So I was doing some spring cleaning and I found this time machine hidden in the attic. Liking all my fellow Dopers as much as I do, I have decided to let all of you be the first to use it. You can go any place at any time you want.
There is only two problems : One, for some reason the machine only allows one person to go at a time - and for only one hour. After 60 minutes it brings you back to this present. Secondly, I want to share this with the world, so you only get one trip.
Now then, who is going where . . . and when ?
(Wally, if you think me up a cool sig I will consider letting you go twice. )
I want to go back to November 22, 1963 in Dallas, I want to stand in the plaza and finally figure out what the fuck happened there. I want to take at least one digital camcorder, too. (Can I take anything with me? Or is this like ‘Terminator’ where you have to travel naked?)
You’d think that Superman would be a good person to invite to a barbecue but trust me, he’s not. I mean, sure he can cook the hot dogs fast with his heat vision, but they all taste of charred eye boogers.
I’d travel to Berlin. There was a nearly-sucessful attempt to assasinate Hilter by some of his underlings that backfired. I would make sure he blew up. Blew up good and dead. Save a couple million people killed in the death camps (not just Jews, remember, disabled, intellectuals, etc.) not to mention everyone killed in WWII battles.
A little persistance goes a long way. Announcing:
“I go on guilt trips a couple of time a year. Mom books them for me.” A custom made Wally .sig!
I think it might be interesting to go back about an hour and a half before the Titanic was completely submerged. Since I knew my time there would be short, I would be written into the history books as “The guy who was as cool as a cucumber in the face of certain death.” I think I would try to lighten the mood by maybe telling some jokes up on deck.
Dudes, I’m thinking it would be a very bad idea to change history. You have no idea how what you do will affect the future. Hell, you might end up never-existing yourself.
Anywho, I’d go into the future and get all sorts of future tech like the cure for cancer and/or the secret to fusion power and/or any other really techy tech and bring it back. Not only will I be able to save thousands of lives and make a lot of money on the patents, but there’s no way I could invalidate my own existence.
I’d go back to January 12, 1934, and make sure FDR wasn’t assassinated, thereby causing that horrible war between the U.S., England and France. Maybe then England and France wouldn’t have sided with Germany in WWII and the Axis wouldn’t have won the war . . .
Watched a show on HBO recently about the old ABA (American Basketball Association). Bob Costas, who worked as a PR guy for one the really atrocious temas in a league full of atrocious teams, tells the story of passing out the itenerary to the team and a player, seeing that the team is leaving NY at 7:00 pm and getting in the next city at 6:00 pm (allowing for the time zone change), calling him over and saying, “Listen man, I don’t know about you, but I’m not getting in any time machine.”
inertia has a good point about changing the future too much. Therein lies great danger, tempting though it would be. I would choose it for myself, though.
I would go back to a certain night in December '78, and finish that evening differently…
'Fonly I could relive that night…
You are more than a human being, you are a human becoming.
Og Mandino
That’s my name, not a description. I am neither purple nor a bear. Okay, so I’m purple.<a true Wally original!>
For the record, I never said I would change anything; I just want to put to rest all the theories about who shot JFK, and maybe get a little better footage than Abe Zapruder.
Although, Eve, it’s a good thing you did what you did re: the FDR plot; I understand that if you hadn’t then your parents wouldn’t have met and you wouldn’t be here to go back and prevent the assasination.
Right?
You’d think that Superman would be a good person to invite to a barbecue but trust me, he’s not. I mean, sure he can cook the hot dogs fast with his heat vision, but they all taste of charred eye boogers.
Alright, you guys are right. Saving a hundred million people might upset the natural order of things. Soooo…
I’d memorize the stock fluctuations for the last year. Then I’d go back in time, and buy, buy, buy! My friend, known to the NYC Dopers as CrabbyRiddles, just told me that her rich grandparents set up a portfolio for herself and her brother for $10,000 8 years ago. CrabbyRiddles and BrotherOfCrabbyRiddles took a class at Smith Barney and took over the stock themselves. CrabbyRiddles’s cut ALONE is worth over 1.8 mill at this point.
I have 78 cents and a tube of chapstick in my pocket. She has 1.8+ Million in stock. Feh.
A little persistance goes a long way. Announcing:
“I go on guilt trips a couple of time a year. Mom books them for me.” A custom made Wally .sig!
I know this is going to sound kind of stupid, but I’d go back to 1966 and tell the woman who gave birth to me not to worry, to be happy, and that I will end up just fine, happy, loved, etc. And thank her for the choice she made. (I was adopted.)
I would go back to the formation of the universe, take pictures, and show it to all of the Creationist jerks with a smug look on my face as I say, “Why yes, in fact, I WAS THERE!”
Bringing back that evidence would change history, only in ways you couldn’t imagine. You may end up like that guy in the Bradbury story that returns to an altered present because he stepped on a flower in the jurrasic hunting park. Your campera would probably be confiscated in Dealy Plaza but even if you kept the tape you’d get back to find that the illuminati covertly altered product development at Sony so that the digital tape you brought back is unplayable.
I’m NOT a crackpot, just help me put tinfoil in my hat.
One smallpox vaccine, cholera vaccine, tetnus booster, and sunscreen application later…
1778 - the Battle of Monmouth. General Charles Lee unexpectedly retreats Patriot troops from their attack position on the rear of the British line. General Washington rides up to Lee and demands that he explain himself, Lee equivocates, they argue, and Washington (supposedly) explodes, swears with “charming” quantity and variety, and strips Lee of his command. The battle was a draw, the later Court-Martial was somewhat inconclusive, and Lee and Washington had been arguing for some time before.
So, could the battle have been won? Was it Lee’s fault it was a draw? Was Washington unfair to Lee (who claimed he was only withdrawing to a more tenible position?) Or was Lee (possibly consciously) trying to sabotage a plan that he did not like, for a cause he was questionably committed to.
No, I probably couldn’t get all of this in an hour. But I could write down all of Washington’s profanities. And ask Alexander Hamilton exactly when he was born. And ask Col. John Laurens exactly what the “early wound he received” was that Hamilton’s son referred to in an early draft of his father’s biography (sorry for that tortured sentance.)
Oh, I’d need a bottle of water and a large-brimmed hat. It was one of the hottest days of the year.
I’ll hang around outside the Continental Congress in 1776 with all the other groupies and try to get a Button Gwinnett autograph.
Or maybe visit Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Anne Boleyn, Marie Antoinette, an 18-year-old Norma Jean Baker, and try out my cool new come-on line:
“Hi, I’m Future Boy, also known at the Sixty Minute Man! And I’m here to give you fifteen minutes of kissin’ (and then you’ll holler Please don’t stop!)…fifteen minutes of squeezin’, fifteen minutes of teasin’, and fifteen minutes of blowin’ my top!”
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