Where's my flying car? I want my flying car!!!

June 18, 2004 1:25 PM

It's Official - the future sucks. Why has the future been such a let down? It's more 1984 than Barbarella. If we can have ID cards and video surveillance, then why can't we have intergalactic flying cars and hot chicks in skimpy plastic outfits? Clearly I'm not the only one wondering where all the cool stuff went - check out RetroFuture
posted by dodgygeezer (14 comments total)

Here's my favorite.
posted by dodgygeezer at 1:26 PM on June 18, 2004

Jet packs! We were promised jet packs, goddammit!
posted by scody at 1:40 PM on June 18, 2004

Mercifully, the whole thing is starting to fade, to become an episode. When I do still catch the odd glimpse, it's peripheral; mere fragments of mad-doctor chrome, confining themselves to the corner of the eye. There was that flying-wing liner over San Francisco last week, but it was almost translucent. And the shark-fin roadsters have gotten scarcer, and freeways discreetly avoid unfolding themselves into the gleaming eighty lane monsters I was forced to drive last month in my rented Toyota. And I know that none of it will follow me to New York; my vision is narrowing to a single wavelength of probability. I've worked hard for that. Television helped a lot.

posted by meehawl at 1:46 PM on June 18, 2004

Does any one else remember the commercial (IBM, was it?) with Avery Brooks saying "we were promised flying cars! where is my flying car? Where? Where?" in typical Avery Brooks delivery?
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 1:52 PM on June 18, 2004

they lied to us.
posted by kickingtheground at 2:28 PM on June 18, 2004

I think that was an Infiniti ad, meehawl.
posted by adamrice at 2:36 PM on June 18, 2004

Yeah, the future sucks. Where's my jet pack??

I guess I'll have to settle for the small white device that fits easily into my pocket and can store about a month's worth of music on it.
posted by alidarbac at 5:41 PM on June 18, 2004

I guess I'll have to settle for the small white device that fits easily into my pocket and can store about a month's worth of music on it.

I find that the small silver ones that fit in your pocket and store around a month's worth of video are more "futuristic". Audio-only is so... 90s.
posted by meehawl at 5:49 PM on June 18, 2004

Sod all that shit, I want something that can clean my shirts and return them to me with no creases in without me either having to go outside or use a shitty little hot box that leaks water and doesn't actually make the shirt properly flat if it's been tumble dryed an' shit. Come future: flatten my shirts, yo.

Damnit. I'd give up my Clie and mobile phone for that. I'm keeping the iPod though. I like that future.
posted by bonaldi at 8:23 PM on June 18, 2004

Where's my flying car? My vacation spot on the moon? The Hotel Atlantis?
posted by SisterHavana at 9:37 PM on June 18, 2004

Yeah, I wouldn't want to be without my MP3 player, although I prefer my Archos. It has a gritty utility to it - it's how I'd imagine a Russian iPod to be.
posted by dodgygeezer at 2:16 AM on June 19, 2004

dodgygeezer, you're right. there's too many of these damn iSheep. Buy a Zen. mmm, brushed aluminium...
posted by knapah at 11:49 AM on June 19, 2004

that Zen looks like a cassette walkman--ugh

As long as we don't have to eat Soylent Green, i'm kinda happy with the future so far...we'll never get the really cool stuff until we stop using oil and gas.
posted by amberglow at 11:57 AM on June 19, 2004

They promised us Rosie, but all we got was Roomba.
posted by Izzy at 10:37 AM on June 25, 2004