To borrow a riff from The Who: "Doctor, doctor, there's something wrong with me." My DVD renting is not all that it used to be.

In high school, I was my gang's A/V guy, the kid who'd take out three films a night from Blockbuster and never rack up late fees. I was the master of classics and indies, introducing the crew to The Great Escape as well as Clerks. If you named a film in general release, I'd seen it, screened it and was kind enough to rewind.

So, when Netflix jumped on the scene, I waited with baited breath for it to become completely viable. On paper (or at least on splash-banner) DVD rental-by-mail always sounded like the deal of the decade. Almost unlimited rentals for a low, low price. Almost unlimited selections in an easy-to-search database. And no more driving to the store only to find that there aren't any copies of the film you want left. Promises, promises.

I finally signed up a little more than a year ago for the two-at-a-time deal. At first, it was incredible. I burned through OZ and Wonder Showzen and The League of Gentlemen; I caught up Chan-wook Park's Vengeance Trilogy.

But after a while, I found I ended up renting less videos than if I'd driven out to the local rental shop. It wasn't so much the allegations that Netflix was stalling delivery of films to high-traffic cinephile households, but a trend in my personal film watching habits that just didn't square with the Netflix system. Weeks would go by with unwatched DVDs collecting dust on top of my DVD player.

Here are the four most common reasons for my rent-by-mail malaise:

1). Out of Sync With My Life
Perhaps the chief problem with services like Netflix is that DVD rental is inherently a spur of the moment decision. Let's say I'm sitting at home early on a Friday night after being stood up by whatever evil girl from the coffee shop and I want to wallow in I'm-a-survivor self-pity. I'll pull myself up from the couch, hop in the Accord and go rent myself some sort of hard-boiled revenge flick, say, Get Carter or Point Blank. With Netflix, you've got to predict your mood three to four days in advance. That's the paradox: if I knew I was going to be stood up, I wouldn't have gone out in the first place and hence, no need for wallowing.

And so, the DVDs just sit there while I wait to fall back into that just-right state of mind.

2. Over-ambitiousness
Once I'm browsing around the rental website, I develop lofty ambitions of refining my knowledge to a razor-sharp edge of snobbishness. I'll queue up the works of Fritz Lang, documentaries on obscure political revolutionaries, experimental art films from Eastern Europe, and all the classics that one's supposed to watch.

But then, it's a hard day's night, and after working a 10-hour day like a dog, I discover that I have neither the attention span nor the interest for anything short of brainless action. I want Live Free or Die Hard, not De Fem Benspænd (The Five Obstructions).

And so the DVDs wait indefinitely for my brain to shift back into gear.

3. Envelope Misplacement
Even when I've picked the right films, watched them and loved them, they'll often still sit there un-mailed. Why? Because I'm a bit absent minded. I'll toss those red envelopes in the trash, or lose them under my couch. Then what can you do? All I can do is wait for one to turn up, and then stuff both DVDs in one.

4. Netflix Mess-Ups
I was so excited. I thought I was going to be the only guy in the country who saw Infamous before Capote and so I'd have a completely fresh and unique perspective on the two biopics at academic dinner parties.

When Infamous arrived, it was cracked. And I sat there worrying that Netflix was going to bill me a few hundred dollars for damaging their disc and considering if I should replace it with an eBay-bought copy. In the meantime, since I really wanted to watch the film, I drove out to the video rental shop, and sure enough fell back into the in-person habit.

Something similar happened when I wanted to watch the original 1970s Battlestar Galactica. They accidentally sent me the first disc of the new series, which I'd already seen a dozen times. But since it'd already arrived, it sat there while I waited to forget enough to watch it anew.

The Remedy?
Well, it's a chronic condition, one that never really goes away. It peaks and dips; it comes and goes. If I were more organized I'd hang a calendar with specific put-in-it-the-mail reminders; I'd rearrange my queue every other day.

Really, though, there's only one way to snap out of the Netflix funk: rent some sure things. For me it was The Big Heat, the 1953 Glenn Ford noir, and The Squid and the Whale, Noah Baumbach's treatment of divorce and a child custody dispute. I can't not recommend those films.

Other than that, the only other solution is to tech-out your flat-screen, so you can watch the direct downloads on your TV.

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