Time Travel Now Possible - Make Your Reservations Now!

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was lucky enough to receive an actual time machine for Christmas. Being the super nice person that I am, I’ve decided that everyone on the SDMB gets to play with my new toy (“Lee plays well with others and shares his toys nicely.” -Miss Elaine, my kindergarten teacher from 1966). You may now start reserving your spaces by letting me know what 5 points in time you’d most like to visit. Sorry, you won’t be able to effect the events, just to observe. Here’s my list:

  1. The beginning - Either big bang or God saying “Let there be light,” I want to be there when it all got started.
  2. The eruption of Vesuvius. “Hmmm, did you hear something?”
  3. Opening night of “Hamlet.” "William Shakespeare’s new play, “Hamlet,” opened last night and this reviewer can only say, “Well, it sre isn’t ‘Cats.’”
  4. Front row center at Ford’s Theater the night Lincoln was shot. A nation deliriously happy about the end of 4 years of carnage and then…
  5. The end - How ever it happens, I want to be there when it ends.

And you?

2
  1. I take the time machine now, and go back to yesterday and make a reservation to get the time machine.
  2. I look at who is ahead of me on the list to get the time machine, go back in time, kill their grandparents, and move myself up to the top of the list.
  3. I go back a few months in time and beat the crap out of whomever started the whole “Hi Opal!” thing.
  4. I go forward in time and see what the next lottery numbers are.
  5. I go back to last Sunday night and ask that really cute girl what her number is rather than spend all day today trying to track it down through a friend of a friend of a friend.
3

plnnr wrote:

Screw that. I wanna go back to when I was 14 years old, and tell my younger self to go after Diana Milbert in 9th grade while he still has the chance. And failing that, go back to when I was 19 and tell my younger self not to pass up that Linda girl from the Olympic Honor Chorus.
– tracer, still kickin’ himself after all these years.

4

As much as I’d be interested in seeing the beginning & end of the universe, I don’t think there’d be much to see (no light/matter on either end of that time line).

(1) the Jurassic or Cretaceous Period to see some dinos (not sure which period, but maybe during the K/T asteriod impact that ended the Mesozoic Era as long as I don’t get fried too)
(2) seeing Leonardo DaVinci at work
(3) the past moon landing (live from the moon!) or the future Mars landing (well, hopefully this WILL happen in our lifetime)
(4) 1,000 years from now to see what we humans have accomplished
(5) ditto for 100,000 years from now

5

  1. Go back 3 years and tell myself to NOT get involved with that girl the neighbors are trying to fix me up with.

  2. Go back 10 years and tell myself NOT to go to NSU.

  3. Go back 12 years and kick myself for not asking out probably the cutest and most intellegent girl in next youngest class.

  4. Go back 14 years and to myself to NOT start smoking.

  5. (On a lighter note) Go back and see the Colossus of Rhodes.

6

Go back to 1981 or so and buy a shitload of Microsoft stock.

Go back to me in H.S and tell me to ask out Judy.

Go to Roswell in 1947 and find out what really happened.

Ditto to the book repository in Dallas, '63.

Go back to biblical times and see some miracles take place.

7

  1. Go and actually see how StoneHenge was built.

  2. Go to Kitty Hawk and witness a new era in human travel.

  3. Go back to the day Pearl Harbor was bombed and see the heroic actions ordinary people took on that tragic day.

  4. Go see the D-Day invasion first hand.

  5. Go back to '69 and see the moon landing, from the moon, in person.

8

Can I just go back and live in NY or Phila. in the 1890s? I figure that way, I should die just about the time WWI was starting and everything went to hell. I could earn a living as a writer and editor then—one of the few professions women could work in!—and boy, do I love the clothes, theater, music, architecture of the time.

. . . Though I WOULD like to stock up on antibiotics and painkiller before I set out . . .

9

Just a few tidbits to depress you:

It started around 1978 but it didn’t go public until 1986. You could have bought it at .50 a share near opening day. Heck, even if you had invested 10 grand in 1990 it would have been worth close to 1 million today.

10

Mmm. Wow me and Jester were talking about this.

OK…I would go…

  1. Britain, 1860/70’s…around then. I would definitely be able to solve the whole Jack the Ripper thing, I’m sure. Or die trying.

  2. Also do the stonehenge thing.

  3. French Revolution!!

  4. Some European country in the 19th century. Or 18th. Somewhere really elegant.

  5. Altamount.

  6. Ancient Egypt. Possibly do a little grave digging…:wink:

11

What a lovely exercise!

  1. Big Bang. (though from what vantage point?)

  2. Supernovae or event horizon of a singularity.

  3. K-T event. (from a geosychronous orbit)

  4. Continental drift or even localized subduction process.
    (how long can I stay?)

  5. Meet and communicate with the mitochondrial Eve.

I can think of many more, but I’ve used my wishes and will
yield the floor.

12

I really wish I could change some events. (Hey, don’t we all!)

Let’s see:

  1. Freshman year of HS: no, don’t give her that card. Don’t ask why, just don’t do it!

  2. Two weeks ago: she’s flirting with you! Yes, in real life!! Respond, damn you!! Argh… I need to go back to that restaurant (it was the waitress).

  3. Hi Enderw23! :smiley:
    Events I couldn’t change, but would just like to observe:

  4. The life of Jesus. No question about it.

  5. Shakespeare at work. The man is a friggin’ GENIUS!! [psychic highfives with DRY] Can I talk to him, too? Not to influence, just to interview…

I’ll insert 3, 4, and 5 later.

13

Reading ‘Snow Crash’ got me interested in the Sumerians, so I would like to go check them out. See if I could figure out what happened to them.

I’d also like to visit the Middle East during the period of time it was inhabited by both Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals, see how they interacted, if at all.

I’d see if George Washington really did consume his hemp. I tend to think he did, what with the separating of male and female plants…

14
  1. Early 1900’s, to see my grandparents when they were growing up.
  2. Early 1800’s, to see the western part of the American continent along with the Lewis and Clark expedition.
  3. July 20, 1969, my grandparents living room, to watch the moon landing for the first time, and tell myself not to be so keyed up. The first time around I was so wired that I couldn’t make sense of the TV images. Never took my eyes from the screen, but didn’t “see” it.
  4. December 1979, to tell myself not to make that smart-ass remark to my soon to be ex-husband.
  5. October 1978, and tell myself before going to bed to lock the front door.
15

I want to go and see Christopher Marlowe on his opening nights and maybe Shakspeare as well. Be a member of Elizabeth I’s court and find out how much she really loved Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and the Duke of Anjou.
Renaissance Italy - nuff said.
Drink champagne and go to parties with Oscar Wilde and dance elegantly at the society balls and flirt with the aristocrats, bankers and merchants.
And finally Hollywood in the 1950s with all truly great film stars.

16
  1. Britain, 1860/70’s…around then. I would definitely be able to solve the whole Jack the Ripper thing, I’m sure. Or die trying.

—Zog, the Ripper murders took place in 1889, so you would have plenty of time to find yourself a nice flat, get settled in, get a job . . . Maybe get married and have kids . . .

17

Oops! 1888 . . . It would be just like me to show up a year late and a pound short, wouldn’t it?

18

Let’s see, things I’d be content to observe…

  1. Shakespearian play. Macbeth would be nice.
  2. Sit on the iceberg and watch Titanic hit.
  3. Yellowstone, before everyone else got there.
  4. Spend a while in Hawaii, before everyone got there.
  5. Zip forward a hundred years or so, to see how we turn out.

There are definetly more than 5 things I’d love to go back and clue myself in on in my life, so I won’t even go back and do it. I’d need a lumberyard full of 2x4’s of Instant Wisdom.

19

I would spend my time clearing up a few mysteries. That being said:

  1. I would visit the Cretaceous period to see what dino’s really looked like;
  2. I’d be on the grassy knoll in Dallas in 1963;
  3. I’d be lurking around Marilyn Monroe’s house the night she died;
  4. I would want to see the Colossus of Rhodes;
  5. I would spend time with Alexander to see how really Great he was.
20

I’d go back to:

  • the Grassy Knoll
  • the Cretaceous, to see the dinosaurs
  • the K-T event, as seen from the Moon
  • high on 1924 Everest to follow the last climb of Mallory and Irvine
  • the late Seventies, to invest in Apple, or the early Eighties, to invest in Microsoft