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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.
Oh My God, the RSS Feed Actually Works!
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.
Arik
Bill
Dan
Cole
Emily B
Emily G
Helena
Jee
Jewelz
Kaila
Kathryn
Mac
Robin
Slim
Souris
Mr. West
My TIME articles
All magazine articles (subscription required for older stories)
Online column index
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Daily Blah for... Thursday, October 06, 2005
The Dog Ate My Blah
I have a friend who says one of the main things he likes about reading Daily Blah is seeing what excuse I'll come up with this time for not having written in, say, two weeks.
I have another friend who, when she was a little girl, used to hide behind the piano at home just so she could experience the delight of being found by the grown-ups. "Hiding behind the piano" has become our metaphor for the passive desire to have people come to you. To be in demand. To be found.
I sometimes wonder whether this frequent Blah absenteeism of mine is a bit of subconscious hiding behind the piano. Because I do secretly like it when friends and strangers write in demanding to know where the hell it's gone. It reminds me of the presence of an audience, which is something I think all writers are constantly insecure about. It is, after all, a horribly lonely profession. If tomorrow we all became performance artists, really terrible performance artists who got booed off the stage, we'd walk back to the wings with smiles on our faces: "they noticed!"
Granted, this is all very bad behavior for a journalist. Could you imagine your local newspaper refusing to print until enough irate readers wrote in demanding to know why their doorsteps were empty? But the Blah is, I suppose, the one place where I have license to behave badly. I can run around in here, gleefully not writing, frustrating the bejesus out of my loyal readership, and no editor is going to come along and tick me off. (I haven't even made the whole business easier with an RSS feed yet -- something about my template, which was jury-rigged over many years and is currently held together with duct-tape and string, doesn't seem to like the RSS code.)
Anyway, the next time it happens, you know which large key-based household instrument to find me behind.
How's that for a non-excuse excuse?
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