Let's predict mundane, pointless stuff in 2035

I was out walking my dogs the other day, and I slipped and fell into a time warp, and ended up spending the day hanging out in the year 2035. Similar to a fellow Doper, I was so offended by how Marty McFly flipped up his skateboard that I never got the idea to pick up a sports almanac (:D), so I missed the big historical events.

But I was fasacinated by the things that Americans in the 30’s found “mundane” which I found novel or strange. Some examples:

-the NFL regular season is 18 games long; college football has a playoff.

-September 11, Patriot Day, is a Federal holiday.

-there has been a female president, who did fine, although not as good as her supporters think, and not as bad as her detractors insist.

-3d television is common, and live TV events (like sports and awards shows), first run tv shows, and video games, all come in 3d. It still won’t work well unless you wear the glasses.

-because everyone squints at computer screens all day, the afore-mentioned 3d phenomenon, and the genius of some Apple guy who invented the I-Glass(which projects your smart phone onto your lenses), virtually everyone wears glasses, to the point that it’s weird seeing them without them. Glasses in the 30’s can correct or enhance your vision, adjust the tint when you’re in the sun, and is integrated into your smart phone, which is basically a clip on your belt.

Glasses, though, are much bigger than what we’re used to. John Lennon style glasses look comically small to the teens coming of age in the 2030s.

-due to all of the safety technology in cars, which prevent minor fender benders by overriding the driver, it’s impossible to find a manual transmission anymore. Sure, there are paddle shifters, but no clutch, and no ability to stall your car.

-the Straight Dope is still fighting ignorance.

What else did I miss?

Okay, here are a few…
…stop signs will be replaced by barcodes on the road surface that debit your bank account for running the stop.
…electric cars will be lots better owing to some breakthrough or another in battery technology.
…despite it being Teh Futare, we will still not have flying cars or robot butlers.

The last manufacturing plant producing disc based media (CD’s, DVD’s, Blu-Ray) closes its doors. All media has switched to either purely digital streaming distribution or flash-drive based hard copies.

The world is still recovering from the massive damage done to San Francisco and Seattle, both impacted by a massive quake in the former that triggered tectonic activity in the other.

<silly>America elects its first extraterrestrial senator after the repeal of citizenship requirements. Blfgsdf’sdfer successfully ran on a pro !@#$dfasdf34 platform.</silly>

-Cable gets 3000 channels. There’s still nothing on.

-A pack of cigarettes costs $40.

Christmas 2035 the hottest gift item on everyone’s list is Mr. Fusion.

George Lucas reshot the original SW trilogy using trained salamanders as actors.

Star Trek 33, The Wreath of Kong, made it’s Xmas debut. It’s weekend box office take was more than the combined annual output of the entire world.

My 1988 Honda Accord is still running fine, tho real gas is hard to find now, having been replaced in most markets by Karo.

OJ Simpson found the real killers living on a golf course.

Rolling Stones farewell tour highest grossing act of the year.

Man, I hope not. It was a fad in previous ages, and it will be a fad in 2035.

-Computer Generated Images will be nearly indistinguishable from images captured by both video and still cameras. There will likely still be a few people who have a lot of experience with these fakes and can tell by the pixels, though.

-Television stations will be a thing of the past as all programming will be digitally delivered directly to their subscribers on demand for a fee. People will only have to pay for what they want to see. As a result, the FCC and nosey moral viewers will no longer need to monitor programming, but will likely try anyway.

-Physical media will be relegated to hard backups of important data and no longer used for distribution. Packaging and distributuion costs will be reduced as most, if not all, programs are transferred over high bandwidth network connections. Companies will still charge the same amount, if not more, for their software.

Meanwhile, the Slightly Silly party will still have failed to seat a candidate in the House of Commons.

Pro wrestling will include mixed-gender teams. It will continue to be semi-scripted entertainment pretending to be honestly competitive sport. Nobody will seriously believe that, but fans will go along with the pretending anyway.

People will be able to text and phone via the iImplant, which means that a large portion of the population will not only be walking around babbling to themselves, but waving their arms like a crazy person, thus convincing visiting aliens that they need to come back in another million years or so when we’ve progressed to a saner age.

Your grandkid is already on her 3rd liver.

Cash is no longer being minted, but still accepted as legal tender. Yes, even pennies.

The most recent fad is for full color animated implanted electronic “tattoos”. The really obnoxious people get ones with sound. Yes, that dragon tattoo really is snarling at you.

Fully automatic cars capable of driving themselves will be commonplace, and much safer than human drivers.