Today is January 31st, 2064. I’ve never kept a diary before, so I’m not sure how to begin. My wife suggested I see if there is an app for that. There are 32 million apps for that. Since all of them have 3 star ratings, I select one at random called C’est Moi!

C’est Moi!: Mick Jr.

Occupation: Owner of Mick’s Macs & Son

Describe your work:

Well, it’s been 40 years since I took over Mick’s Macs & Son from my currently 102 year old founding father. It’s all I can do to keep him out of the shop. He still tries to upgrade nonexistent RAM in the holo-generators and reminds clients we do iPhone repairs. He seems oblivious to the fact that no one has even seen a phone in the past 20 years and kids today communicate entirely through avatars. He means well, but everyone just looks at him as if he’s crazy when he talks about how perfect everything was B.S.D. (Before Steve’s Death). From there he’ll preach about the lost skills of typing and literacy. I usually have the iBots gently guide him to the holo-room where the remastered Star Trek series will entertain him until nap time.

I’m currently fighting with VerizoSprinTMobiATT again about the $9000 bill last month. They’re always sneaking in an extra $950 for teleportation charges when they were supposed to be included in our grandfathered-in, unlimited data plan. I suppose I have my father to thank for that plan. He constantly reminds me, “I bought the very first iPhone on the very first day and knew, like Steve, this will change the world!” Certainly hasn’t changed the world of billing. Even Ezra, my iButler seemed “tired” after waiting on the iHolo for 6 hours before a Pixar generated Chihuahua (their new spokes-avatar) was able to clear things up. “Sparky,” the spokes-avatar, even had the gall to bark a couple of times, pull a desperately cute face and then ask if Ezra would take a customer satisfaction survey at the end of the session! I had to promise him extra time in the charging booth just to get him to make the call.

And what’s the deal with iBots today, anyway? Whose idea was it to give them artificial intelligence? Exposed to the entirety of the world’s knowledge and now they think love, the way it’s portrayed in the media, is real. So they programed themselves emotions. Great. It’s like a virus. They all act like mopey, angst ridden, sighing, high drama teenagers. I thought the whole point of robots was that you didn’t have to pay or persuade them to do the work you didn’t want to do. Now I have to barter with incentives every time I ask Ezra to recycle the e-waste, clean his solar panels, or simply pick up after himself. I’m so tired of having to ask every time.

Dear Diary, it's official.  I've now become my father…

Mick’s Macs & Son has gone to an all-iBot repair and service team now. With iBots growing in artificial emotional intelligence, the only issue is they tend to overempathize with clients. Had to rewire our lead field technician last week because he kept weeping uncontrollably and empathically panicking with the customers. That was not working.

The iBots talk a lot about resurrecting FaceBook, but I think it’s a lost cause. FaceBook collapsed 50 years ago when Zuckerberg, it’s founder, accidentally had his account shut down. He then proceeded to have a mid-life crises at age 30 and sold everyone’s information to China. By that time, everyone in world was friends with George Takei who 3 months later started GeorgeBook.

I suppose the biggest change for us was when Apple paid cash for all of it’s rivals. AppleSoftSamSunGooGle came into being about 30 years ago, or 23 A.S.D.. “ One World, One Company, One OS.” Today OSXXXII (code named “OS32”) runs on everything; cars, refrigerators, toilets, ponies, etc… The porn industry tried to sue for triple X patent infringement, but Apple’s lawyers won that one. Now we have overpriced intuitive design, a bloated, virus-ridden operating system, mass produced in Korea, with no humans running the show.

On the bright side, my Dad was ecstatic we finally got flying cars approved before he was too blind to drive. My mother convinced him to sell the Tesla Air Jordan 5000 last year when he backed into an Amazon aircraft drone carrier. The air traffic jams are such now that people prefer to drive the roads again.

Didn’t see that coming.

Drones, of course, are a total nuisance. The iBots hacked into a bunch and infected them with the now infamous Seagull Virus. These days they just swarm and drop blobs of spent fuel on people’s heads. Hunters are happy as the government has approved limited drone hunting season all year round.

Passwords are still the bane of post-modern society. As my Dad predicted, historians are linking them to the decline of Western civilization. Most of what we do here at Mick’s Macs & Son is to help people reset them. What’s left of the web after hackers and spammers mostly ruined it, requires 32,000 bit encryption. People use random password generators, ocular and brain scan identifiers, but they still forget their main password to these programs.

Here in Santa Barbara, CoxComCasVerizon is our sole internet provider. In the early days, we used to tell our clients that Cox was the lesser of evils when it came to high speed internet here in town.  Today they’re the only evil in the book. We mostly just shrug, empathize, and try to keep our iBots from yelling too much when they’re on the phone advocating for our clients.

My 9 year old son, Mick Jr. III, is showing some talent for the family business. Either that, or he’s hiding his MineCraft addiction like I used to. Hard to believe that game is still being played.

Well, dear diary, that’s all I can think of today. I do feel a little better for having shared here. My Dad’s calling from the holo-room and wants me to watch the latest Steve Jobs rumors holo. Apparently he appeared to a woman in Romania in a carrot cake. People still leave wreathes at the gates of JobsLand.

Don’t let the DroneGulls or forgotten passwords get you down. At Mick’s Macs & Son, we’re here to help!

All the best,

Mick Jr. II