Almost exactly one year ago, on April 8th, 2008, I wrote in my column:

In the car on the way to see The Ruins, my friend and I were talking about trash. "I watched two movies today," he said, "Blues Brothers 2000 and that Coast Guard movie with Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher." He sighed. "I checked The Painted Veil out from Netflix, but after the first 10 minutes I just... couldn't."

I confessed that last week I sent Dr. Strangelove back to the 'Flix, unwatched, after it had gathered dust on top of my TV for three months. Within that three-month period, I managed to make time for Herbie: Fully Loaded, High School Musicals 1 and 2, the seminal Charlie Sheen rom-com Good Advice (heard of it? LIAR), many reruns of Law & Order in which I already knew that the piano teacher or the venture capitalist or the Martha Plimpton dun it, and a marathon of Escape to Chimp Eden.

A couple of days ago, Chinatown arrived in the mail. It sat on top of my dusty TV while I drove toward The Ruins.

That is a picture of two Netflix envelopes, taken today, April 13, 2009. One of them contains Chinatown.

THIS MEANS THAT CHINATOWN HAS BEEN SITTING ON TOP OF MY TELEVISION FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR.

Goodbye, money! It was nice having you! Please enjoy your new home, THE GARBAGE. Jesus Christ.