Friday, December 28, 2007

The sorry state of the future

I wouldn't say I'm a pessimist, but sometimes I wonder about the future of the world.

I've always been a fan of dystopian literature. The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake, Brave New World, A Friend of the Earth and heck, most everything by Kurt Vonnegut. Those are some of my favorite books. For my 2007 NaNoWriMo novel, I ended up writing a dystopia.

No, I'm not pessimistic.

So, on this most recent road trip we took to Buffalo, I was reminded of something. Something that I believe irrefutably proves that the future perhaps isn't all rosy: Dippin' Dots. You know, the ice cream of the future (circle R).

I'm not saying Dippin' Dots are bad, but really, is that all the future holds for us? Why can't Ben and Jerry's be the ice cream of the future? Or even Hood's Fenway Fudge. Those are futures I could embrace. But Dippin' Dots?

I hate to say it, but I don't have a lot of faith in a future where Dippin' Dots is our ice cream of choice.

Random unrelated thought: Whenever I get the hiccups, I worry that they'll never go away. Like this guy. Although, technically, his hiccups did eventually stop, after sixty-eight years.

No comments: