I haven’t used my Wii in a little while, so when I popped in the disc, I had to wait through 2 consecutive software updates to use the disc.

Now that’s done, and I see the Netflix icon in the top left of the home screen.

Clicking on the icon, I can choose to Start or to go back to the Wii menu.

I have to activate my Wii so I can stream from Netflix. I do this by taking a code from the screen

and going to http://www.netflix.com/Wii and entering the code.

I do this, and now I’m told: “Your Netflix ready device is being activated. This may take up to 3 minutes. Once activation is complete you may add movies and TV episodes to your instant Queue and watch on your TV via your Netflix ready device. If you encounter any problems with activation, request a new activation code from your Netflix ready device, come back here, and try again”

In the time it took to write that paragraph, I’m ready. Much quicker than 3 minutes.

My TV screen now shows my Instant Queue in a Cover Flow-like interface. Kind of reminds me of boxee.

I can browse my instant queue by genre or I can flip through the DVD images on the horizontal scroll bar.

Clicking on an image takes me to details about the movie, again, looks a lot like boxee. From here I can play the movie or remove it from my queue. I can also rate the movie from here or go back to the prior screen.

Clicking Play goes online to retrieve the movie. I have cable internet and it took about 8 seconds to grab. The picture quality is amazing and it plays seamlessly. Can’t even tell it’s not on a disc in the DVD player or on TV. Awesome. I’m going to really enjoy this.

Update:

Accidental discovery: If you click the ‘trigger’ button on the Wii-mote, you can pause the show, then either resume, play from the beginning or remove from the queue.

From their website:

Hulu’s ambitious and never-ending mission is to help you find and enjoy the world’s premium content when, where and how you want it. We hope to provide you with the web’s most comprehensive selection of premium programming across all genres and formats – television shows, feature films, clips, and more. Additionally, we want to give you more choices of when and where you can enjoy your favorite programming, while creating innovative experiences that let you watch and participate in online video in new and exciting ways.

I was just happy I got to watch House – Frozen since the Super Bowl snarfed up my DVR recording.

No glitches, reasonably large sized viewing screen, manageable 30 second commercial breaks and lots of opportunity for feedback. So far, only 2 of the majors are on board–FOX and NBC–but I suppose others will follow suite. Looks good to me. Hey, any chance to catch a show I enjoy(ed), is okay by me.

I’ve got a couple invitations if anyone’s interested. Leave me a comment.

Try out some down-home voyeurism yerself. CMT airs My Big Redneck Wedding Friday at 9PM. Check your local listings.

Check out the wedding photo album. | Boobed and Bottle-rocketed video.

I learned more about Congress and bills and laws from that song than any class could ever have taught me. Schoolhouse Rock was what kids from my generation got to see in between cartoons on Saturday morning (yes, that was the only day they were on) instead of commercials. Now that was responsible programming!

It was fun to stumble upon this post, Where Are They Now – The Schoolhouse Rock Singers and learn more about the people behind the project. Via Neatorama.

For old times sake: Download audio file (Schoolhouse+Rock+-+I*27m+Just+a+Bill.mp3)