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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:
"It is fun to watch the author's navel-gazing joy." - Sunday Times (UK)
"It's really funny and informative." - Dave Eggers, author
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"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
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Daily Blah for... Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Major Tom Makes the Grade
The promise of seeing a spaceship launch, I discover at the age of 30, is not quite enough to get me out of bed at 4am. What does get me bounding out of my room at the Best Western in Tehachapi, 30 miles east of the Mojave launch site, in the pre-dawn dark? M&Ms. The special X Prize-themed M&Ms scattered on the passenger seat of my American-made big-boat rental car, to be precise. They're blue and white and have spaceships on one side and on the other, a single word: "Go."
I program the iPod with appropriate music for the short highway drive over: Space Oddity by David Bowie, Space Walk by Lemon Jelly, Major Tom by that 80's German guy, and easily the best space launch music ever recorded: Theme from Battlestar Galactica. As the first song starts, and David Bowie begins his countdown, and my boat pulls out of the parking lot, and the M&Ms begin their tortuous digestion, it hits me: this is real. A man will be risking his life to get into space today. History will be made, one way or the other.
I hope you're not too disappointed, I tell my younger self, that I didn't end up as Major Tom. I'm the papers, wanting to know whose shirt he wears. At the press conference yesterday, I asked whether the sponsors would be sending a can of 7 Up or a bag of M&Ms as part of the bags of personal items used as ballast, in lieu of extra passengers. (No was the answer, although SpaceShipOne designer Burt Ratan will be sending up bags of tools and -- the ultimate geek apendage -- his old slide rule).
The count goes on, and the atmosphere here in the press room is pretty jovial. They primed us with bacon, eggs, sausage, coffee and other rocket fuel. Now I'm ready to watch a man go into space. And that man, it has been announced, is Michael Melvill, the same guy who was on the first test flight earlier this year. He's 62, and we debate whether or not that makes him the second oldest man to go into space (after John Glenn at 77). But whose shirts does he wear?
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