Indulge your fantasy

In My Humble Opinion
1

Admit it, you’ve all had the following fantasy, so let’s have a go with it:

Imagine getting into a time machine and traveling back in time, bringing with you a single technologically modern object. What object you would bring and to whom would you show it. The purpose of this trip is not to influence a historical outcome (caveat: they will come down with selective amnesia after you leave), but simply for the “wow” factor.

-I’d play Alexander the Great in Pac-man and beat him numerous times… (I think he’d pout).

-I’d stick a pair of iPod ear-buds in Ben Franklins ears and a play some loud hip-hop music…(I think he’d like it).

-As Ghengis khan pushed his men to sack the Kwarezm Empire, I’d rise an Apache Longbow helicopter from behind a tree-lined horizon, strafe the ground in front of him with 30MM ammo and hellfire missiles, then fly back behind enemy lines. (I can imagine he’d soon address his troops something like, “Whaddya say we just go back to China and kick their butts again?”)
…

2

The Wonderbra. I don’t know who I’d share it with… maybe Anne Boleyn.

3

LMHO*

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(*laughing my head off)
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4

I’d show Nikola Tesla a solar-powered hand-held calculator. Or I’d show Alexander the Great a modern world map labeled in Greek.

5

Middle ages or so…

A small solar powered calculator.

An off road motorcycle.

A disposible lighter.

A Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle.

6

Hope you dont want a long stay, you would be burned at the stake for witchcraft!

7

I’d take an electronic keyboard back and show it to Beethoven, a la Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

Or perhaps an electric guitar for Mozart. Something tells me he’d get the hang of it pretty quickly.

8

An I-pod or similar device, with copies of that artist’s music, while visiting any of a great many musicians who never got to experience their own music in a recorded form. Beethoven, even, if the volume could go loud enough for him to hear it. Or, the same music, to people such as Franklin, Edison, and “Eve, the proto-human”. Ya know, just to see if she liked it.

9

I’d go to the Sermon on the Mount…with a Fokker triplane. And strafe Jesus. So I could watch him flee in terror like Cary Grant in North by Northwest.

10

You know I’ve actually thought about this before. I’m thinking Beethoven would have the time of his life with one of those things. The look on his face would be worth the trip alone.

I’m not sure I’d have the heart to take it back though. Temporal paradox be damned! I’m let’n him keep it. :smiley:

11

Hard to top that one.

12

I think we deserve a couple extra rules:

  1. Whatever we bring back, we know how to operate
  2. We’ve got enough fuel/power to operate it for long enough for a demonstration.
  3. If it’s an item that works only in conjunction with another item, we get one full set that’s just big enough for a demonstration.
  4. We speak the local language.

That said, I’d take a videophone back and give Plato a ring.

Daniel

13

William Shakespeare, a portable DVD player, and a copy of that “Romeo and Juliet” with Leonardo diCaprio and Claire Danes.

Yeah, that’d be cool.

14

I think I’d take a 3.6-megaton strategic nuke to a mile or so from the base of Masada. Then I’d hire a Roman Legionnaire to put is finger on the “Go” button and yell, “Hey, y’all, watch this!!”

15

My first thought was Jesus and Fred Phelps’ website, but since it couldn’t influence history I don’t want to make Jesus sad. So I guess I’ll fall back on mitochondrial Eve and a Roomba. Just because.

16

My very thought

17

I’m bringing my modern…er… “bag of tricks”. And I will make Caligula blush.