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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, February 02, 2004
Get Smart, Bill
Who wants a smart watch? Not me, not you, and certainly not any reviewer I’ve read so far. (Here’s a particularly scathing piece from Sunday’s Washington Post and another from today's Boston Globe). I can’t decide if the anonymous Microsoftie who came up with it deserves to be shot or sent into therapy for thinking it’s still 1998. Whenever a gadget or website promises to bring you the disastrous dotcom portal litany of “weather, headlines, sports scores, stock prices and messages”, that either translates to “we’re looking for VC funding” or “this is what we think the unwashed masses want from a wired world, and they’ll happily pay $60 a year for the privilege.” In Microsoft’s case, of course, it’s clearly not the former. Even if the wireless coverage wasn't more anemic than the weakest cellphone and the messages weren't slower than carrier pigeon and the headlines weren't more hard news-free than the National Enquirer, it would still be a dumb idea. I have but one question: is Bill Gates actually wearing one of these clunky devices? Probably not; he’s smarter than that. How perpetually disappointing that he continues to underestimate the rest of us.
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