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And dammit, it worked. But with our hands greased by impotent political rhetoric, public apathy and the hegemonic influence of the banking sector, the chance slipped through our fingers. The popular press excitably proclaimed that humanity was on the cusp of discovering the unifying theory of everything ever in the history of everything (ever), while doomsaying nutjobs predicted that we were about to be sucked into a black hole of our own making. Instead, we allowed the bankers to go about their greedy business, risking global economic security in the ceaseless pursuit of growth and profits.knowyourmoney. No contact with alien life forms: Seriously, this is getting boring (2000 onwards) We know you’re out there you little green bastards. Security flaws, hardware compatibility problems, draconian digital rights management – the list goes on and on (and it does, at length, on the Wikipedia page entitled “Criticisms of Windows Vista”. Or maybe not? Rumour has it that DNF is still on the cards. 9. Clarke look like a right dick. During the 1990s, however, he completed his journey to the Dark Side by single-handedly engineering 20th century cinema’s most gut-wrenching disappointment: The Phantom Menace. To use Homer Simpson’s neologism, the economic crash was a quintessential “crisitunity”. “Finally,” I thought, “the world has accepted that our global economy is a ridiculous sham, our benevolent leaders will surely rip it down and in its place we shall build a progressive, sustainable and just system ushering in an era of peace and harmony that will last for aeons”. You better show up next year with a good excuse and some sweet gadgets or you’ll make Arthur C. The Y2K Bug: Crappest techno-crisis ever (1st January 2000) The disappointments started early this decade. This time, however, with us footing the bill.There have been some amazing, life-affirming occurrences over the last ten years. Instead we got the useless Dollhouse.co. A simple “hello” would have sufficed. And you don’t even have the decency to turn up. That’s how long we’ve been waiting for the triumphant return of the wise-cracking, decidedly non-PC video game action hero. It provided a real opportunity for genuine change. Plus I had a massive stack of unread books to catch up on.) However, the most disappointing thing about Windows Vista was that it justified the annoying self-satisfaction of Apple Mac owners, making them infinitely more irritating and punchable. We could have slapped the smug look from the bankers’ jowls and told them stick their damned derivatives and reckless greed. As media scaremongers counted down to the apocalyptic ’00 switchover, the Millenium Bug hype ramped up considerably and, as I remember it, people began stockpiling tins of analogue food and steam-powered hair straighteners in a desperate bid to stave off the annihilation of civilisation. 8. For years there had been rumblings about an impending IT meltdown due to the widespread (and rather short-sighted) abbreviation of years into two digits. The LHC looked like a Bond villain’s lair for Christ’s sake. Therefore, in order to justify the staggering costs, and to let us simple folk in on the whole thing, they cranked up the media buzz generator. Vote for a fool twice, umm… everyone… everyone will be really, really disappointed. You may wonder what on earth they were using to develop this game. But while most were pointless, cynical continuations of past-their-prime or previously-concluded franchises (see number 8), the Matrix sequels were of a much more disappointing nature. I mean th valid work from home
e Democratic candidate… umm… hold on… John Kerry (I just Wikipedia’d it), was hardly a memorable candidate. Duke Nukem Forever: Duke Nukem Never (2000 onwards) 13 years. Nuclear blast-proof fridges, long-lost son clichés and alien conspiracies: this was not the joyous, whip-cracking Indy of old, but a cynical, hackneyed, CGI-spattered sham. Here’s the most crushing letdowns of the decade… 10. But instead of delivering on this promise, the Wachowski’s blew it. But you don’t want to hear about those, do you? Thought not. Bush’s re-election: Rest of the world slaps forehead (November 2004) OK, vote-tampering aside, in some ways it almost made sense. Why do you hate us so much George? 7. That’s nearly three quarters of a decade of Cap’n Reynolds and crew’s wisecracks, bar brawls and bank robberies we missed out on. Time to let it go people… 5. But then they switched it on. Now, I’m no apocalypse-yearning Luddite, but I was looking forward to a little post-millennial excitement – maybe some light looting, or the eradication of global credit card data. Twice. But from every other logical (and illogical) standpoint it was utterly confounding. Embarrassment and disappointment soon followed. And there was no black hole, and no instantaneous scientific epiphanies, and our MTV-addled, instant-gratification-seeking brains just switched off. But not poor old Firefly, which ran for less than one of its intended seven years.uk/. Windows Vista: Bill Gates validates Mac owners’ smug faces (30th January 2007) The monolithic Microsoft Corporation has taken a lot of criticism over the years. 2. Article from: http://blog. All of which seemed fully justified after the release of their latest operating system which managed to be even crapper than the previous one. The Matrix sequels: The Wachoswkis disappear up their own rabbit holes (May/November 2003) Thanks to the deluge of dire movie sequels, cinema historians will look back on the Noughties as “The Decade That Imagination Forgot”. The first movie’s inventive action was replaced with tired and overblown CGI exercises; the playful deconstruction of notions of reality gave way to annoyingly oblique cod-philosophy and heavy-handed religious mysticism; and what did we get in place of the original’s effortless cool? That ridiculous rave scene. Here’s an idea for you: give up the covert cavity probing, grow some balls – or the extra-terrestrial anatomical equivalents – and stop disappointing everyone. After announcing the game way back in 1997, the developer, 3DRealms, subjected long-suffering fans to a hilariously protracted trickle of screenshots, rumours and bold proclamations of revolutionary content, with the odd teaser trailer thrown in to keep their increasingly tenuous hopes alive. Firefly gets cancelled: What a gorram disappointment (December 2002) Joss Whedon’s quietly awesome sci-fi series was doomed from the start when Fox TV’s executive idiots decided to air the initial episodes in the wrong order before unceremoniously cancelling it. The financial crisis aftermath: Time for a change? Erm… no (2007 onwards) When the financial crisis struck in the latter part of the decade, bombarded by grandstanding political bluster about economic reform, I found myself gripped by a fleeting moment of delusional optimism, during which I almost believed that our perfidious, vote-pandering leaders were actually capable of instigating tangible, positive change. It wasn’t necessarily up there with the best shows of the decade, but many lesser products have inexplicably clogged up our TVs season after season, year after year (*cough* Lost, *cough* Prison Break). Rubbish. It was an exciting time: absolutely baffling, yet pregnant with the wondrous possibilities of human endeavour. 4. And then it blew a fuse. The Antikythera mechanism? Windows Vista? However, such ponderings – amusing though they are – were rendered irrelevant in May of this