One thing I didn’t consider when I asked to work sixty hours per week at my job: I wouldn’t have anything new to write about. I’m not complaining (not really), but I work and sleep nowadays, and very little else. And there are not a lot of fresh comedic opportunities in such a world, especially since I’ve proclaimed work off-limits.
So, I’ll probably be telling stories from the past, and discussing various what-if scenarios for a while. Like today… I’d like to get your thoughts on time travel, and how you’d program a time machine, if you had access to one.
For some reason I have limited interest in seeing the future. A psychiatrist might be able to explain it, but I can’t. Oh, I wouldn’t mind checking out future technologies, and the similarities and differences of the 2100 lifestyle, or whatever. But that’s something that would be far down my time machine to-do list.
No, I’d be all about going backwards. I’d love to visit certain places during specific periods in the past. And I’d want to blend in with the general population, and just observe. A few times and locations that jump immediately to mind:
My hometown of Dunbar, WV, during the late 1940s or early 1950s. I’d casually walk the streets, and take it all in. Many of the buildings and houses I know would already be there, in the same setting, but during an era I never saw. I have a feeling the experience would be so incredibly cool and mind-bending, I might get woozy and go ass-over-tits across a hedge.
The fact that the town is so familiar, would make the difference. I’d know everything about the place – and nothing.
I’d walk down Twelfth Street, the former business district (back when there was business there), and visit the little shops and diners. I might stop into one of the pool rooms, and perhaps one (or both) of my grandfathers would be inside drinking five-cent beers. I don’t know if an actual conversation would rip a hole in the continuum, or whatever, but how great would that be?
I’d stroll along the residential streets, and maybe wave at some of my future elderly neighbors when they were young. I’d stop and talk with people, and maybe walk through the halls of the old high school. Man, I’d love to take such a trip… It would be at the very top of my time travel itinerary.
I’d also like to visit New York City during two specific eras: the late 1940s, and the 1890s.
During my ‘40s visit, I’d take a train to Brooklyn and catch a few Dodgers games at Ebbets Field. Yankee Stadium would be a definite destination, as well. Contradictions, be damned. But, between baseball games, I’d also walk through the city and just absorb it all. I’d wander into a few of the big department stores, and maybe have a grilled cheese sandwich at some lunch counter somewhere. I’d love to be there, then.
And, of course, Time and Again makes me want to visit New York during the gaslight era. If you haven’t read the book, I recommend it. It’s as close to actually going back in time as I’m likely to ever achieve. Unfortunately.
London during the 1890s would be cool, as well. But I don’t have much of a desire to go back further. The 1700s would probably be too foreign and freaky to handle, what with all the ruffles and wigs and whatnot. Plus, I have a feeling everyone stunk to high heaven back then. Ya know? I bet their pits were fizzing with bacteria.
No, I’d want it to be recent enough so I’d feel somewhat comfortable with the ways of the world. But far enough in the past so it would still seem exotic and strange.
For some reason I’d also like to take Pantera back in time, and have them play at an outdoor hippie concert during the Summer of Love, or somesuch. How awesome would that be? Heh. They’d probably have to bring in grief counselors.
And those are my time travel dreams. Do you have any? Where (and when) would you like to go? Please tell us about it in the comments.
Also, how difficult do you think it would be to blend-in during an earlier era? What do you think would get you busted (and possibly burned as a witch)? Cultural references? Contemporary slang? Your iPhone with the Benny Hill Show theme alert? How long do you think you could maintain the charade, before 1940s eyebrows started being raised in suspicion?
And are you a back-in-time, or a forward-in-time kind of guy or gal? Any idea why? Help me out with that one, won’t you?
Yes, my friends, these are the kinds of updates you’ll probably be getting from me for a while. I hope they’re not too painful.
I’ll see you again tomorrow.
Wow. Early.
I’m the only one of us up this time of night?
Hey, what the Hell AM I doing up this late at night??!
We run out of potable water in 36 years, but Africa is almost out now and Asia isn’t far behind. To say nothing of oil, for which we’re already past the Hubbert Peak.
I’d go to the past, but my time machine needs oiling and I’m all out of wormholes.
Geez, that’s a fuckin’ optimistic comment.
jtb
You gotta stop listening to Alex Jones. 🙂
I just looked up Alex Jones. Holy shit. At least the stuff I said is true.
jtb
Dammit, Clint, how the hell DID they handle the Loonies in the G-Strings? Don’t leave a guy hanging. Thanks.
jtb
It’s been quite some time since I’ve been to a club in Canada, but the answer is simple: they didn’t. You had to go up to the two dollar bill to get some g-string stuffing action. That’s inflation for ya! But now I guess they won’t take toonies either, so you gotta go with a fiver.
They’ve talked about a $5 coin too. Being a gentleman means there are many lines I cannot share as suggestions on what to do with the coins. I’d like to see the new coin called the beaver for no particular reason at all…
Last time I was at “le ballet”, the young lady pulled out what I thought was a small bottle of baby oil and I thought “oh man this is gonna be awesome”… then I realized it was hand sanitizer It was over 10 years ago but it was enough to end my participation….well that and I realized I was the dirty old man I used to make fun of… sigh.
I read your comment as “gotta go with a liver” the first time…. and I thought, ok, to each his own 🙂
We have a beaver behind our 5 cents coin, so it could definitively be called the beaver coin.
The loonie is called that way because there is a loon on the back.
The oil rig guys were just winging ’em like a Randy Johnson fastball, the dancers were yelling at them to “take it easy.” My brother and I were just laughing and laughing. The oil rig guys were really nice guys, we bought each other rounds, we and the dancers all made peace, and had a great time. Afterward, a few of the oilfield hands, my brother, and I went out to the race track and my brother win the sprint car main event.
I saw some girls in Mexico that would lift coins from the tops of bottles with their southernmost lips (the other white meat) and just keep on dancing. One time I heated a quarter with a lighter and sat it atop a beer bottle. Jackpot! It was like sitting in front of a winning slot machine.
Going back in time: The conditions under which the non-wealthy (that’s us) live, with a 40-50 hour workweek, the ability to save for and buy our own houses, and the ability to travel fairly often and freely are 20th century phenomena, made possible primarily by two forces: Labor Unions and the New Deal. Travel back much before 1920, and you’ll likely be looking at the inside of a coal mine or the inside of a very unsafe factory for 70 hours a week. I’m just saying…
jtb
I’d like to go back to Medieval times and see the Hundred Years War.
Absolutely backwards – to play the stock market!
You should check out this TV series:
http://www.amazon.com/Goodnight-Sweetheart-Entire-NON-USA-Kingdom/dp/B001W4KPQM/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1289824161&sr=8-3
or download a couple of episodes. Guy time traveling back and forth between the 1990s and WW2 London. The first few seasons were pretty good.
1860-1890 out west. My luck I’d end up riding with Custer and my horse wouldn’t be fast enough to get back to “The Way-Back Machine”.
” OUCH!….ouch, ouch….Fuck!!………OUCH!!!!!!!…awww shit…..”
I’d visit Egypt in the time of the pharoahs and cruise down the Nile.
Definitely to the past. I like your Dunbar idea. I am doing a paper on a coalfield community now, and I’d love to see that place in its heyday, so sometime between 1940-1955. Or maybe seeing it firsthand would make it even more depressing than it is now.
Wow! An early, early update. Throwing me all off. Since Mondays always suck the big one I look forward to the afternoon update to bring me up out of the Monday doldrums… Thanks for the early start!!
The Victorian era from about 1880 for starters. I’d like to see the Titanic first hand. Then onto the 1920’s and 1930’s to see the rise of the gangsters and mob bosses of the time, prohabition period, all the fashions and decor. I’d like to visit a couple big cities like New York and Chicago, the founding of Las Vegas and Hollywood when stars were so glamorous.
bikerchick, have you been watching “Boardwalk Empire” LOL!
madz: Yes and that’s one of the reasons I watch it. Love the era!! Right up my alley.
It is the only show I do watch religiously. So yeah, I could definitely go back to that era, too!
In fact, missed last nights episode to watch that poor excuse of a Steeler football game. Unbelievable. I’d like to slap Tom Brady into a new hairstyle. Fag.
Popcorn kernals don’t look good stuck on my screen, but I sprayed after reading your comment! LOL. Catch it tonight at 8:00.
Agreed
Catch any fish?
No. People were catching bass around me but I got nuthin. River was very clear you could see about 9 feet deep. Great time however.
I would have it go forward in time, at regular speed.
still smiling over this one…
For some reason it reminds me of either Lee Harvey Ramone or Stephen Wright…
Is John The Basket fucking things up for everyone, or just me?
Shane…
I don’t want to harsh your buzz. I just think now is a pretty good time to be alive and kicking. But go ahead and time travel. I promise not to piss on the fire any more.
best wishes…
jtb
First Peasant: Who’s that there?
Second Peasant: I don’t know… must be a king.
First Peasant: Why?
Second Peasant: He hasn’t got shit all over him.
I wouldn’t mind doing the Quest for Fire thing…if you know what I’m sayin’. 😉 Though I doubt there were very many Rae Dawn Chong looking babes then.
Into the future? Not sure I want to know how my own kite crashes. Can you travel forward past your own TOD? I gotta call Dr. Hawking. BRB
Speaking of stories from the past, I think there was a white dog shit joke on the Cleveland Show last night.
I would like to time travel ahead to Friday afternoon.
Assuming one can travel beyond their own TOD, I would like to go forward in 25 or 50 year jumps just to see when we get our flying cars, whether or not we come up with Star Trek type propulsion systems so we can tour the universe. If so I would ride along on a few of those provided I could get my way back machine stowed aboard.
I would want to go back to the 40’s – 60s in NYC and nab a fantatsic apartment. I also like that era when women wore dresses and men wore hats. When Woolworths thrived and Five and Dimes were fun to rummage through. Where food tasted like it was supposed to and not chemically “enhanced.”
Not really time-travel, but I really want (and need) to go back to my childhood hometown, Hockessin, DE. I’ve lived in four or five other towns since then, and I haven’t been back now in over 15 years. It would just be amazing to see how much it’s changed in that time.
And in terms of actual time-travel, I’d go back to 1950s Hockessin… it would be cool to see Small Town, USA during that era. Then I’d hop a train or something up to New York City.
Then me and my time machine would make a trip over to late-1800s Germany, and I’d try to find one of my ancestors there. A big perk of time-traveling to another country is that it would take much longer for my cover to be blown. They wouldn’t think anything of my odd mannerisms or speech, because they’d assume I’m just some crazy American.
Madz and bikerchick… would you like some company on your field trips?
Kenju – good idea but I want it written in to the contract that we’re either invisible or guaranteed a certain stature… I’d hate to go back and find myself pushing a big ass block of stone up a hill to make a pyramid… although…. I could probably use the exercise.
Ice – funny.
Hot fuzz – of course! The more the merrier.
Hot fuzz: Yes and you’re just the bad-ass we need for the mob bosses!
Hopefully what ever era we end up in will hold smart assery in high esteem. …. otherwise somehow “um, hi, um I’m Raymond” will leave the group of us in a heap of trouble.
I have read too much Kurzweil to ever want to go forward in time. Technological singularity scares the shit out of me and I don’t want anything to do with it. (If you don’t know what I am talking about, look it up – you will probably be sorry you did.)
It would have to be the past for me. Texas in the 1830s fascinates me – looking at the political forces that shaped our unique culture would be interesting, and probably disturbing to my liberal 21st century brain. Medieval Japan would be fascinating too, or 1850s New York or 1920s Chicago. Too much to choose from.
Damn, I just wanted to go on a spaceship ride.
We’re thousands of years from artificial intelligence, not decades. Whether Kurzweil wants to admit it or not, there is a law of diminishing returns – at some point Moore’s law will stop working and it may not have anything to do with intelligence. A good world war right now where nukes are targeting natural resources and technology factories would really screw up Moore’s law. Oh, and a few high altitude EMPs to knock out all existing satellites would be a good way to take things down a few notches, too.
What scares the shit out of me is watching the middle east, particularly places that are gearing up their nuclear programs.
Looks like Moore’s law is already starting to break down…
“Paul Jacobs, the CEO of Qualcomm, said at CTIA last fall that with 4G technology, engineers have squeezed nearly everything possible from limited radio spectrum. He called for the FCC to open up more spectrum. That, however, is probably a seven-year process before going live. This June, Jacobs called on developers to be responsible: “You guys have an obligation to build applications that are as network efficient as possible. We all have a responsibility to be as efficient as we can.”
The trouble is that this is a classic “tragedy of the commons” collective action problem. Any given developer has little incentive to protect the network or sacrifice functionality.
This problem will only partly be alleviated by data quotas being rolled out by AT&T, which are sure to be followed by other operators. The number of users maxing their quotas will keep increasing. ”
Full article here:
http://venturebeat.com/2010/08/13/moore%E2%80%99s-law-hits-a-wall-trouble-for-mobile-growth/
Ah jeez, I forgot where I was! Sorry, I’m getting to philosophical here. Forget I said all that, first round is on me!
Let me re-phrase my earlier comment, I just want to go on a fucking spaceship ride!
I love this! And yes, I do tend to believe that Kurzweil is going too far WAAAYYYYYY too fast for what can actually happen – even assuming you can yank the soul out of someone and preserve it without a physical form (among other issues that he brings up). Interesting to think that we do have some power over this in terms of politics and limitations as simple as spectrum limitations.
But all the same, I prefer not to know what the future holds. Baby steps.
A spaceship ride would be pretty excellent though, I do agree.
Thank you, I think!
I’d love to see Detroit in the 20’s. The old photos from downtown show what this city looked like when it was vibrant and populated. Must have been very cool.
I’d also have liked to be around during WW2, just to get a feel for things.
Then I’d start doing fly-on-the-wall stuff: who shot JFK, check out Jesus and his posse, meet Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and the rest of the founding fathers. Attend the Gettysburg address, watch Wilbur and Orvile at Kitty Hawk.
How cool would that be.
The only problem I’d have fitting in really is my weight. Darn few fat people in those old pictures. Who knows, maybe I’d slim down if I hung out long enough.
Which suggests to me that we’ll NEVER create a Time Machine. Poo. If we do create one in the future, the Sony TimeMan is created in 2180 for example, wouldn’t events like the birth of Christ have been a lot better attended?
Family who were bombed during the Blitz said it wasn’t much fun having bombs rain down on your street.
I would want to go back to the 1940’s and hang out with my grandma. I know they had to paint their stockings on and work as Rosie the Riveter and all but still sounds pretty awesome to me.
If you decide to travel to the past, you don’t have to worry about creating a time paradox. You see, the timeline you are currently in, stays the same, no matter what you do. If you make a change in the past, from that point forward, an alternate new reality is split off, thereby keeping your original timeline intact. Since there are an infinte amount of alternate universes out there, you can be sure that nothing you do in the past or future will have any consequence here and now. Just saying…………..
I was just about to say that..
^^^ That’s my Boy !!! ^^^
Could I have a hit off that?
I’d love to go back in time (e.g., 1960s Greenwich Village), but not forward.
The future is scary.
Also, the cash I’d be carrying around would surely go further in the past than in the future. Come to think of it, our currency would look like play money if you tried to use it in some past date. Maybe you’d have to travel with rolls of quarters to pay for that grilled cheese sandwich.
In fact, best hope nobody looks at it too closely. “Hey, this dollar bill is a Series 2006 – WTF! Also, you’re under arrest for counterfeiting. Enjoy Sing Sing.” No thank you.
But if you had usable money, then sure. Even *I* remember 89-cent six packs of beer, and a $4000 car being considered rather pricey.
.
hehe, is that a roll of quarters in your pocket, or….
If we go back in time, can we take some of today’s modern marvels? I think I would need air conditionng. It gets hot roller skating and hula hooping.
A Titanic post above reminded me of this: I visited the main Titanic Grave Site in Halifax, NS (I know there are some others) a few years back and it was very moving…when you’re standing there you can almost picture them backin 1912 processing the recovered victims for their final resting place. It would be interesting (not necessarily “cool” and not meaning to be morbid) to go back to that time and be a witness to it in real-time.
As for your reference, Jeff, to ’40s New York and taking in a game at Ebbets Field, be sure to do that in ’47 or later to experience it after Jackie Robinson arrived. Maybe catch his first game on 4/15/47 and then another one a few years later once he became a star and see if the crowd changed their opinion toward him.
Me, I just want to go back to day 1 and stomp the crap out of that primorial ooze from which we crawled out of and stop this crap once and for all.
Now That’s What I Call A Bad Day! Have you considered a shooting rampage instead?
If I had a matter transporter, I would call it a “car”.
Going back to the day when the wheel was invented and hearing all the suggestions from family members on what he should have been doing with all his spare time insted of rolling stuff around.
So, if my wife came from the past to the present, so now there were two of her, and I had sex with past wife, would I be cheating on present wife?
If we had a threesome, would she be masturbating?
Read “The Man Who Folded Himself” by David Gerrold.
.
Going back to the day when Moses recieved the Ten Commandments on the mountian and hear him tell God…”I tink we need twelvefh.”
I’m a “go back in time” type guy, only because the future might scare me. Always easier to go back to what you know, or at least have read about.
However, to all my fellow “go back in timers,” consider the proverbial “Back in 1920, a Coke only cost a nickel.” Yeah, great to have if you were getting your “today” paycheck, but considering that you might only be making $1.00 a day back in those times, that nickel Coke would be a luxury item.
Consider also, dentistry. Man, my first dental memories were from the early 1960s, and it hurt like Hell then…so I’m thinking the 1950s, ’40s, and earlier were even worse. Today is a bare minimum on the pain threshold accepability level.
Oh, and then we have WAR! WW2 seems like the best of times era to reminisce about…you know, Time’s Square, the pretty girl kissing the sailor on VE or VJ Day. But to be a young guy back then, the actual fighting the war thing would suck. Yeah, if you actually survived, it would be great, but a heck of a lot didn’t.
So, as much as I would like to fire up the DeLorean and head back, I’m pretty much content with the here and now.
I think it would be hard to blend in. You would have to be wearing clothes from the time period. And have currency from that era. You would also have to resist taking along a digital camera or other items that would be out of place. But if I could pull it off, I would definitely go to the past. I would observe from a safe distance my family. And learn things that perhaps I really would rather not know about them.
Then I would come back to the present and confirm the stories with those still living. And watch their reaction to my knowledge of something that I couldn’t possibly know about.
Oh, I would get a hair cut from Earnest in Dunbar.
See what you think about this…
http://www.universetoday.com/76821/time-traveler-caught-on-film/
Someone in the commentary section of the Washington Post response article said it was probably this:
http://www.hearingaidmuseum.com/gallery/Non-Electric/EarTrumpets/Short%20Trumpets/info/ladiessmalleartrumpet.htm
Seems logical enough.
I’d go back for sure. All of my ideas revolve around sex. I heard somewhere that doctors used to jamb vibrators into women to treat “hysteria”. I’d like to be one of those guys. I think I could play the part. “look Mack, your dame is in a bad way. She’s hysterical. I’ll need to take her into my office, restrain her, and buzz her vagina until she’s cured.” Sweet.
I’d also go to the moon landing and stir some shit up. “Moon? This is Ara-fucking-zona, not the moon.” or maybe I’d just show up before Neil and I’d be sitting there, jacking off when he climbed down the ladder. I’d say, “Hiya Neil. This isn’t that biga deal.”
If I went forword I think I’d go to the day before I die and tell myself to go on a nude shooting and raping spree. I’ve even set up a password so my future self will know the shit is for real. The password is alabaster. You girls better hope nobody ever walks up to me and says, “Alabaster. Go rape and kill, brother.” because I’ll shoot your husbands and boyfriends and poke you in the ass.
Jeebus Jason how the fuck do you come up with this shit?
I’ll bet you hear that alot don’t ya?
I do hear that all the time. I talk more shit than I write. It’s somewhat of a curse to tell the truth.
I would love to go back in time, but it must be after the invention of toilet paper.
I would want to go both to the past and the future. I’ve always said I was born either a century and a half too early or a century and a half too late.
In the past, I would most want to accompany Lewis and Clark. (I frequently take 10-day unbroken, unsupported river canoe trips, anyway, and as long as the alcohol equation works out logistically, actually prefer some unexpected adversity along the way).
Maybe become a mountain man like Jim Bridger.
And go on a dinosaur safari! No one wants to see the Big Guys in the flesh?
I have a theory that centuries from now, when both time travel and interstellar tourism are commonplace, Earth will sell such safaris to hundreds of alien races, and that’s what really wiped out the dinosaurs — from their standpoint, it will have already happened, so why not rake in the bucks. The reason there are so many small-critter fossils and so few large ones is that both aliens and humans took their trophies home with them.
As for the future, a couple of things. First, 10 short hops of 50 years each to see what happens to American society for the next five centuries. Then, forward as long as it takes to find cheap galactic transportation paired with a federation of at least 100 civilized races. I would sell the way back machine at once as an historical artifact, because I’m not coming back. Even if said federation is at war — I’ll do my part to defeat the interstellar version of the Nazis.