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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
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Daily Blah for... Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Attack of the Non-Killer Kitties
It's one of the great ironies of my life: I'm allergic to cats, and yet I adore the little self-important critters. (Of course, as I never fail to point out when this discussion comes around, it's not that I'm allergic to cats per se. In point of scienfitic fact, my body is having an allergic reaction to the feces of the mites that live in cat fur, which seems quite a sensible thing for a body to have an allergic reaction to; it's all you people breathing in cat mite crap with no ill effects who are the freaks.) And it would seem I'm not alone in this dilemma: fully one-third of cat-allergic Americans are so enthralled, they keep kitties in their homes anyway.
So I've been watching the development of hypoallergenic cats -- genetically tinkered to resist mites and their detrius -- with great interest. According to http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifthis New York Times article, San Diego-based Allerca is about to start shipping the modified mogs in January. The price tag is too rich for my blood -- $4,000 -- and the screening procedure appears to be more stringent than that for adopting orphans. (Well, to be fair, orphans didn't require a multimillion dollar investment or a genetics lab.) But this is just a start, a slippery slope I look forward to society sliding down. Waiting for cheap allergy-free kitties is like waiting for a one-terabyte iPod -- wait a few years, keep yourself busy doing other things, and it'll happen before you know it.
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