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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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"Better than Xanax." - Lessley Andersen, journalist
"Dude, lay off the crack pipe." - Souris Hong-Porretta, gamesmith
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Daily Blah for... Saturday, January 21, 2006
The Cable Car Connection
For the last week or so, I've been trying a new way to get to work: driving to a parking garage by Grace Cathedral, then taking the cable car on the last leisurely leg of its journey, down the most delightfully scenic stretch of California. And let me tell you, you cannot have a bad day when you take the cable car to work. You feel lighter than air as it trundles its stately way down the hill. You're in the open air, in the January morning California sunshine, so full of possibility as it gleams off the colorful stalagmites of this grand steel canyon you're entering. You hear the conductor chime his bell in a rock and roll rhythm, and you want to spin round the poles on the outside and burst into cheesy song. Then it pulls up to a halt at the end of the line, right outside your building, and you jump off seconds before it stops moving and feel a new spring in your step as you head to the 10am meeting. If it were still socially permissable to whistle in elevators, you'd whistle.
Ah, If only they'd extend the cable car out to the Presidio, I'd be set. Hell of a long commute, but time doesn't matter nearly so much on a friendly cable car as it does on those soulless claustrophopic cans known as buses. The cable car practically begs you to sit and read a stack of newspapers on the old wooden benches in the gentle breeze created by gentle movement as the world's most beautiful city rolls by. The only thing I'd add would be a little coffee station so the conductor could make you a mocha.
Alas, the cable car doesn't start until Van Ness. And though I tried parking around the turnaround once, it was in fear of a parking ticket, for I am not an Area G permit holder. Whom, you may ask, is an Area G permit holder? And the answer is, those lucky rich bastards who live in Area G. Which is pretty much all Specific Whites. I mean, Pacific Heights.
So I tried garages. There was one on Van Ness that charges $15 all day. Not a bad deal. Then I found the Masonic Center -- no doubt as part of their plan for world domation -- charged $11 for an early bird special. "Early bird", in this case, stretching the meaning of the term to nonsensical length -- in before 10am, out before 6pm. Show me a bird that leaves its nest as late as I do, and I'll show you the loser of every worm-catching competition. Then I found the garage next door charging $9 for its early birds, for whom it also gave an extra half-hour at the end of the day. My hope is that I'm seeing market forces in action here; the beginnning of a bitter price war as the masons fight to hold on to their precious mystical early birds so they can sacrifice us on the altar of Great Apron. Or something.
Okay, so maybe that's a vain hope. Maybe the fact that I now think $9 a day for parking is a wonderful bargain is due purely to contextual expectations. Maybe I'm conveniently ignoring the fact that it adds up to $46 a week, or more than the monthly MUNI pass that gives me free cable car rides. (Maybe it'll be more like $28 -- hell, I'll still take the bus a couple of times a week, whenever I get up in time or don't have any social event to drive to after work). But maybe I also think it's a small price to pay for a spring in your step and a song in your heart at the start of an office-bound day.
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