Not As Good As The Book

Called into life comes a man knuckled down, broken in, but already working

Slightly bemused by the new world he finds himself in

Adapting his thoughts to environments strange and bizarre,

He never thought to encounter,

Running his fingers through things he once read of in books

And all of it seems so unclear

It's not the future he once held so dear

But there's always tomorrow, always today

There's always something in the way

He grew up with Eagle — computers that plotted his courses to far distant planets

But ended up in a grey office suite, with Excel

Now he finds routes to the goals of his peers

And the vast empty space of their pockets

Crossing the vacuum that lies between sci-fi and hell

And all of it just seems so drear

It's not the future we once held so dear

But there's always tomorrow, always today

(The future never looks

There's always something in the way

(Like It reads in the books)

And is this the dream I had as a child?

To see moons from whatever side...

Exploring space with flashing lights

To ride in the pod at Virgil's right

To boldly go where no man went before

To take chicks along just to settle the score

I smile and press the key

And see Uncle Microsoft smiling right back at me

If I could take on those adventures

Have I reached the point where I'd rather stay at home?

And is the comfort of the slippers worth trading

For an evening in the Federation Neutral Zone?

It's half past nine on Tuesday morning

And still nobody's landed yet on Mars

But if I get my quota finished there might be time

For a swift half in the bar

What happened to me?

Was it a turning that I took?

What happened to the future?

It's not as good as the book.

They went to space in an old tin of beans haphazardly strapped to a firework,

With less than a ZX81 to direct them back home...

We sit here with Gigs (abytes) and just twiddle our thumbs,

While personalising our desktops

Raising the firewalls and hoping the heatshields can hold

I watched Buzz Aldrin step out of the tin, to the Moon and start his adventure

That seems to end here with a nice coloured “skin” for my phone

I see those steps through a digital stream and a mass of hot burning plasma

Neatly wrapped up on a 50 inch screen in my home

And though the pictures aren't clear

There's so much more there than I'm wanting here

And there's always tomorrow, always today

(The future never looks

There's always something in the way.

(Like It reads in the books)