I remember one day when I was about 11 years old telling my friends that when I grew up I'd have my very own film blog. My playmates, who wanted to be baseball players, or astronauts or firemen, looked at me quizzically and asked: "what's a blog?"
I patiently explained that blog was short for weblog and that a blog was where people wrote about whatever they wanted to and people all over the world could read it.
"You mean like reading a book?" Mark asked once.
"Of course that's what he means," Mike chimed in. "He thinks he's going to be an author."
"You don't understand," I replied. "This won't be a book, it'll be something I can update every day or once a week or however often I want to."
Mark said to everyone: "Richard wants to write for a newspaper."
Dennis disagreed. "Sounds more like a magazine to me."
"You're both wrong. My writings will be on a computer."
Mark was getting annoyed. "You're putting us on. Or do you seriously think that NASA will let you write all over their computers."
"You don't understand, everyone will have a computer," I explained.
"Oh right," said Dennis sarcastically. "Everyone is going to have a big ole computer in their house...."
"And Richard's going to walk into their houses and write all over them," Mark added with a laugh.
"No, you guys listen. In the future you can write stuff using your computer and it will appear on other people's computers."
Everyone was silent now, though there was both literal and figurative rolling of eyes. Finally Mark asked me to explain how I could write something on my "magic computer" and it would appear on everyone else's computer.
"It wouldn't automatically appear, people would have to access my blog by clicking on a link. If they don't know the link they can google me or my site."
My three friends sat utterly dumbfounded. Their blank expressions suggested to me that I'd totally lost them. Finally Mark asked: "What the hell are you talking about?"
"He's just making stuff up," opined Dennis.
I told everyone that someday computers would be small enough to fit on a table, even on laps and that those kind would even be referred to as laptops. I said you'd even be able to have a computer in your phone.
"Phones will have computers attached to them?" Dennis asked incredulously.
"You'll even be able to carry your phone with you when you leave the house and take pictures with it." I said with growing enthusiasm.
"Let me get this straight," Mike said. "People will be walking around with phones that have cameras attached to them. That means that in the future there'll be some really long extension cords."
"Yeah and people will be tripping over each other's cords," laughed Dennis.
"And what idiot wants a phone stuck on their camera!" Mark exclaimed with a laugh.
"No, listen," I said. "Phones won't have cords and they'll be small enough to fit in your pocket."
My three friends burst into laughter. Dennis said, "I guess people will have really big pockets in the future." The three started another round of guffaws.
My patience with these hyenas had worn out. I decided to go home. But before leaving the group I said: "Just for that I'm not going to tell you how in the future you'll be able to watch movies that are stored on little discs."
As I walked away I heard Mark bellow, "what an imagination!"
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