It’s 2010. That’s the future. But could you imagine explaining this time to your younger self?
When I was a kid in the eighties, I expected the future to have robots and jet packs and laser guns flying cars and colonization of Mars. But the only popular personal robot is a little thing that vacuums, jet packs are still impractical, laser guns are still a future tech for the military, I don’t even know what happened to flying cars, and not only are we not colonizing Mars, we’re still trying to get back to the moon, i.e., back to where we were in 1969.
So what’s the big tech thing right now? The iPhone. Would my younger self even be impressed by that?
FRANK: See, it’s an iPhone. It has a touch screen.
YOUNG FRANK: We have touch screens now.
FRANK: Yeah, but you can load an app on it to pretend it’s a lightsaber. Zing zing!
YOUNG FRANK: That’s stupid and you’re stupid! So no robots or flying cars?
FRANK: Well, we have hybird cars.
YOUNG FRANK: Like part car and part boat?
FRANK: No… um… like part gas and part electric.
YOUNG FRANK: Who cares!
FRANK: Well, we have the internet. That’s the big technology that shapes the future. It’s all information at your fingertips. Like, if you were wondering about the back story for Velma from Scoobie Doo, you could just look it up instantly on Wikipedia.
YOUNG FRANK: But if you want to shoot someone with a laser gun, you’re out of luck?
FRANK: Yeah, but… our TVs are wider.
YOUNG FRANK: So nothing like Bladerunner?
FRANK: I believe their TVs were not wider.
YOUNG FRANK: The future is boring and stupid!
FRANK: Here’s something interesting: We have a black president.
YOUNG FRANK: Mr. T?
FRANK: No… nothing like Mr. T.
And then I’d try to explain Twitter to him and he’d probably punch me in the nads and run away. Thanks, The Future!
You mentioned that the president was black. So everything else you said must have been racist. Only black people and campaign workers for a black candidate can mention that he’s black, and the term can only be used in the context of displaying how amazing the subject is to have overcome the many difficulties that face a black man growing up in racist America…even though Obama didn’t grow up in America. I’m sorry but it’s apparently the law. I’m going to have to turn you in now.
Where are the underground cities, food pills, and automatic doors in every doorway?
I’d like to see Mr. T drop a mohawk bomb from the Warcraft ads on TehOne. That would be “T”eh Awesome.
If Mr. T. were to become President, would we call him “President Mr.T” or “President T”?
….And the sad part is twenty years from now it’ll only be worse than it is now.
If you try and explain twitter one more time, I’ll punch you in the nads!
If you can explain Twitter you don’t have any nads to punch!
Young Hwuu thought Mr. T would be the first black president. And he still has my vote if he can get me a jetcar.
Young Hwuu sez If the future isn’t going to have Fembots and lightsabres and Jetpacks we may as well give it to the Amish. Then we won’t have robot hamsters, twittering or spam.
If Mr. T was president that would so cool!!!
I ment to say that would be so cool.
Little Frank: Have nuked the noon yet?
Frank: No.
Little Frank: Wimp.
I don’t think Young Frank would punch Old Frank for describing “Twitter”. They had gheys in the 1980s.
Do you suppose that old Frank would tweet about young Frank punching him in the nads?
I’m still waiting for my lightsaber and speeder bike.
Did you tell young Frank about internet pr0n?…or that in 2010 he’d be a happily married man and not interested?
Everything went downhill when Schwinn stopped making Stingray bicycles.
I could be happy with that unicorn that Obie promised us. Or are those just for the Obot Class?
Old Frank: ” And in the future, you can Twitter!”
Young Frank: ” That is so ghey! You can Twitter all you want, I’m going to think up an awesome computer website where I can plan my global domination!”
Old Frank: “The word ‘ghey’ wasn’t used in the 80’s.”
Young Frank: “Hey, I’m a visionary that way, feel free to use it in 2010, old man.”
I’ve wanted instant access to any information on any topic in the world since I was 5 years old and I realized that some things weren’t in the encyclopedia, so I’m pretty tickled just to have Google.
But I’m also kinda pissed that my computer doesn’t respond to voice commands – like every single science fiction TV show & movie ever made PROMISED it would do by now – but most of the time I’m too busy Googling to take my rage out on innocent bystanders.
Come to think of it, most talking computers were trying to KILL ALL HUMANS, so maybe I should count my blessings.
All I wanted was there to be no wars until I was old enough to fight in them. LittleRichardSmall would have loved his timeline.
LittleRichardSmall would have loved THIS timeline. (Frank has a degree in computer programming but still doesn’t have an edit option, or a spellchecker on his site after 7 years.) I’m complaining about wanting stuff from other people…. Crap! LittleRichardSmall would punch me in the nads for being like a Democrat.
when Tiger took a 9 iron to the nads was it a hook or a slice?
Frank, you just need to be older than you are to appreciate all the wonders of the new future. I remember not only rotary dial phones, but partly lines. I remember when our town got a UHF station, making FOUR total with the three VHF stations. I remember when TV became COLOR TV (at least on Sunday nights for Disney). I remember when those guys on Star Trek were the only ones with portable communicators – we had to make do with miserable transistorized walkie talkies, and then CB radios, and then “car phones” before we got cell phones. I remember when my home had a gravel road, and the farmer back through the woods had an outhouse.
Try this same exercise in another 25 years and see what wonders exist then. Silly young’un!