Beauty is Imperfection

Are you a Netflix subscriber? Do you have a Roku box? If so, you can now watch “The Retributioners” on your very own TV! Our preferred Web video channel, Blip.TV, has signed deals to share their content with several sites and subscription services, including YouTube, TiVo, Vimeo and iTunes. But our personal favorite is the tiny, efficient, extra-affordable Roku box, which you can check out here. This device, of course, allows you to pluck many Netflix movies off the Internet and throw them into your TV–all for free if you have a subscription. What movies the company doesn’t have online you can likely still get through an Amazon link for just a few bucks extra.

I am not saying all this because I am some shill for Roku or just because I want you to watch “The Retributions” again (Anyone up for another round of “Drunk Dial Party”?). No, I’m also a huge fan of this little box because it has completely changed my TV viewing habits, allowed me to waste less time and money on bad television and, most important, allowed me to call my cable company and demand again that they lower my rate or else I’ll get rid of them. Because, as Pliny the Elder once asked, why do I have to take their shit?

One of my favorite Roku discoveries lately is that I can now watch any DVD from the first five years of Saturday Night Live for FREE with my Netflix account and my tiny, compact, sleek, inexpensive and elegant little Roku box. That’s EVERYTHING! Even the stuff they never show in reruns–like Milton Berle singing “September Song,” and Louise Lasser apparently walking off in the middle of her monologue because she was having a nervous breakdown. Everyone remembers that Belushi did the Samurai, but nobody remembers that he also did FDR and Truman Capote. Nobody remembers the sketch where Ralph Nader tested sex dolls. But I have seen it and I still don’t believe he did it.

So, without an endorsement money from Roku, I must recommend this box. It was a steal when I bought it at $100, and now it seems to have dropped in price again. This is the future! If we all get extra picky about what we watch, maybe the regular networks will remove the Kardashians. Come on! We’re adults. We don’t have to take this abuse!