Friday 18 January 2008

Tomorrow's World


Is it just me or is the 21st Century just a massive disappointment? I want all the things I was promised by seventies tv.


Specifically:-

Teleportation - Obviously those insect-zappers should be fitted as standard to avoid any accidental cross-species mutation.

The Orgasmatron - Saving all that time talking to people, seducing them and (ugh!) touching them.

A Jetpack - For those days when the teleporter is just too dull.

A house on the moon and holidays on Mars - these always seem to be 'just around the corner' - pull your bloody finger out NASA!

The Hovercar - Just in case your teleporters knackered AND there's no jet fuel left on the planet to power your Jetpack.


What we've got:-

The umbrella that tells you when it's raining. -Anyone want one?

Facebook - The ability to send each other virtual drinks and throw cows whilst global corporations and the CIA lurk in the background observing.

Flatter TV's with worse pictures - Anyone got HD-TV yet? Anyone care?

The Toyota Prius - big in hollywood apparently.

OK there's been one ot two good things. The PC and the Applemac. The iPod is a good example. I was looking at cars recently, and whilst backing away from the salesman he threw in the phrase "Six CD Auto-changer" Wow! throw in a 8-track and I'll buy it!

One that has come to pass is the old Star Trek mobile communicator. I used to think it would be so cool to have something you could stick in your ear and wirelessly talk to anyone. Now it's available I don't want it. Neither does anyone else (except a few special people who seem to think they look cool walking around Sainsburys with their Bluetooth headsets proudly in use).

No one seems to use mobiles to talk to each other. We just to send each other cut-down little postcards. Which was (sort of) predicted in this eighties masterpiece.


5 comments:

Bright Ambassador said...

You say all that, but yesterday I got an electronic finger drum kit which you can plug into you iPod and drum along. I'll die a happy man.

Paul Humphries just looks WRONG playing that bass, by the way.

Kolley Kibber said...

I still haven't given up hope of the Jaunting Belt becoming commercially available in my lifetime.

Mondo said...

I always expected to have TV sized wall mounted video phones by now too, probably just as well we don't though - would you really want the caller seeing you looking bored at the other end?

But we do have swishing doors are everywhere even on buses and trains - which is a bit space age. And the new little Heathrow Airport pod train looks as space age as it should for 2008

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/12/19/videos-londons-heathrow-airport-to-use-driveless-electric-pod/

BPP said...

Don't forget Digital TV - a shitter version of normal tv from the olden days. Remember the days when you could watch television WITHOUT Ronnie Barker's face turning into a mass of blocks, WITHOUT the picture freezing or going blank for five minutes, or WITHOUT your eardrums bursting as 'G-G-G-Granville!' turns into 'FFZZZ-AKKK-ZZZZZ-KAAAKKKAAAAAAAA' as the sound fucks up AGAIN? Watching telly is so much more futuristic now it screws up every ten minutes, as opposed to once in a blue moon with crappy old analogue ... ZEIG HEIL THE FUTURE!

Jon said...

VS- Agree with all!

All I want from the future is a Hi-Lux and a Freeview box that works.

I've still got the CRT TV and I want to hold on to my Analogue signal as well... anyway the switch-over to problem-addled Digital TV is all a cunning plot cooked up by Nu-Labour (like Nu-Metal but with even worse songs) and Satan to force us all to sell our souls to Sky TV! :)

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