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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
"The Blah is becoming a daily destination for me." - Richard Marsh, Playwright
"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
Friends, Bloggers, Countrymen ... lend your ears to these people. I come not to bury them, but praise them.
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My TIME articles
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Online column index
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Daily Blah for... Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Return to Sender
This NYT piece on how to cope with life's little annoyances, like a lot of NYT articles, oscillates between the bleeding obvious and the hidden gem. How great a scoop is it that if you order a medium instead of a grande at Starbucks, they'll still fix your drink? Who didn't know that if you press zero during most computerized help line messages, you'll go straight through to a human being? On the other hand, the suggestion on what to do with all those horrid little subscription cards that drop out of every magazine (save them up and drop them in the mail without filling them out, because the magazine company has to pay for postage on each one) was for me a revelation of Eureka proportions. I cannot convey just how furious it makes me when I'm reclining with a cup of tea and a copy of the New Yorker, basking in the sunshine, lost in an article, thinking all is perfection and feeling utterly at peace with the world, when two or three of those postcard-sized interlopers jump out at me, rudely interrupting my reverie, getting caught on the breeze, littering my garden, my neighbors' gardens, or even worse, drop in the tea. It's like pop-up ads in real life, for which there is no pop-up blocker, or so I thought until now. Now I know exactly what to do, and I encourage you to do the same. Enough of us return them unscribbled, and eventually they have to stop printing the damn things. Power to the People's Republic of Magazine Readers!
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