There was only ONE benefit to the filler for me.

I know many of you watched week by week by week, and for me that would have been torture. Fortunately, right when ep 78 came out, I went back to dial-up! Ooh I was upset I couldn't see the Third's funeral.

By the time I got a high-speed connection back, episode 215 just came out so I really had some catching up to do. When I finished the Sasuke chase arc, I thought "man this show can't get any better than this." Ooh I hate it when I'm right.

But, having all that filler to watch, I decided to look up which episodes were in each filler arc and segmented it that way. So, instead of trudging through it all, it was really like watching a dozen Naruto movies, and that was kinda neat because I had something to watch every night after work.

Still, the rasengan ramen almost had me shut it off... almost.