That's because Netflix and Disney recently signed a deal to stream the first five seasons of Lost, seasons four and five of Desperate Housewives, season five of Grey's Anatomy and seasons one and two of The Legend of the Seeker through Netflix Instant Watch service.

The agreement extends Netflix's relationship with Disney-ABC, which inked their first digital licensing deal last September.

"We're excited about this new agreement since it builds on a strong foundation with Disney-ABC Television Group," said Robert Kyncl, vice president of content acquisition for Netflix, in a prepared statement. "In all, we're providing Netflix members with some of the most popular and avidly followed shows on TV while working with an important business partner to help grow several of its key franchises."

Taking You Places You Never Imagined Sweepstakes [Xbox.com]
[via Major Nelson]

ABC's Hit Reality Show 'Wife Swap" Seeks Gamers for Season 4 [Gamertag Radio]

ABC's Jonathan Silverstein (who promises he'll be popping by our party in Brooklyn tomorrow) has an interesting piece up about the game industries metamorphosis. No, not into a giant talking cockroach, but from Geek to Chic.

It's hardly news anymore that the average video game player is over 30, that millions of women across the globe are gaming or that it's big business akin to the movie industry.

It's possible that gaming has become so commonplace that few have bothered to realize that it might just be ... cool.

His story, which includes quotes from a ton of gaming writers and analysts and mentions the likes of Paris Hilton and Apple, reminds me of a conversation I had with EA's Larry Probst long, long ago.

We were talking about why, at the time, the Rocky didn't yet have a fulltime gaming writer. Instead, I was writing the gaming stuff on the side as I worked fulltime as a police reporter. Part-time game writers were the norm for newspapers at the time.

Probst was pointing out that newspapers had fulltime movie critics, television critics and music critics, he even offered to fly to Denver to meet with the paper's publisher. And then he said something that really summed up gaming's inevitable rise to not just the mainstream, but mass popularity. He said that in 20 years, maybe less, the president of the United States will most likely be a gamer.

Wow. Brian Crecente

From Geek to Chic: Record Sales Signal Video Games' Arrival [ABC News]

Jake Tapper's latest piece on Nightline does an excellent job of summarizing how idiotic the Pentagon looked when they mistook a bit of machinima for a terrorist training tool and showed it to the House Intelligence Committee.

Man, I hate when that happens.

Early in the story Tapper asks incredulously: Terrorists twisting an American video game into a Jhiadist training tool? And then proceeds to lay out how the whole thing happened, including getting an anonymous interview with the European gamer who created the now infamous "terrorist Battlefield" clip.

Interestingly, the Pentagon still claims that the machinima is being used by terrorists. Tapper calls bullshit on the excuse and tells the Pentagon talking head so. He then shows the video from the briefing proving that the Pentagon is full of it.

Kotaku pal and Georgia Tech Smartie Pants Ian Bogost is quoted throughout the seven-minute piece.

"We should really be questioning the kind of advice that Congress is getting," Bogost says.

It all makes for some great video. Brian Crecente

War Games [Nightline]

ABC World News just aired a segment on Rockstar's Bully and the growing controversy surrounding video games.

They came by my house earlier today to get some tape of me talking. One quote managed to make the segment, but I thought it was a pretty reasonable one. I was able to say that I think video games are becoming the new art form for today's younger generation and that games aren't always for kids.

I'll try to get a video up of the segment in the next day or two.