Science fiction is a ripoff. I want the future I was promised, dammit!

Where are jet packs and teleportation devices? Gleaming Art Deco time machines? Flying DeLoreans?

Futuristic predictions from my youth feel like a cruel hoax. The Internet has been around since the 1970s, and yet I can still only interact with Google via keyboard and mouse. Where’s my neural jack? Since the late nineties I’ve faithfully kept the back of my neck shaved and pristine and ready to be fitted with a socket. Plug me in, already. I want to know Kung Fu.

Sigh. Massively disappointing. Hey scientists, can I at least get a laser gun, for Christ sake? Just once I’d like to yank a sleek, menacing firearm out of my jumpsuit and set it to “stun.”

Lasers are by far the number one sci-fi letdown. They were supposed to be everywhere by now, bursting willy nilly from ray guns, helping burglars carve into bank vaults. What did we get instead? The laser pointer. A high-tech tool for amusing your cat.

All of the cryptic deadlines offered by science fiction have passed without incident. 1984 was uneventful. 2010 was space odyssey free. Here it is 2011, and I’ve yet to engage Warp Drive or fire a phaser beam. (Beams are almost as big a disappointment as lasers. Tractor beams, particle beams—these were sci fi staples. And yet science has developed, to my knowledge, no useful beams of any kind.)

When are the machines going to rebel? Bracing for a computer uprising has always been the cornerstone of my future-preparedness plan. Every few minutes I peer suspiciously at my laptop, primed for battle, alert for the slightest indication of imminent sentience. Bring it on, you binary bitch. So far: nada. Not a twitch.

But I’m not giving up my dream of a dystopian future chock full of deliciously advanced and nefarious technology. I’m keeping the faith. I invested too much of my childhood in these fantasies to let go without a fight.

The machines will rise, some day. Big Brother will be watching. And I’ll be ready.

Sickness is the great equalizer. Regardless of how fit or health-conscious you are, at some point a flu virus is going to come along and knock you on your toned ass.

We all benefit from getting bitch-slapped by illness every now and then. It’s a humbling experience. You know what’s stronger and more vicious than even the most hardcore MMA fighter? A microscopic, brainless organism with no discernible motive except to propagate and then move on.

A virus doesn’t actually care about hurting you, which might be the ultimate indignity. It’s just passing through. Whipping your butt is practically an afterthought.

I’m a bonafide pussy when it comes to the flu. As soon as my internal temperature climbs past 98.7, I curl up in the fetal position and start dictating my last will and testament to anyone naive enough to come within whining-range. Some people suffer the flu in silence; props to them. I’m a moaner.

I just figure, why bother to play tough? There’s no dignity in sickness. I don’t care how suave you are, everyone looks and feels equally horrid under the influence of influenza. Eyes weeping, nose running, wracked with fever and cough. When it comes to sickness, there’s no difference between Brad Pitt and Danny Devito. In fact, if you happen to suffer from narcissism, sickness is the ultimate cure. Try to scam on chicks while leaking snot-trails from both nostrils, Romeo.

Humans like to think we’re the top of the food chain, but it’s hard to sustain that type of conceit while being trounced by a microbe. So if you happen to find yourself feeling excessively cocky within the next few days, just swing by my place. I’ll be happy to sneeze on you for a nominal fee. Therapy via intentional infection. And please accept my apologies in advance for all the moaning.

I heart pop music. The bouncier, sappier, and catchier the better. Give me a three-note chorus that gets lodged in my head for months (preferably squawked by some autotuned, prematurely-sexualized teen girl) and I’m a happy man. 

I might not seem like the typical Miley Cyrus fan, but the truth is that there’s very little correlation between temperament and musical preference. I’ve met businessmen who listen to rap and thugs who enjoy classical. Personally, I like to carjack to the musical stylings of Sugarland and make sweet sweet love while enjoying the romantic strains of DMX. So there’s no accounting for taste. 

But some people haven’t moved past the high school mentality.  Back in high school, if you listened to country music you were branded a hick; if you listened to hip-hop you were a B-Boy, etc. Music wasn’t just entertainment, it was identity. 

Silliness. It’s not like we have to ration genres. If a guy in California claims both reggae and metal, some Nigerian child isn’t stuck with Tibetan-bluegrass fusion by default. 

It’s time to accept the idea that diversity is A ok, and that musical taste is subjective. If you don’t like tween-pop, fine. Just keep your fool mouth shut while I’m rocking “Party in the USA.” And look, I don’t want to hear about how music was more authentic in the late 60s, or that you think Madonna is a sellout. You’re a tool. Now please go away so I can Vogue in peace.

In this era of the mp3 player and the Internet, we have millions of songs and dozens of genres literally at our fingertips 24/7. There’s no reason to limit your musical intake, or to define yourself via a single style. Case in point: my iPod is schizophrenic. Heavy metal, pop, country, mashups, perpetually on shuffle. 

So keep your opinions to yourself, music Nazis. The days of musical purism are over. Good riddance.

A single-woman’s bathroom is like a mad scientist’s laboratory. Vials of multicolored liquid, tubes oozing noxious pastes, beakers boiling with steam. I’m reluctant to open cupboards out of fear that I’ll unwittingly infect myself with ebola or uncover W.M.Ds.

Every girl I’ve dated could potentially be a terrorist. Truth. There are enough volatile chemicals in the typical woman’s personal-care arsenal to take out a small town. I’m convinced that any mid-level Al Qaeda operative would be able to whip up Anthrax from female hair products alone.

Then again, maybe I’m generalizing. Perhaps this bathroom-cum-weapons-lab situation is unique to my exes. After all, for some unfathomable reason the type of girls who are attracted to me tend to be somewhat…unstable. (Shut it. Unfathomable!)

Which isn’t to imply that any of my exes actually are terrorists. But lets just say that if a bomb ever goes off near ESPN headquarters, I’ll have my suspicions…