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Add one part satire to two parts sincerity. Sprinkle on a couple of rants. Stir liberally.
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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.
If it's called Daily Blah, how come you don't ... hey, wait, you're writing every day!
See? Told you I'd try harder.
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, August 04, 2003
More Fun With Words and Music
You may or may not have already run across Dictionaraoke. You may or may not understand why hearing dictionary pronounciation programs spit out lyrics to songs like My Heart Will Go On in their brightly vapid electronic tone, with equally vapid electronic karaoke backing music, is so hysterically funny. You may or may not appreciate the many layers of humor in, say, the Dictionaraoke version of the Smiths' How Soon Is Now, in which all the words have been changed with the aid of a thesaurus ("I am the scion and the inheritor/of a social phobia which is unlawfully uncouth ..."). But I know I'm not alone, and I hereby challenge you to listen through any one of these tracks without cracking a smile.
Perhaps this phenomenon is our best absurdist revenge on the machine voices that permeate our entire lives -- you know, the ones that tell you that your call is very important to them and could you please stay on the line. Or perhaps it's best viewed as a savage satire on the state of the recording industry; its reliance on mindless automaton singers and those constant cannibalizing remixes, if taken to their logical conclusions, lead us to this kind of music. But who cares? Dictionaraoke is a sure-fire mood enhancer for a crappy day; better than Prozac.
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