Justine Larbalestier

reading, writing, eating, drinking, sport

«

»

How the Future Isn’t

Mely has a lovely post detailing the future she’s sad we haven’t wound up with yet. Hint, it’s not the oft-touted Gernsback one. I’m with her on almost everything except immortality, which Scott has convinced me is a profoundly bad idea. Just imagine if certain world leaders never ever died.

I’d also really love a working transmat beam, because while I’m always saying I love travelling, I really, really, really, don’t. What I love is being somewhere else. If I could skip the whole many, many hours in a plane or whatever on the way to the somewhere else, I’d be dead happy.

Also I’d be very happy with food in patch or tablet form. I hate it when I just need food as fuel and there’s no time to enjoy it. I’d much rather down a pill and keep doing whatever I was doing and then, when there’s time settle in for that three hour sumptious feast accompanied by the very best wines, or a just-made-in-front of you taco from a market stall, or the bestest juiciest mango of all time. Also imagine how much easier pills or patches are to transport versus, say, grain. An end to world poverty, anyone?

And how about books in electronic form that are easy to read and don’t suck?

And, and, and . . .

Posted by Justine at 15:54, 14 July 2005 under Bloggery, Food, Reading, State of the World | 7 Comments »

Comments

  1. Lauren Says:

    I want the clock whatsamahusit from Harry Potter so I could be in two places at once.

    July 14th, 2005 at 5:56 pm

  2. scott Says:

    All I want from the future is jetpacks and universal justice.

    Mind you, jetpacks are totally different from the jet cars that Mely decries. Jetpacks are about me flying like a bird, not driving around some car that still has all my crap on the back seat so that I have to apologize whenever anyone else gets in. Also, the term “jetpack” sounds like a loud, flame-spewing thing. I really want a “gravbelt,” silent and hovering.

    Yes, gravbelts and universal justice.

    NOTE: In this context “universal justice” means all the people I hate having their asses kicked, presumably by an army of gravbelt-wearing valkyrie. Sweet, sweet, justice.

    July 14th, 2005 at 8:58 pm

  3. 3. Justine Says:

    The clock thing from Harry Potter seems like a bit too much work to me, but gravbelt-wearing valkyrie justice—why didn’t I think of that?

    July 14th, 2005 at 9:07 pm

  4. parker Says:

    here’s the thing
    i stumbled across your blog by fortunate happenstance and was delighted to discover you love and write about some of my favourite things: books & writing; sport; new york; australia; the macquarie dictionary
    now it is hardly a wonderous thing to find an australin who loves sport. i imagine finding a sports-crazy new yorker is also a fairly easy exercise. but a bookish sporty australian new yorker who defers to the macquarie dictionary? – hurrah! i was immediately enchanted. and then i discovered your musings and perhaps i fell a little bit in love.
    so i sat quietly and watch and waited – hoping to catch just the right moment to submit a comment. i thought about commenting on the cricket and the new one day rules. i wondered if you would be the person to ask about the jersey system in the tour de france – how does the points system work for the green jersey? the polka dot jersey? is there another? what are the rules? but it didn’t feel right. so i waited.

    and the i read your future wish – for food in patch or tablet form and books in electronic form that are easy to read and don’t suck

    i don’t understand. how could you wish for such things? my shimmery ball of affection has broken and melted into a big puddle at my feet…
    alas

    July 15th, 2005 at 12:00 am

  5. 5. Justine Says:

    Sorry to drop in your esteem, Parker, but I still want both. Travelling as much as I do, carting along hugely heavy books is a right royal pain. Don’t get me wrong I love muchly the books, the smell, the feel, the humble book is a fabulous design job, but lord do they weigh a tonne!

    As for the food thing—not changing my mind there either. Just imagine you’re in the middle of nowhere, starving, your only food options are foul or non-existent, you pop a pill or patch until you get closer to fabulous food. I imagine it would be particulary handy at a convention or on a road trip in the USA. An Oz reporter friend of mine covered the last US election in Kerry’s bus, she’d just come from covering Iraq and swears the food was a gazillion times better in Iraq than the US. Like her, my needs are simple I want never to eat bad food again.

    July 15th, 2005 at 8:58 am

  6. parker Says:

    after much soul searching i find i can not concede but i am ready to agree to disagree: one must be willing to make sacrifices for those things truly worth having – if food were only ever good,we may not appreciate it and a simple pleasure would be lost – a pill or a patch to eliminate world starvation, I would welcome but i am unwilling to waste a future wish on a pill to allieviate temporary hunger.

    i can not bring myself to address the other matter

    July 16th, 2005 at 11:14 pm

  7. 7. Justine Says:

    Spoken like someone who’s a) never been to a science fiction convention and been compelled to eat the vilest “food” known to humanity, or b) does not have blood sugar issues.

    Even with a pill or patch bad food will persist. There are too many people out there who genuinely enjoy “food” I hold to be an abomination. Twinkies, anyone?

    July 17th, 2005 at 4:09 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

    Categories

    Archives

    RSS Feed

    Subscribe

<-- -->