The Americans have Netflix for mail-order DVD rentals, as well as now Blockbuster and Walmart, I think.

The Canadians are a bit slower on this game. Probably due to less population, I'm guessing? Not sure exactly why but this great idea hasn't really caught on too well.

We have a couple of choices. Movies For Me and VHQ Rentals as far as I know. Both are about the same. $25 a month, unlimited rentals. 4 or 5 out at a time.

Just around the New Year, I decided to give Movies For Me a test run. They offer a 2 week trial, but if you pay for 6 months in advance you get a 5% discount. Sounded like a decent deal to me. I'm always out at Blockbuster and I'm always late. I tend to rent movies, make copies of them (yeah, shame on me!) and watch 'em later.

They suggest you pick at least 20 movies in your queue and can chose up to 200. So, happily, I filled up the list to 45. They offer a handy little priority sequence too, so you can choose what order you would like. Sounds like a dream? Yeah, not so much.

So far, my first 4 movies were sent out on January 4. They were numbered 28-32 in my list of priorities. Ok, fine, I thought. It's the holidays, I'm sure a lot of movies are out. It'll work out better the next time.

Then I waited. And waited some more. My first 4 movies didn't even ARRIVE at my door until January 13. I realize it's busy in the mail, but 9 days? I quickly turned them around that night and had them in the mail on the 14th.

According to their website, they received 3 of the 4 on January 19. Another week? So much for my two-week trial! It's done before we even got going!

In the meantime, I've already been back to Blockbuster twice for other movies, updated my queue on Movies For Me twice to take off the ones I already picked up, so I'm certainly not saving anything by doing it this way. If not, my expenses have probably doubled.

Just looking at the site now, the next batch has now been sent today. Guess what numbers this time? Numbers 14, 15, 17 and 32. The best part? I ordered the Shogun miniseries. It looks like they've sent me Disk 3 and 4. Yeah, didn't really want to start it at the beginning or anything.

Not very impressed at this point. I thought this was supposed to make things easier but can't say I'd recommend it!