Speaking of the future...

My last post got me thinking about the future and how disappointed people must be with the present. Which coincidentally was the future back then.
You see, everyone's lives were built on the hope that one day, they'd be zipping to the space-port diner a la The Jetsons. Granted, there is similarities- Lots of dads these days work part time in factories, but the difference is that their kids don't get looked after by Ruby Robot; they get left in the car with the windows up and occasionally fed by Rosa, the Hispanic alien from next door.

End digression...

Now here's some edu-ma-cation for all you non-Australians.
Back when I was a wee little tacker, there used to be this awesome show on TV called 'Beyond 2000'.
To an eight year old boy, the name alone was the most exciting thing ever since that time dad left his special cup too close to the high-chair.
The show provided an insight into current developments in science and technology and how they would make the lives of those living in the year 2000 so much more luxurious/simpler/exciting/less baby-vomit-green ridden.
So there was concept cars which had magical future things like electric windows, robot co-drivers and digital speedometers.
There was calculators that FIT INTO THE PALM OF YOUR HAND and could do all kinds of crazy things like addition.
There was laser guided kitchen utensils, jet powered steam irons, anaerobic dust projectors, gaseous plasma heaters and televisions that you didn't have to get up off your orange and green couch to change the channels on.
Fucking sweet.
To me, a dumb eight year old that once got so excited by a tv show about crocodiles that he jumped on the couch and fell onto the coffee table splitting his head open thusly getting himself rushed to hospital and receiving a fuck-tonne of stitches down his forehead, this show was like grown-ups had stolen all my Lego ideas and turned them into awesome, actual, radical things.
If I could have had a wet dream, I would have had one, probably. Instead I think I just wet the bed a few times.
Anyways, my head was filled with these wondrous devices and I longed for the years to pass so one day, in the years after the year 2000, I could fly to school with a jet pack and do my homework on this magical computing device which only needed TWO WHOLE ROOMS to operate and maybe even use electrical wiring to talk to people that also had dedicated computing device rooms in their homes.
I thought the future held alot.

Here I am, almost ten years 'beyond 2000' and I can't even get bullet-points to work properly in Word, I still have to tie my own shoelaces, I can't fucking hover/jet/teleport anywhere and to top it all off, the false prophets that came up with this programme of lies and fraudulent dreams have gone and re-made the TV programme under a new heading.

Now fair play, back in '81 they probably thought they were pretty safe with going with the 'Beyond 2000' name. I mean, 20 years or so is a long time in science. Unless your talking about evolutionary biology, in which case 20 years is fuck all. But in the 'science' that this show referred to 20 years was a long time and I can't fault them for expecting some of the things they showcased to have developed into usable technologies come the big 2-0 (0-0).

My problem's not with 'Beyond 2000', it is with the producers who decided that rather than risk the embarrassment of hazarding a guess and going with 'Beyond 2020', they decided to go with the title 'Beyond Tomorrow' for the new show.

Piss-weak.

Beyond 2000 was about things that may come to fruition in the (kind of but not really) distant future. Sure they made some calls that look stupid now, but dammit, in the 80's they put their spandex-clad asses on the line and I respect that.

Beyond Tomorrow is a cop out. Going from the title, Beyond Tomorrow could be a show about Thursday. And anyone can guess which technologies will exist on Thursday.
"Oh look honey, they're doing a special on electric kettles."
Lame.

The least they could have done is gone for 'Beyond 3000', at least then we wouldn't be alive to ridicule them when their isotopic fusion hats never come to be mass-produced or when the anti-gravity super car fails to be developed or when they fail to stop global warming using a series of mirrors, some gaffa tape and a bucket of liquid nitrogen.

But no, we get Beyond Tomorrow.
I predict that beyond tomorrow, I'll be a disillusioned 23 year old who wastes all his time working, complaining about working, writing drivel on a blog and hating on meaningless tv shows.

You can call me Nostradamus.

Super Helicopters and German Rappers and Crunk Teeth

Hey ho!
It's Friday night, non Blondie is working again and I'm bored at home. Life is sucky.

Luckily, there's distractions. I came home in a proper shit of a mood. I was going to go to the gym, but was too fucked off and I've ended up doing nothing.
Which brought me to here, the couch.
Which is where the distractions began.
The first distraction was the television show Airwolf, which randomly showed up on screen, possibly courtesy of my flatmate's poor taste.
Airwolf is the perfect combination of the worst acting, the stupidest plots and the best eyewear 1984 had to offer.

White suit guy's all like 1980's heli-pirate real estate agent or something.

This from imdb:
"Airwolf is a high tech helicopter created by a government agency called "THE FIRM". The scientist who created it, is also a bit deranged, he steals it and takes it to Libya. Deputy Director Michael Colesmith Briggs, codenamed Archangel, who oversaw the Airwolf project has to try and get it back. Stringfellow Hawke, the only other man other than the creator who knows how to fly Airwolf, is recruited by Archangel to go to Libya to try and get it back. Only problem is that Hawke is a bit of a loner and an introvert, and his fee for doing this job is that THE FIRM must locate his brother, who is MISSING IN ACTION in Vietnem, dead or alive"

Best. Storyline. Ever.
No doubt such a storyline leads to all kinds of conundrums. Luckily, no one knows how to blow up conundrums like secret agent dudes in super-helicopters!
I watched for five minutes and then distraction number two popped up.

Massiv.
Now I'm not that much of a fan of this gangsta rap nonsense. It's uber gay. Pimps and hoes and guns and knives and skunk and Cristal and caps and cribs and crack and lederhosen.
Yep, today's Guardian brings in the tale of a German rapper who goes by the moniker Massiv.

Summoning the power of Pec-Tiger, Massiv grew some shitty facial hair instantaneously.

He's been admitted to hospital after being shot in a supposed gang fight, with a bullet apparently grazing his shoulder. Police suspect however, that it was actually fabricated by Massiv and his posse to gain some street cred.
Which makes sense considering that "until two years ago the singer, who has convictions for drug dealing and threatening people with knives, was living in a one-room flat with his parents and sister..."
HA! That's so gangsta. A playa has to start somewhere though, I guess.

And no wonder all the haters be trying to stop him when he's rhyming like this:

"Here in the ghetto no one is satisfied with 300 euro a month benefit after deductions."

Fucking lol. How's that for flow!
It's like in the US how all the drug ads have a 20 second disclaimer detailing all the contraindications and fine print.
When he's rappin' bout dem bitches, I bet he'd be all like:

"I'm pimpin ass out, like bratwurst from a tin.
And i'm rollin' wid da money all dem bitches bringin' in....
Although they work no more than 4 hours straight, without a 15 minute break as required by the Working Time legislation, motherfuckers. Ho!"

Surely it would take more than a bullet graze to earn street cred in Germany. I mean, they make gang-fight bullet-graze fisting-porn over there, so I'm tipping he'd have to at least fellate a dog at the same time if he wanted to drum up some publicity.

But then, he'd probably have to take out his crunk teeth to do that... Conundrum!!!

We need Airwolf back to sort out this one!