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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.
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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.
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Daily Blah for... Monday, January 27, 2003
Bowl of Blah
For a foreign national, even one who feels at home in America and has spent many years here, watching the Superbowl can be a bizarre cultural experience. This was the first year I actually paid attention to a good portion of the game. I was down in LA for the weekend and stopped by at some friends of friends in Van Nuys -- the belly of the valley beast -- on the way back. These friends of friends are true video geeks (that, by the way, is a compliment) and had a High-Definition projector set up in their living room. If you haven't seen HDTV yet, by the way, the difference is startling. Think of the first time you saw color television -- older readers only -- and you'll have some idea of how entrancing it can be to see a crowd scene on a living room wall in perfect detail.
The game was anything but entrancing, but the video geeks didn't care. They were there to watch the million-dollar commercials. And they didn't have long to wait. It amazes me how seamlessly television has blended football and commercials. I'm used to watching the other kind of football -- the one you play with your foot, remember? The original version? -- where the principle of television coverage is to absorb you in the game. You watch the match for 45 minutes at a time. You become entranced by the rhythm of play: short bursts of speed followed by gentle, probing attacks that often threaten to burst the game wide open. You need the slow moments for the fast moments to make any sense, just like you need the space between the notes for music to exist. It's a richer experience overall.
But with American football, a foreigner like myself could be forgiven for thinking the game was specifically designed for commercial television. You get a burst of speed, a clashing of helmets, a World-War-One-like amount of movement across the turf, and then it's straight into an eye-candy break. Flashy graphics. Explosive noise. Cute animals. Product. Product. Product. When that's over, it seems terribly hard to remember -- much less care -- what the teams were doing when we left them. The game's flow has not been so much interrupted as sliced, diced, pureed and inserted between cookie wedges like an overly stuffed quadruple Oreo.
And the commercials were barely worth watching either. Did anyone else notice an inordinate amount of ads for ABC shows? That means they couldn't sell many of the hideously expensive slots. The ones that did sell were for products that do well in any recession: beer and movies. I was glad to see glimpses of the new Matrix movies, but that -- along with football-shaped brownies and spicy chicken wings -- was about all I got out of the whole experience.
As the second quarter dragged on, someone suggested opening the blinds. The sun was setting over the suburbs of Van Nuys. For most of the rest of the helmet-clashing slices, I sat at the window entranced by the color-changing sky. It was very High-Definition.
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