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The increasingly inaccurately-named blog of journalist and futurist Chris Taylor. Either the most sporadically brilliant amateur blog, the most brilliantly amateur sporadic blog, or the most amateur sporadic brilliance on the Web since 2001.
Oh My God, the RSS Feed Actually Works!
Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
Do you write any other blogs, by chance? Could that have something to do with the fact that Daily Blah isn't always Daily?
Yes -- the Future Boy blog for Business 2.0. And yes. If you want true, editorially-mandated daily coverage from me, that's probably the best place to look.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
Praise for Daily Blah:
"It is fun to watch the author's navel-gazing joy." - Sunday Times (UK)
"It's really funny and informative." - Dave Eggers, author
"The Blah is becoming a daily destination for me." - Richard Marsh, Playwright
"I like it, and I don't." - Fiona Hogg, Teacher
"Better than Xanax." - Lessley Andersen, journalist
"Dude, lay off the crack pipe." - Souris Hong-Porretta, gamesmith
Friends, Bloggers, Countrymen ... lend your ears to these people. I come not to bury them, but praise them.
Arik
Bill
Dan
Cole
Emily B
Emily G
Helena
Jee
Jewelz
Kaila
Kathryn
Mac
Robin
Slim
Souris
Mr. West
My TIME articles
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Online column index
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Daily Blah for... Wednesday, May 29, 2002
America vs. the World
No, this isn't another dull-as-dishwater dissection of the War on Terror. I've just discovered that this Extreme Tracking thing can tell me the country of origin of all my readers in the last two weeks. Not surprisingly, the vast majority are from the U.S., with 13 Canadians thrown in for the hell of it. Being a Brit makes me disappointed with my poor showing in the homeland (only 39 readers since mid-May), although that doesn't count Brits with .com e-mail addresses. The rest of it just doesn't make sense. Why am I three times as popular in Luxembourg as in France, or have four times as many readers in the Netherlands as in Italy? It could be a reasonable index of how good each country is at English, I suppose. But then why do I have three times as many devotees in the Czech Republic as in New Zealand? And why, dear sister of mine, do I not have a single native reader in Spain?
And while we're about it, why did a massive 22% of you hit the reload button last Sunday? I never post on Sunday, haven't you noticed? What, you thought if you reloaded enough times I'd get the message that you want to read my pearls of wisdom? Do I look like I'm psychic?
Never mind. We're coming up to 7pm Pacific time on Wednesday which, by a curious coincidence, is prime time here on Daily Blah. Yes, apparently more of you read this guff between 7 and 8pm on Wednesday than at any other hour. Maybe in future weeks I'll do something more prime-timey, like streamcasting live mud-wrestling or drawing Lotto numbers. I don't know. What do you want to see in this space? Let's hear some suggestions. I'm tired of ranting on. Why don't you do the talking for a bit?
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