Happy Back to the Future Day!

In 1989, when I was 15 years old, I saw the future play out before my very eyes in a packed movie theater over the Thanksgiving holiday.  The movie was Back to the Future Part 2.

I remember sitting in the older style, cramped seats, leaning slightly to the left so that I could see around the sky high mall hair of the girl sitting in front of me (and to be fair, whomever sat behind me had to do the same thing), wearing my Swatch watch and pegged jeans of some washed variety (stone, acid, diamond.. I don't remember).  Left hanging for 4 long years after the cliffhanging ending of Back to the Future, I honestly thought that day would never arrive.  As the images of Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale's envisioned future played out on the screen, I remember thinking, "Man, the future is going to be really...gaudy."

Well, today's THE day, the day Doc Brown and Marty McFly prophesied about - October 21, 2015.  It's taken us 26 years to get here and here we are.  As I look around, the reality of 2015 does share some similarities to Doc and Marty's 2015, but there are some distinct misses, too.  Let's take a look at some of the hits and misses.

THE HITS
1) Remember Marty's TV in 2015? 

It was a gigantic flat screen and was equipped to allow the viewer to watch multiple channels at once.  Looking at that picture, Marty's TV doesn't look that different from the one hanging on the wall in my own living room.  And, that feature which allowed phone calls to come over the TV?  

Well, we have FaceTime, Skype, and Google Hangout that we can access on our Smartphones and laptops.

2) How about those goofy looking glasses that Marty's kids wore?  

I'm not sure what all they did, but I do remember them blinking when a call came in and they must've been equipped with caller ID because both kids knew that it was Needles calling and that the call was for their father.  Honestly, this is one of the things I never thought would be real because I thought they were really stupid looking.  Well, we may not have those exact glasses, but we do have Google Glass, which is really a more streamlined version.  It's still pretty goofy looking if you ask me!  LOL!

3) Our culture's obsession with personal electronics.  Remember this scene?

In all honesty, it's not much different that what a family mealtime might look like today.

Via

4) Miscellaneous/additional hits: a baseball team in Miami, sure they are called the Florida Marlins, but they are based in Miami; biometric identification (remember how the police identified Jennifer in the alley and how they had scanner things instead of doorknobs?); and our society's obsession with 3D effects (sure, there is no Jaws 19 - thank goodness - but we love our 3D movies and computer generated imagery).

THE MISSES
1) First off, where are the flying cars?

I honestly thought that by the time 2015 rolled around that I'd be driving a flying car.  Sure, cars are getting more advanced with hybrid technology, backup cameras, and technologies that will assist in parallel parking and alert you to vehicles in your blind spot.  But, our cars are not airborne.  Doc Brown said, "Where we're going, we don't need roads."  Well, Doc, let me tell ya, I still need I64 to get me to work and back everyday.  The rubber is still meeting the road in my 2015!  I will say this, if I had a flying car, I wouldn't complain about my commute nearly as much. Just think, one day my morning commute could look like this...

instead of this...

2) The clothes, lord have mercy the clothes... For the most part, I'm glad that the fashions depicted in Back to the Future 2 are still very much fiction.  Case in point:

Okay, okay...  I admit, some of our real 2015 fashions aren't much better...  LOL!

However, I will say that I wouldn't mind a pair of self-lacing sneakers and a automatically adjusting jacket because my sleeves are always a tad too long.

3)  The robot-manned Texaco station.  When I was a kid, growing up in rural West Virginia, I remember one or two gas stations that offered full service (where they would pump your gas and check your oil, etc. for you as you waited in your car).  I haven't seen a full service gas station in YEARS.  Self-service is the name of the game, today, baby.

4) Miscellaneous additional misses:  fax machines in every room of one's house, the abolishment of lawyers (LOL!), and the extraordinary accuracy of the weather service (LOL!).  

THE "WE'LL HAVE TO WAIT AND SEES:"
1) Levitating dog-walkers.  We already have drones, so this is definitely possible.  

2) Hoverboards.  From what I've read online, these are kind of in the works.

3) The Chicago Cubs winning the World Series.  As of the time of this writing, the Cubs are set to face off with the Mets for the National League pennant.  So, it's just too early to tell what will happen, but the Cubbies winning the World Series could potentially happen.  We'll just have to wait and see.  Go Cubs!  (Remember, I LOVE underdogs and the Cubs have been underdogs for a loooong time!)

Via

Happy Back to the Future Day to you!  GO CUBS!  Thanks for stopping by!