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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.
Praise for Daily Blah:
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"Dude, lay off the crack pipe." - Souris Hong-Porretta, gamesmith
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Daily Blah for... Monday, April 19, 2004
Paper Jam
As I mentioned last month, those lovely hardworking people at the Immigration and Naturalization Service have agreed to declare me an Extraordinary Alien. That may sound like a redundancy -- aren't all aliens extraordinary by their very nature? -- but I love it as a title, and will shortly be adding it to all my business cards. In crayon.
Nevertheless, just because the INS has approved me doesn't mean I have the new visa in my hot and sweaty hands. No, that would be too easy. The creaking bureaucratic logic of Washington dictates that I must leave the country in order to stay. That is, I need to go visit an American consulate in another country to get the actual stamp in my passport. So after much angst with the online booking system, I got myself one of the few appointments available in Toronto at 8:30am one Monday morning this coming June. I've been through this system before, of course, for my H1-B, and marveled at the sheer weight of red tape involved, the pain and expense this bloated bureaucracy likes to inflict upon immigrant workers. (No wonder most of them stay illegal.)
But that was before 9/11. Now the number of forms I must fill in, and the stricture placed on my activities while waiting to hand them in, have reached Kafkaesque levels. The entire process, which used to take a day, now apparently takes three. For as long as I'm in the consulate, I may not use my cellphone, iPod or Palm. I also may not eat or drink. I was just sent a full sheet of text detailing exactly how to photograph myself and how to attach that picture to my DS-156: "it is preferable that the ears be exposed ... busy, patterned or dark backgrounds will not be accepted ... the head should measure between 1 inch and 1 3/8 inches." Helpfully, the form adds, "the key requirement is that the photograph clearly identify the applicant."
But it is the DS-157, now required for all male foreigners, that has me really shaking me head in disbelief. Let us ignore for the moment the requirement to list your "clan or tribe name". Let's brush over the impossibly tiny boxes in which you're supposed to list all countries you've visited in the last ten years and all educational institutions you have attended. Move straight to question 14: "Do you have any specialized skills or training, including firearms, explosives, nuclear, biological, or chemical experience?" Thanks to that comma after "training", practically everyone who fills in this form -- that is, anyone with any specialized skills or training -- should answer "yes." Especially if their specialized training is in the English language. Question 16 asks "have you ever been in an armed conflict, either as a participant or victim? If yes, please explain." Yes, I feel like writing -- I am another innocent victim in the misguided bureaucratic war on terrorists whom, the government appears to imagine, will own up to every one of their evil intentions if you catch them out with ungrammatical questions.
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