First of all, I wanted to say thank you for the great response to my post yesterday! I thought that might resonate with a lot of people, and it certainly did. Just remember to believe in yourself and appreciate who you are and where you are right now, instead of holding off things because you’re afraid of failing or not being accepted.
Speaking of going after goals, does anyone know what today is?
It’s the day registration to the Chicago Marathon opens! If you’re looking for a marathon to run this fall, I HIGHLY suggest running the Chicago Marathon! It was incredibly well organized and they’ve changed the start times, so any complaints you may have heard about the “open corral” are no longer an issue.
Not only is it put on well (as is the expo!) but the course itself is great – you get to run through all the neighborhoods of Chicago, so the change of scenery keeps you entertained. Not to mention the crowds! I only remember one small bit of the course that wasn’t lined with spectators cheering you on. The energy and excitement of running such a big race really kept me motivated and was the perfect choice for my first marathon.
If you want to run Chicago and don’t want to run for a charity, sign up TODAY! It may sell out very quickly! You can see my race recap here for a more detailed explanation of my experience.
So today I have kind of a random post topic for you all.
Ever since I left for college I decided I didn’t want a television set while I’m in school. Don’t get me wrong, I love TV. LOVE. Which is exactly why I chose not to have one, I know myself and know that I’d just watch any random show that was on and avoid getting anything else done.
However, I do still want to watch some TV, especially keeping up with some of my favorite shows like Glee, Biggest Loser, Modern Family, and many more…
First I got Netflix, then I also got Hulu Plus this past Fall so I could watch all of Season 2 of Downton Abbey. Here are my reviews of each!
(Watching Parenthood on Netflix)
Netflix
Cost: $7.99/month
Ease of Use: Very easy. You can search for the show you want to watch, and the most recent show/movie that you watched is always on the top of the front page when you return, and the 3 most recent under the “Instant Queue” tab. Also, the “Instant Queue” tab is where you can find all the movies and shows that you selected to be watched later so you don’t forget about them.
They also organize your main page in sections, such as New Releases and others based on things you’ve watched, like “Since you watched Dawson’s Creek…” haha.
Another great feature? They allow you to rate every show or movie you’ve watched, and they keep a list of everything you’ve seen so you can find and watch old favorites again easily.
Selection: Medium. The selection has gotten better and better over time but obviously they don’t have everything. It’s also older seasons of shows, it usually takes at least a few months after a season has ended for it to show up on Hulu. They do update their new movies every month or so and I’m usually surprised to see some of them on their.
My Recommendation: If you don’t have a television (and even if you do!) I highly recommend Netflix. It’s a great source of old TV shows and tons of movies and I use it all the time. I’ve never gotten bored with it or unable to find something I wanted to watch.
HULU+
Cost: $7.99/month
Ease of Use: Pretty simple, it’s just like regular Hulu, except one great feature is that they save all the shows you watch in one place and let you know whenever there’s a new episode so you don’t have to go searching for it. Otherwise it’s just like regular Hulu.
Selection: Not as great as I expected. When I signed up for Hulu+ I was expecting to be able to watch old seasons of all the shows that they have, however I was surprised that they were so limited in what they were licensed to show. I searched several TV shows that I wanted to watch and none had old seasons available. Hulu itself has a GREAT selection of new TV shows – but that’s free! If there’s something specific on Hulu+ that you want to watch, I recommend doing their free trial month and then cancelling unless you really like it.
My Recommendation: Not necessary. It’s good if you have an iPad, because you can only watch Hulu on your iPhone or iPad if you have Hulu+. Also, it’s convenient for some shows (such as when I wanted to watch Season 2 of Downton Abbey) but other than that I haven’t found myself utilizing it at all. Not worth the $7.99 a month unless you really think you’d use it.
Edited to add: I was not contacted or compensated in any way by Netflix or Hulu Plus, this opinions are entirely my own and based on my own, private use of their services.
Do you use Netflix or Hulu?
Does anyone else not have a television or cable?
Who is singing up for Chicago?!?
THANK YOU.
this misfit never quite understood HULU.
Haha glad I could help!
we have hulu and Netflix here! It is seriously the best option ever. Especially because I work at night and don’t have DVR so I can catch up on tv shows and I love watching movies that is where Netflix comes in!
In a dream world I’d have a TV with a DVR!!! Haha then I’d watch waaaaay too much TV…
We have cable AND Netflix… and we use Redbox for newer releases when we want to see a movie!
I wish I had a Redbox within walking distance but weirdly there isn’t one anywhere near me!
I’m not a Netflix or Hulu user… I don’t watch a ton of tv… My hubs on the other hand? Couldn’t live without cable because of the sports factor!
Haha my brother bought every ESPN and sports channel available on their cable!
Great to know about the differences between Hulu Plus and Netflix. I love Netflix, but I always assumed that Hulu Plus had a better selection of tv shows. Sounds like we will be sticking to Netflix! 🙂
And we have antenna back at home, which just offers local channels so not much. At school I don’t have a tv, just my laptop.
Hulu itself has a great selection of shows, but it’s free! I haven’t found much of a need to pay for Hulu+
I wasn’t planning on running Chicago this year, but hearing everyone talking about it has me tempted. But, my wedding is about a month after Chicago and I’m worried that I’ll be too stressed out with wedding stuff to train for run a marathon at that time. I have both Netflix and Hulu Plus and I pretty much only use Hulu Plus to watch current season episodes of a few seasons. I probably don’t really need it. I didn’t have TV in grad school and just used Netflix and Hulu Plus and it worked really well for me.
well if it helps, the last couple weeks of training are pretty low-key since you’re tapering!
I ran chicago as my first in 2011, and again in 2012. Love it!! Would sign up in a heartbeat if I didn’t have other things going on this year.
I would too if I knew where I’d be living come October!
We have a TV, but don’t have any channels… We don’t have cable, and an antennae doesn’t work well where we live. We just have Netflix and it works for us! It encourages us to not watch mindless TV which I like. Maybe someday we’ll go with cable, but we’re OK without it right now!
I agree – I’d watch too much mindless TV!
I had Hulu+ for a bit, but it just didn’t seem worth it. I do love my Netflix though. It makes me verrrrry unproductive in my schoolwork ;).
Haha me too, especially when I get really into a series!
I have Netflix. I like it for what it is, but the Canadian version has WAY less selection than the American one.
Oh I didn’t even know there was a separate Canadian version!
I use the free version of hulu, I don’t have a ton of time to watch tv so it is enough for me. Love the picture of you and Molly!
Hahahaha when you said that “you and Molly” my first thought was I didn’t put a picture of me and Molly the dog on my post! Too confusing.
I do have a television, but no cable for me. We just have an antenna and converter box, so I watch all my TV for free. I’m not enough of a television watched to justify paying for Netflix or Hulu+ when I can watch the few shows I care about without paying to watch them (also, I’m far too busy dropping every single penny I have to my name on races to afford cable hahaha). I will admit that my lack of ESPN drives me crazy during college football season, though. I also, for some reason I’ll never understand, can’t pick up ABC on my antenna (but I can get NBC from South Bend? Illogical), so that put a pretty gigantic damper on my football watching this past fall. Boo.
Aww that’s too bad about football, but even with the channels you still don’t get all the games. We can never get the Chiefs games here, even though my brother bought every sports channel he could!
We have Netflix but not Hulu+. We may sign up for the free month to watch the last season of Fringe but otherwise Netflix fulfills all of our movie/tv-show watching needs.
I signed up for Chicago– woohoo!
Yay! Let’s just hope the weather is cold this year!
Netflix user here! We have both the Instant and the disc options. We use the discs for movies and Instant for tv shows. I didn’t watch a lot of tv in high school or college so I don’t mind that Netflix has the older seasons and older tv shows. I didn’t see them the first time around! Plus, I prefer watching an entire season all at once so I don’t mind waiting for Netflix to get the episodes.
My mom has only the disc version, but she watches like one movie a month! Haha I need to explain Redbox to her…
I’m in Canada and have Netflix. I love to watch it on my iPad in bed at night. However as any Canadian will tell you, our selection sucks (to put it mildly) compared to yours. I’ve still found plenty to watch, but when I hear what Americans are watching I get annoyed. It’s quite common for Canadians to use false ip addresses and other stuff to unblock it. And I live alone and am not in school so I love my high def cable and PVR (with expander because I PVR so much). I couldn’t live without it and my tv is always on even when I’m doing other things. I’m a tv junkie and not ashamed haha:)
Someone else said that too, I had no idea Canada had a different selection on Netflix! How annoying…
We gave up cable (and the high bill!) when we moved into our house last month, and haven’t looked back! We use Netflix and Hulu, and watch a lot of DVDs 🙂
I agree – it’s so expensive and just not necessary!
We use netflix & it is fun to have! I watched tons of episodes of Once Upon a Time through that! 🙂
I use hulu now to watch current Once episodes & biggest loser episodes 🙂
I’m catching up with Once Upon a Time right now!
chicago sounds quit a bit like the twin cities marathon. i ran that one last fall as my first. but chicago isn’t that far away so that one may be in my future:)
as for tv. we have the channels that anyone can get for free. news, pbs, nbc, cbs, wb, etc. but we NEVER use that. we have netflix and it pretty much meets all our needs.
if we want something they don’t offer we either go to redbox (LOVE) or blockbuster for $1. i am finding i spend way more time on line than with tv anyway. i may need to keep that in check:)
I wish there was a Redbox closer to me! Which I think is weird since I live in downtown chicago… haha
We have Netflix and Amazon Prime. Never really been a huge fan of Hulu, but maybe I didn’t give it a fair chance? Chicago Marathon sounds like a great one! That was one thing I really appreciated about the Seattle Marathon – all the people on the sidelines cheering you on helps soooo much!
Oooo yes, I forgot about Amazon prime! I have that but only use it to watch movies every once in a while. Hulu itself is great for current TV shows because it’s free, but Hulu+, the paid service, doesn’t seem to have enough attributes above that of regular Hulu to be worth the subscription fee.
I have all three (including cable), and it’s bad. TV is just so easy to put on at the end of the day when I don’t want to think…I try to read right before bed too which makes me feel slightly better, but tv has definitely become my jam recently…the only reason I have Hulu though is because it shows the latest episodes of all my favorite shows, which I can never stay up to watch…I don’t have a DVR so Hulu acts like that for me…when Joe comes home next month, however, we’re getting one so I’ll be saying goodbye to Hulu and just sticking with Netflix 🙂
Haha that would be me if I had cable, even without cable I’m watching TV all night!
Some times I think we don’t need regular TV as we tend to watch Netflix or shows on our Sky + (like TVO I think). In fact I’d quite happily get rid of the TV!
I agree – I think other than being able to watch the news it just entices us to mindlessly watch TV and not do anything productive
Netflix. – love love love
we use netflix all the time, the best!
I love it too!
I have cable. We’ve considered getting rid of it, but I enjoy watching it when I get “alone time,” and I like that it kind of helps me escape reality. I seriously wasn’t sure how Netflix or Hulu worked (apparently I’m living in the dark ages), so thank you for the info. :).
Haha I love cable too, I often find myself filling free time at home in Kansas City with the TV…
I’m addicted to tv, and the cable at my apartment is included, but I canceled my Netflix streaming in favor of discs. My faves, NCIS, CSI, aren’t on streaming so I rent discs and watch them on my tiny tv. It’s also exciting to get mail. I have Hulu plus but am considering canceling it. I might get it again when I catch upon Greys Anatomy, but again, I can always get the discs.
That makes sense if Netflix doesn’t have what you want on streaming, haha and I LOVE getting mail.
This was a great idea for a post! My hubby and I have been vacillating on the whole Netflix thing and weren’t really sure weather to get it or not. Thanks for the help!
I’m glad I could help!
I don’t have cable. I can watch lots of the cable shows on-line and I record broadcast tv shows and movies on my computer.
The internet has really made Cable TV unnecessary!
Thanks for the Netflix review! I’ve been considering getting it for a while now since I don’t have cable either, but I’m still kind of on the fence because even back in the day when I had cable, I hardly sat down to watch TV… I just find that any time I have a spare moment, I end up on the computer or reading instead.
If you don’t normally watch TV it might not be worth your money, but you can always subscribe for a month, see if you use it, and then cancel if you don’t. There’s no long-term contract.
AWWWW man that picture makes me so happy 🙂 i am still in awe that we managed to find each other after that craziness. i’m super jealous of all the people i’ve seen registered for it…though frankly i’m jealous of anyone running at all right now. and i love the reviews – netflix is my favorite but i could never go without cable. i’m so addicted to the food network, lol.
Haha I KNOW! I love that we found each other!
My husband and I have never had cable, we just have Netflix and Hulu and love it! It’s cheap and there’s lots of great shows!
I agree – no need for expensive cable with the internet options!
I use Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, and Netflix to watch tv online. I actually really like Hulu Plus. I love the Queue and how it has the most up to date television shows so the $8 is worth it. The only thing I don’t like is the commercials, they are shorter than if I was watching the show live, but since you have to pay for Hulu Plus, no commercials or less would be nice. It is the one I use the most though.
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