Forward Thinking

Click for the bigness.

Unhappy Hipsters of Yesteryear

Bobby tried to summon the demons of his nightmares from the fire, asking that they curse his family.

I love the blog Unhappy Hipsters for the great captions, but I will confess I am a huge fan of most of the architecture they mock daily. And Paleo Future is another great blog I've only recently come across, where I found this picture (click for large) from the Sunday comics section of an old Chicago Tribune. The copy describes a future in which we will record TV shows. And TVs that will produce images in three dimensions. Dad is watching just such a show. Mom is reclined on a chair with headphones on, lost in some crazy future-jazz. Little Sally is pulling a book off the Electronic Home Library shelf, the contents of which are being projected onto the family's ceiling. Not a bad set of predictions from 1959.

And the other thing this comic got right was the isolation such technology would bring about. Everyone walks around today with their earbuds in, not speaking, lost in their own entertainment. Texting at the dinner table, connected at all times.

Little Bobby is the unhappy hipster in the above scene, gazing into the fire, remembering how it used to be when they did stuff together as a family, nostalgic for the life he's never known, one not overrun with gadgets and noise.

I'm seeing a lot of articles lately about the dangers of being connected full-time. The authors suggest such remedies as "unplugging" for a weekend. Or they create a "day of fasting" from Facebook, as one pastor recommended recently in a transparent effort to create more press for his thriving Megachurch, the better to be seen by "the world" as a hip, relevant church. 

The problem gets talked about plenty, that of the over-connected society, but the solutions offered all seem gimmicky and temporary to me. What good is a day away from the technology if you're just jumping back in on Monday again fully connected, and likely more so than usual since you missed out on so much over the weekend? That's like taking a day off from binge-drinking. So I guess it's time for me to once again "unveil" a program I created about eight years ago. My program suggests you set aside a space where "connecting" is simply not tolerated. I call it the MediaFreeZone™.

It's a very simple program and will only require you to be a little disciplined to make it work. The details are here. Granted, the MediaFreeZone™ may end up being a room in your house no one wants to ever be in, but I think it's worth a shot.

Monorails and Sky Trams

(El clicko, por favor.)

Krazy With a Capital K

Nope - Ain't Seen No Jetpacks Yet

In the last couple of days, I've had friends send me messages via Facebook, Twitter and email regarding this story from The Wall Street Journal. It's very similar to a story done in July of last year by The New York Times—and it's the same old story, "Everyone wants a jetpack - but jetpacks suck really bad right now."

Because of the title of this blog, I've been quoted in a book about Jetpacks.

There's another book about Jetpacks whose title is the same as this blog. (I was first.)

And there will also always be crappy jetpack announcements from starry-eyed inventors. But none of the jetpacks fly very far for very long, they're usually tethered, and they're usually priced at about $250,000.

When I was in 2nd grade, I checked out a tattered old book from the Fort Lewis, Washington Elementary School Library called Skyjets for Fliers of Tomorrow. It told the tale of two kids who got mail-order flight suits and went flying around their town, visited their grandma and were home in time for dinner. (Images on this post from that book.) I guess that book started me wishing I could fly, but it's really an ancient and universal dream - personal flight. And it hasn't happened yet. Not to any satisfactory degree, anyway. I mean, who wants to fly only over a lake tethered to a giant hose sucking water from the lake?


The only way I will stop asking the question “Where’s My Jetpack?” is when jetpacks are affordable to common clowns like you and me and will safely convey us to and from our places of employment or the grocery store. It would also be nice if they didn’t sound like F-18s at full throttle and could fly for longer than a couple minutes on a tank of fuel. Another real benefit would be if they were available at Wal-Mart. I want them easy enough to operate that my Mom could handle one.

But more than that, the question “Where’s My Jetpack?” is at its heart a joke. The jetpack is simply a symbol of all the other things that were supposed to be here by now, promised to us by the advertisers, by Disney, by the government and all the other dreamers. As it says over in the sidebar under “Bascially...”: “The future is now, and we’re still waiting.”

It's all explained in the lyrics to this blog's theme song.

UPDATE: And Hanna points out in the comments that Quaker just launched - haha - get it? "launched" - sorry - a campaign featuring a Jimmy Fallon lookalike wearing a Quaker Oats jetpack.

Seven (Future) Things About Me

During the last round of "Seven Things About Me," the blogger meme where you tell....yes... seven (likely unknown) things about yourself...I opted out when a few of my virtual friends asked me to play along, citing my previous involvement in the game.

I've rethought it and decided to play, but with a twist.

I will reveal seven things about my future self, and then call out a few bloggers to do the same.

1. After the publication of my epic saga and the subsequent sale of the movie rights to Spike Lee (who was in a bitter bidding war with Ron Howard), I was able to move to Adelaide, SA and became a citizen of Australia. I think it was the appointment of Sean Hannity as Secretary of Patriotism by President Limbaugh that finally tipped the scales.
2. I finally learned to surf, but finding surf in SA without great white sharks isn’t easy.
3. We have a vineyard and farm in the Barossa Valley. We make some wine, but we always end up drinking it all or giving it away as gifts. The farm is mostly an excuse for our dog to practice sheep herding, which he sucks at.
4. Whenever we visit the States (maybe once a year, lately) we like to mess with people by acting like we can’t understand them through their thick accents.
5. Our daily 30-minute show (Monday-Friday, live online) Radio Free Babylon, was banned in Saudi Arabia. Again. After that, Pepsi stopped sponsoring us, leaving the door open for Coke. The contract says we have to drink it on-camera, but I usually spike mine.
6. During the Canadian-American War, I started stockpiling weapons, water and food. Don’t come looking for them.
7. I can finally speak Spanish fluently, which is useless down here.

And now, your turn:

Bill
Kym
Kaitlyn
Chimp
Lori
MMM
Stan
Broad
Corey