Sometimes it becomes apparent to me how woefully behind the times I’m running.

It was just as the year was beginning that I wrote about Air America, and pondered aloud why I should continue to subscribe if they might delete my favorite show halfway through the year.

Then I also talked about HD disc formats and the war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD as though it would continue for a long time.

On January 14, Air America dropped The Young Turks and the show became available exclusively through their website.

And with the defection of Warner Bros. to Blu-Ray exclusive, people are largely ready to declare the format wars over and Blu-Ray the victor.

Well! I’m glad we got those two issues out of the way. So how about that Kucinich? Think he can take Ron Paul in the upcoming election?

I love Holga/Lomo fanatics. I was one for all of about three hours before the cost of film and development drove me to digital and away from the blurry snapshot “art” of the plastic camera. Somewhere I still have the roll of black and white film I shot using my taped-up super sampler, which I want to dig out every now and then and give another whirl.

(BTW – I love you guys and all, but my four-frame camera came from a science geek surplus catalog and cost me all of four bucks. You might want to shop around if you’re going the toy camera route)

Now one enterprising Holga enthusiast has created Holga: The Movie. It’s a brief walk through town with a techno soundtrack. The kicker? He modified his 35mm Holga to be a motion picture camera, albeit a choppy one. He also includes his instructions on how to recreate this effect.

The video appears to be un-embeddable, so you’ll have to click through to look at it here.

I have now posted the answers for Last Week’s 10. Let’s move on to this week’s, shall we?

1. “Russian Lullaby,” by Jerry Garcia & Dave Grusman – “Where the lovely Volga flows, there’s a lonely Russian rose”
2. “Back in the U.S.S.R.” by The Beatles (guessed by Fred) – “Flew in from Miami Beach B.O.A.C.”
3. “Confessions Part III,” by Weird Al Yankovic – “I killed your goldfish accidentally – just replaced it with another one.”
4. “Last Train to Clarksville,” by The Monkees – “We’ll have time for coffee-flavored kisses and a bit of conversation.”
5. “Cuddly Toy,” by Harry Nilsson – “I never told you that I loved no other – you must have dreamed it in your sleep.”
6. “Fragile Heart,” by Jewel – “But I need to believe that we, at least, will have some dignity.”
7. “Life Less Ordinary,” by Carbon Leaf – “By the way, I do know why you stayed away – I will keep tongue-tied next time.”
8. “Right Hand Man,” by Joan Osborne (Guessed by Fred) – “Let me use your toothbrush – have you got a clean shirt?”
9. “The Golden Vanity,” by Peter, Paul, & Mary (title guessed by Sarah) – “Wi’ his brace and auger in her side, he bored holes three.”
10. “I Can’t Decide,” by Scissor Sisters – “Oh, I could throw you in the lake or feed you poison birthday cake – I won’t deny I’m gonna miss you when you’re gone.

I would be lost without Thud’s help.

For those of you who prefer your news sent to you via RSS (and who consider the ArtMachine “news”), you might want to update your RSS feed. Here’s the new one:

http://www.art-machine.org/feed/

In Sicko, Michael Moore relates the story of a man who wrote to his insurance company after being denied to inform them that Michael Moore’s next movie was going to be making a new movie about health care.

I wonder from time to time if the more popular bloggers get the desire to pull that card every now and then. For instance – when Blue Shield decided to deny his claim, re-evaluate it, pay only a portion of what they promised, then lie to him about having paid it and lied to the anesthesiologist about where to go for payment, do you think that maybe, just maybe, Kos had the desire to call them up and say, “Do you know who I am? Do you who I am? I’m the Daily Effing Kos!”

Their out is the line “preferred rate”. And the preferred rate for that procedure was apparently around $400.

Of course, we never asked them to process this at the “preferred rate”. We ask them to pay for the service. That’s why we’re paying over $800/month in insurance premiums. To be insured.

It gets worse, the office of the anesthesiologist has letters from Blue Shield claiming that the insurance company had sent us the money directly, so to bill us for the services. Of course, we never received such money. No such checks were ever cashed (which would be easy enough to verify if they were really interested in the truth, and not shirking their duties).

So they lie to us, claiming for seven months that they’ll cover the procedure. They lie to the anesthesiologist’s office, claiming they’ve already paid us the amount owed, and to bill us directly.

And now, finally, they truth comes out—they have a problem paying what’s owed and will refuse to do so, even though they sent us a letter saying they would.

[link via Boing Boing]