No need for the switch, both the train and plane freeze.
No, they would freeze mid-step.
Continues. No stumbling.
Ok, I had not thought of this. Let’s say the beverage remains hot.
Nope, freezes.
No. You are committed to your Wednesday (for example) activity for 52 Wednesdays, until you re-up.
I guess the bottom line is this: Nobody who has been frozen (which is actually everybody except you) will know that the world has stopped for an hour. Everything goes on as before (this is what guided my hot or cold espresso answer). Unless, of course, you do something to change that.
So, if you decide to play a prank on someone every Friday at 7 am, Louise may come out of her frozen state to find her shoes are on the wrong feet, but she will have no idea how that happened. She certainly will not know that time had stopped for an hour.
mmm
ETA: OK, now I’m considering changing one of my days to Play a Harmless Prank day. I’d love to see the look on Louise’s face when she starts feeling her toes pinching.
Monday - Snoop on Capital Hill*
Tuesday - Leave notes for politicians**
Wednesday - Online learning
Thursday - “Shopping” in New York***
Friday - “Shopping” in New York***
Saturday - Check on _____ and do something kind for her.****
Sunday - Check on _____ and do something mean to him.****
.* It’s actually not a whole lot of time to do this. But I do think there may be some things I want to find out before my next day’s activities.
**The politicians whose behavior I’d most like to modify tend to be quite superstitious people. I think suddenly finding a well-written note in his/her hand might move the needle here and there and affect a few important tipping points.
***I figure I need a really big city, far from where I live but easy to get to. A place where the pain would be well spread out if I get an item here and there, but I can still go home with everything that I might need.
That is a mighty djinn that can stop radiation and suspend the momentum of masses! I am not sure I would like to mess with it, but am still tempted to ask: suppose I choose reading for mondays, so come the scheduled time, I take a book and… don’t read. I just stare at the page number, or count the number of vowels starting at the bottom. What will the djinn do? Same if I choose “taking a walk” but just stay at home for the hour, looking out the window.
Another thing: Objects freeze, then resume their movement after an hour. Granting that the air around us is an object but lets me through nonetheless as I could not breathe otherwise: what happens when it rains? If the raindrops freeze mid-air, can I walk through them or will I get pierced? If I walk through them: will there be a “tunnel” in the floating rain with my silhouette as boundary?
I guess we should say you can perform your chosen activity or do nothing at all - sit quietly, perhaps daydream or meditate if you like. But no picking up a book on Prank Day; no learning French on Practicing Horseshoes Day.
If you break this rule you get a Mod Note. Break it a second time, that’s a warning. Third time means you lose your hour until December 31, at which point you get a clean slate.
I think you would brush away the frozen raindrops as you walk through them and there would be a tunnel of space - minus rain drops - where you walked. This would be consistent with the idea that anything you disturb remains disturbed.
Oh yeah, sorry about the birds not chirping. They’ll be back in less than an hour.
How much wiggle room is there? For example, you said you don’t have to play the same thing every time on the piano, so obviously there is some. But suppose on piano day you say: I don’t feel like playing today, I think I’ll rob a bank instead?
To whom do you have to report your selection? And who enforces it?
Is there some sort of meta-temporal supercop in charge of this?
And now that opens the can of questions: why is this happening? Is it the result of
a supernatural entity?
backwash from the quantum drive of an alien spaceship passing by? or
we are actually in a simulation and there is a bug in the code?
or…?
I’m one of those irritating people who want my fantasy & SF to be at least logically consistent…
OK, fine, if I don’t have to do it, but can daydream the hour away, I would schedule it like this:
Monday, 17:00 - 18:00: murder
Tuesday, 17:00 - 18:00: nosing around forbidden places (archives, firms, the Chancellery…) with a camera
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, 17:00 - 18:00: shop lifting & stealing
Saturday 17:00 - 18:00: pranks and dadaistic happenings
Sunday: 17:00 - 18:00: graffiti, including in the most well secured venues.
I would drive to the place in question and park the car any way I want very close by at 16:59:55, open the trunk, and go about my business. Come back at 17:59:00 at the latest, close the trunk and drive away insconspicuously at the strike of 18:00. Of course I would need a reliable watch that does not freeze.
I still believe the premises are not thought through, as some objects, like the air, are treated differently from others, like the rain in the air. But I can live with that.
Monday: Craft/art/making things
Tuesday: Reading
Wednesday: Household maintenance (cleaning, filing, bill paying, etc.)
Thursday: Language study
Friday: Reading
Saturday: Reading
Sunday: Music
Chosen time: 8 pm
While it’s fun to fantasize using my hour for mischief or superhero-type antics I know I’m not that person.
I’m a little worried about a “Monkey’s Paw” effect, where my seemingly innocent desires/activities invariably lead to a bad outcome, so I’d probably use 3-1/2 hours to read and 3-1/2 hours on musical instrument learning.
However, I’d be strongly tempted to devote a day each week to messing with Trump. Assuming the Magic Genie running this operation requires greater specificity, I guess I’d say “make it appear that someone who works for Trump has screwed up royally” so that his circle of flunkies dwindled to zero as he fired each one during the inevitable temper tantrums he would have.
Don’t even try that, buster; it’ll get you, at the very least, a mod note.
You first post your choices in this thread. Then, on New Year’s Eve, you write them down on a Post-It note, fold it in two, and wear it in your underwear for one week.
