I’d do that, you may be giving yourself the winning lottery numbers
I started writing a short story based on this scenario last night, I’m thinking it might make a decent screenplay if I can flesh it out.
davidm, please post any further oddities that arise. Also, who should play you in the movie?
Okay, we could get my friend Behrouz to play davidm, becuase he’s smart and darkly-handsome and works as a laser-physics researcher and has enough wits not to be eaten by the Interdimensional Horror that Future You is calling to warn us about.
We need a love interest, though. I vote for Aishwarya Rai. 
Mmmmm, RRRROWWWR! 
[penguin]“Doo-bee-doo-bee-doo”[/penguin]
Good point, it will never make Hollywood (or Bollywood) without a love interest
It’s possible that Caller ID data (the phone number that originated the call) got swapped with Dialed Number Identification String (DNIS) data (the phone number the other person dialed - your number). Happens to the voice response system I work on all the time. If you end up talking to a phone tech about this, they may refer to “ANI” - that’s “Automatic Number Identification”, a buzzword for Caller ID.
Faking out Caller ID is not always a bad thing. For example, if I make a call from Very Big Company, it’s useful if the Caller ID shows the Very Big Company main number instead of my desk extension.
In any case, take the call. If it’s my mundane explanation, you’ll find out whose Caller ID data is getting flipped. (It can happen on a phone number basis.)
If it’s you calling from the future - get the lottery numbers!
If it’s heavy breathing, GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!
Or give 'em your credit card number - heavy breathing is $7.95 a minute 
No, no! That’s backwards! If it’s heavy breathing, get the heavy breather’s credit card number and charge $7.95/minute. You are, after all, providing a valuable service to him/her/em/it.
Definitely, and I’ll play myself.
What, you work as a laser-physics researcher?
We need a laser-physics researcher.
Hey, if you want material I want a cut!
Will you settle for a software engineer with a Comp-Sci degree?
I’m not sure if that counts as faking out caller ID. In any case, in some instances it can be a VERY bad thing. If, for example, a bank relies on it to know that it is you that are calling. If it’s possible to fake it then it will be abused and it will be abused for criminal purposes. It shouldn’t be possible unless
[ul]
[li]You’re a company with a legitimate purpose[/li][li]You’ve arranged it through your phone company.[/li][li]You are not using it to mislead people.[/li][/ul]
I don’t know. Can you assume a pose like this? Or this?
Also, do you speak Persian or Swahili? Um… no reason.
Was this an oblique reference to the Harlan Ellison story Shatterday? (The first thing the thread title made me think of.)
I’d love to say “yes” and have you be impressed with my erudition, but I’ve never read that story. So the idea has been done, but without the love interest, my story still has a chance.
I don’t know what story August West was thinking of, if any, but that could be a reference to any number of movies or stories. It could even be a reference to a recent South Park episode.
Make sure you answer it! It could be a warning from the future.
Reminds me of a passage from a favourite book where a man sitting in a cafe sees himself run past the window. He decides to go out and give chase only to end up running past the same window (and the cycle repeats)