A Brave New World

Given the content of last night's debates I've been thinking about all the things that will have changed in the world between the course of my childhood and when my daughter will be born.

Namely, I was thinking about Big Bird getting the boot from PBS if Romney wins the election..

But there's already so many things that at one time were novel for me, but for her -- they'll just have always been in existence.  Like how grandparents have always been at least in their 50's.

There's an excellent list put out every year by Beloit College that captures a bit of the mindset of each incoming freshman class.  The kids how entered college this year won't graduate until 2016.  Which sounds like a date out of a Bradbury novel.

For our little girl there are all sorts of things that will be perfectly normal:

• Obama will have been president and it won't have been a big deal that he got elected in the first place.
• Blue M&Ms will always have been in the bag.  And there will never have been tan ones.
• You can always fast-forward through commercials when you use your DVR.
• She'll never have to be kind and rewind.
• Her parents will have always been on Facebook.
• So will at least 1 Billion other people.
• Televisions will have always been available in a flat format.
• No one will have been able to smoke at the mall or in local bars.
• You'll never have to dial up into the internet.
• Encyclopedias on a shelf will be a relic.
• When Marty McFly shows up on his hoverboard, she'll be three years old.
• Video games will have always been rendered in 128 bits.
• People always will have carried cellular phones.
• No one will use the term "cellular phones."
• "Web Logs" will have always been blogs and "Electronic Mail" will have always been just email.
• That funny floppy disk icon you click to save your document will always just be a funny looking blue square and not something she ever saved a term paper on.
• Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Dick Clark will have always been dead.
• Vampires will have always sparkled.
• Hot Pockets will not be a novel concept.  But will still be like ingesting molten lava because the bright minds at Hot Pockets, LLC have not come up with a way to help us figure out when the middle isn't a block of ice and yet not so hot to scorch a hole in your tongue.
• Everyone will always know whether Severus Snape was really good or evil.
• "i"s will always be associated with phones, pads and pods.
•  You won't have to memorize anything with Google at your fingertips at all times.
• Scrunchies, slap bracelets, and Zubaz pants will be something she never wore, let alone sees in her lifetime.
• Pogs will just be funny, ridiculously small coasters.
• There will always have been 649 total Pokemon, as opposed to the original 151.
• The story of how Darth Vader became evil will always have preceded how his son came to deny the Dark Side.
• Her dad will have always been a geek.