Time's Up
I'm ruminating on time travel this week, wondering if I can go back about eight days and turn in an article I was supposed to write when it was actually timely to the event it was covering.
No, I'm guessing. Sort of like reporting on the weather we had in July. Nice, but nobody really cares. Right now we're feeling fall creep into the weather pattern the way you wake up in your mid forties having to pee a lot at night. The slow unpleasantries of what will be a nasty future.
In the climactic case, winter. In the ageing process, you'll be thankful when you can pee at all.
Time travel is fascinating, alluring, exciting, all at the same time. It's like a date with Natalie Portman, there's virtually no downside. And like a date with Natalie Portman, at least for the crowd I run with, it's well nigh impossible. Might as well hope to sprout wings.
But think about it for a few minutes. The ability to go back in time and correct mistakes along the way. You could whoosh back to age twelve, say, right a wrong and then fast forward through your history righting apple carts back to your original departure point.
Whoosh!
"Abraham Lincoln"
"Square root of 62"
"Factor out such that y equals eleven."
"You're not really washing your hair Friday, come on, let's go to the dance."
"Think I'll drop English and concentrate on an Engineering major."
"I'd like to work in your applied solutions department, music's just a cute hobby."
"As a matter of fact, I'd like to object Pastor."
"No, you don't look fat at all. That dress is beautiful."
"I think I'd like a smaller monthly payment, all the same."
You get the point. I was watching "Highlander" the other night, trying to tie this incomprehensible movie into the story assignment I never did finish. Now there's lost opportunity. You think that, somewhere in 1298 he'd figure out that he's been alive some three hundred years and maybe there's a pattern going on. A little advance planning might be in order. You know, lay in food for the upcoming black death, convert to Protestantism early, grab that boat west, buy Apple, ditch the Enron shares. Just something that brushes prescience.
But no. It's 1988 and the best he can do is parking garage decapitations.
This criticism coming from someone who wants to bend the laws of physics in order to have an editor NOT be pissed off.
Always been kind of an underachiever.
Bunny on.
No, I'm guessing. Sort of like reporting on the weather we had in July. Nice, but nobody really cares. Right now we're feeling fall creep into the weather pattern the way you wake up in your mid forties having to pee a lot at night. The slow unpleasantries of what will be a nasty future.
In the climactic case, winter. In the ageing process, you'll be thankful when you can pee at all.
Time travel is fascinating, alluring, exciting, all at the same time. It's like a date with Natalie Portman, there's virtually no downside. And like a date with Natalie Portman, at least for the crowd I run with, it's well nigh impossible. Might as well hope to sprout wings.
But think about it for a few minutes. The ability to go back in time and correct mistakes along the way. You could whoosh back to age twelve, say, right a wrong and then fast forward through your history righting apple carts back to your original departure point.
Whoosh!
"Abraham Lincoln"
"Square root of 62"
"Factor out such that y equals eleven."
"You're not really washing your hair Friday, come on, let's go to the dance."
"Think I'll drop English and concentrate on an Engineering major."
"I'd like to work in your applied solutions department, music's just a cute hobby."
"As a matter of fact, I'd like to object Pastor."
"No, you don't look fat at all. That dress is beautiful."
"I think I'd like a smaller monthly payment, all the same."
You get the point. I was watching "Highlander" the other night, trying to tie this incomprehensible movie into the story assignment I never did finish. Now there's lost opportunity. You think that, somewhere in 1298 he'd figure out that he's been alive some three hundred years and maybe there's a pattern going on. A little advance planning might be in order. You know, lay in food for the upcoming black death, convert to Protestantism early, grab that boat west, buy Apple, ditch the Enron shares. Just something that brushes prescience.
But no. It's 1988 and the best he can do is parking garage decapitations.
This criticism coming from someone who wants to bend the laws of physics in order to have an editor NOT be pissed off.
Always been kind of an underachiever.
Bunny on.
posted by The Caustic Bunny at Wednesday, October 10, 2007
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