahead with this one.