It occurs to me that sushi bars and sushi available for take-out in grocery stores is a pretty new phenomena - back in the 1970’s sushi was extremely exotic and I doubt anyone would foresee it becoming popular or trendy.
I used to eat at sushi bars regularly in the San Jose (California) area in the late 70s.
OK. Outside of California it was exotic. Seriously, you NEVER saw them in them Midwest in the 1970’s, or even 80’s. Now they’re all over.
Show them the KISS discography and prove to them how much KISS ROCKS for 35 years and counting.
And take in every show they can (could? I suck at verb tense when talking time travel). Even if all their albums aren’t great, the live shows were a whole different experience. Tell me I’m wrong*
Seriously - I always knew KISS rocked, but even my young stupid butt could tell there was something about Gene Simmons. Looking at him now, he is easily the King of Marketing and Logo placement, eh?
*Tell me I’m wrong and you earn a swift size 12 to your twig and berries.
I have one and I am still impressed every time I sit in front of it. I is so not like the first computers I used (amber and black screen, text only).
How about the PRICES of computers. If I’m recalling correctly, up through maybe 1990, you could pretty much expect to pay around $2000 for a computer. You can now buy a portable computer, that does more then those ever did, for about $200. Computers are getting close to disposable. It hardly makes sense to repair them.
Take them to see MAMMA MIA! A musical based on the songs of ABBA? Please…
Regarding: prices of computers…
According to the October 1983 issue of Computing Now! magazine, an S-100-based system WITHOUT power supply, keyboard, or monitor coast $999 Canadian. This is a Z-80-based pre-Apple-II system with 64k of RAM.
An Apple-II-compatible system was somewhat cheaper.
16k of memory for the Apple II was $55. At those prices, 1 gig of memory would be over 3 million dollars. I can get a 1-gig memory module for my computer for $59.00.
Furthermore, I have read that because of inflation and all, you can basically double early-eighties prices to get comparable prices in today’s dollars.
A Sinclair ZX81 was still $59.95, though. 
But the dream computer, the loaded one you want to get but can’t afford, is always around $5000. These days, that’s something like an Alienware PC or a Mac Pro.
How about the Channel Tunnel?
I show them a picture of the president and say see we elected Alfred E. Neuman.
How about the bridge that connects Sweden and Denmark? Now THAT’S impressive.
I take them out to a cabin in the woods and spend three days with them in a non-stop orgy of sex, alcohol and drugs.
I mean, it doesn’t have anything to do with technology, but it would definitely impress them.
I would show them the Tesla (assuming I could find one to show them, that is). All electric, 0-60 in 3.9 seconds, 256 mpg equivalent, and one of the most gorgeous things on the road.
We’re dealing with someone from the 70s here. You don’t really think it would be their first three day non-stop orgy of sex, alcohol and drugs, do you?
I’m surprised no one has mentioned ATMs. It still amazes me that I can walk up to a machine just about anywhere in the world, put in my card, type a password, and receive the local currency. Furthermore, if they don’t speak my language, I can start by selecting the British flag to get instructions in English. Nicely shows off the power of computers and networks.
I remember bringing traveler’s checks to when traveling internationally in the early 80’s. Converting money to local currency was always a project.
How old is our traveler from '78? I was 5 years old in '78, I’ll assume our traveler is at least 20 years old, which would mean that she would remember the moon landing in '69. I would point out that launching gigantic spacecraft into orbit has become so commonplace that no one seems to even care anymore when something or someone gets shot into space anymore.
Most of the cars in '78, at least American cars, had been thoroughly pussified. I would show her the Corvette, Viper, Mustang, etc. Hell, I would show her the Honda Accord, which in some iterations has a faster 0-60 time than some classic American musclecars.
I would show her Jurassic Park and tell her that, believe it or not, real dinosaurs were used to make the movie.
I would watch Videodrome with her and explain that the movie missed the mark only in the sense that it didn’t predict even greater levels of human depravity, as evidenced by torture porn (viewings of Hostel and Ichi the Killer to follow).
I would have her read a few choice selections from Jack Ketchum.
I’d have her spend some time looking at lolcats on icanhascheezburger.com and also check out Fark.com.
I’d tell her that things have gotten more comfortable even as they’ve gotten worse, and the main job of the government seems to be to keep people fat and happy as much as possible and not to look after their best interests. Then I’d go into a long and boring rant and she’d fidget a bit, uncomfortable at the shift in my tone. I’d criticize the Republicans for dragging their feet in the face of changing times and I’d criticize the Democrats for aiming for the least common denominator. I’d spew angry words about how dependence is the new standard for living, dependence on oil, dependence on government, dependence on medication, dependence on the legal system, dependence on entertainment, dependence on corporations…and at that point, with her eyes rolling up into her head, she would ditch me and seek out someone less cynical, by which I mean, someone with blinders on because THE MAN IS REAL AND HE’S OUT TO GET YOU AND I-
Oops. Sorry. Tinfoil hat slipped off for a moment.
You must be one of those people who think their generation invented sex - when mine actually did. We didn’t have AIDS to worry about, remember. As for drugs, when I was in college the Cambridge police came and told us that the only college student busted for pot was a guy growing pot plants in a window overlooking the police station, and that was just insulting.
But perhaps I’m reading you wrong, and you actually meant you wanted to take lessons from our time traveler.
Yeah…y’all just spread it, like the theater audience in Outbreak. And you wonder why the younger generations don’t care about making sure social security’s going to be there for ya? :mad:
“Impress.” The thread title was “How do you impress your time-traveling visitor from 1978.” Not “How do you convince your time-traveling visitor from 1978 that we’ve all become morons.”