Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

As more and more families find themselves with sizable HD tv’s occupying their living rooms, the format wars for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD seem to actually be taking off at long last. After a long stagnation on store shelves, including a period in which it looked like major chains were actually going to phase them out in favor of more DVD space, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are starting to move units. This despite a generally lousy selection of titles (really? Ultraviolet in hi-def? Why?) punctuated by a handful of truly stellar releases (Dr. Strangelove in HD? More, please!).

Would you believe that it was all the way back in January of this year (you know, the one about to end in my own time zone) that I linked to Variety’s report on a third alternative that had, at the time, only found support in Bollywood? I wonder whatever happened to that format…

The answer, apparently, is that it actually got released.

HD VMD is still flying under the radar, amazingly enough. But the players are out, and so are movies. And not just Bollywood, either. I was amazed to find in the HD VMD catalog such titles as El Cid, Alexander, Bridge to Terabithia, and Lord of War, to name just a few. Where, I wondered, did this come from? And what business do they have selling them in bundles with five movies (that you’ve probably never heard of) for a suggested price of $250 when the lowest-priced Blu-Ray/HD-DVD player I could find at Best Buy had an MSRP of $299.99 with no movies included?

Is HD VMD a viable alternative? Well, the technology is there and the price is right – but the movie support still needs work. While the catalog features titles from very strong players, it’s still pretty sparse – and I still haven’t seen them populating Best Buy shelves. For the moment, though, I’m tempted to keep watching…

Over at Thudfactor, Thud is blogging about some customer satisfaction issues. He’s not renewing Xbox live after his free trial is over – and for good reason. He’s not happy with corporate practices that result from executives being paid in spite of their job performance rather than having to, y’know, actually succeed or anything.

And he’s also not happy with Air America Radio.

Maddow’s show is still informative. She is very smart, and she is still concerned about very important issues — like our failing national infrastructure — that most news outlets (or blogs) ignore. But Kent Jones was the comic relief that made the show fun and funny. It’s not fun and funny any more.

Air America has not, as near as I can tell, responded in any way to Kent Jones’ fans. They certainly didn’t respond to me when I wrote and complained — politely. I will miss the Rachel Maddow Show but I think I will be canceling my Air America Premium subscription. There just isn’t anything worth the money any more. And I think the management at Air America resents their (erstwhile) fans. We don’t like to listen to what they think we should like.

Recently, I decided to cancel my subscription to Air America Premium, as well – for pretty much the same reasons. Al Franken no longer broadcasts there (not strictly their fault – he left to run for public office, after all), nor does Chuck D. Every show I came to like in the early days of Air America has pretty much closed up shop. Garafalo’s show never really came of age, but I enjoyed it – and it’s gone. As is the Morning Sedition.

In fact, the one show that I still listen to on Air America is The Young Turks, which still manages to be good even after the departure of Ben Mankiewicz. My brother doesn’t care much for their show, but it’s remained the one point on the Air America dial that kept me coming back.

Which is why, after a year of schedule shake-ups from the management at Air America, I decided I didn’t need their premium podcast plan any more – particularly not the Gold package that gave me access to all of the programming I didn’t really want. Sorry, but I’ve just never been able to get into Randi Rhodes. I just couldn’t justify the expense to subscribe to a package that might decide to take away the one show I liked midway through my subscription.

Instead, I decided to turn around and give my subscription money directly to The Young Turks. By subscribing to their website, I get access to both video and audio of each of their shows, including an audio podcast that comes directly from the show instead of being Air America’s copy (Air America, by the way, has been notorious for lousy quality in their audio archives). In addition, my subscription goes to help finance the show, bringing it one step closer to complete independence. The Young Turks has set the ambitious goal of being completely independent, funded by its subscribers instead of being beholden to the whims of sponsors or flighty networks.

I love progressive radio, and I still love the movement that Air America represented in talk – but the execution still needs some works. In the meantime, I’m tuning my iPod into the Turks.

Edited to note: On the plus side, Air America makes leaving incredibly easy. All it took was a couple of link clicks and I was informed that once my current subscription commitment expires (January 8), my subscription will not renew. At least they got something right.

I’ve slowly become addicted to Wowio. The three free PDFs a day is a nice thing already, but when you add to it the fact that their catalog features some hard-to-find material and some ridiculously expensive books all as free downloads, it’s a very difficult website to ignore.

And if you do a bit of searching, you’ll find things you’ve heard about, but never picked up. Like, say, Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, by Winsor McCay. I hear McCay’s work cited all the time, but I’ve never really stopped to pick it up. Today I logged in to Wowio to discover Rarebit, along with three more volumes of work by the influential cartoonist.

I’m currently talking with Wowio about distributing some of my work as well as It Came From Airport Security. We’ll see how well that goes. But when you’re looking for a cheap read, it’s hard to beat free.

Okay – before anybody answers “throw it out the window,” “prop open your door with it,” or “hold down papers,” just consider it for a second. Maybe you were one of the people who spent the money and actually got one before they went out of stock. Maybe you put it on your wish list and, wonder of wonders, someone actually bought it for you.

The point is, if you have a Kindle then you need content to fill it.

Might I recommend the anthology recently edited by Thirdlayer, Bristolcountry, Thud, and me?

It Came From Airport Security is now available for your Kindle at a bargain price.

The writer’s strike has resulted in a plethora of fantastic internet videos – for which the networks that hired these writers and then tried to screw them out of new media revenues are getting nothing. Discuss.