This is always a tough column for me and I know a lot of writers that go through the same type of thing when New Years rolls around – what can I possibly write about that hasn’t already been done a thousand times?! The whole resolution thing is like beating the horse that’s already been dead for years, and besides, there’s just nothing funny (anymore) about listening to me ramble on about how I’m going to lose weight, get me a job that pays in actual U.S. dollars, and maybe even go on a date this year. Nope, those were my goals for last year and they’re probably going to end up being my goals for next year, too, so instead I thought we’d start off 2003 with something a little different…
By the way, before I even get started here – am I the only one who thinks that Cher is hot, even if it is in sort of a weird, creepy way? I mean, I’m not talking about the days with Sonny around or anything…that’s one mystery I’ll never figure out…and the different hair color for every day of the week is a bit on the bizarre side, but all in the same, I certainly wouldn’t kick her out for eating crackers in bed, if you know what I mean! Granted, she’s more than twice my age – older than my parents, even – I just hope that my supermodel girlfriend looks that good when she’s fifty-six!!!
Now where was I? Oh yes – time travel! Of all the new developments we’ve been seeing in this new, technological era – laser-guided vacuum cleaners, GPS tracking devices for our most dangerous criminal-masterminds and children, and wireless yams, just to name a few – but still nobody’s managed to hone their scientific research to the point where traveling back and forth through time could be a possibility. I mean, I understand that flux capacitors are pretty tough to come by and all, but if these guys can make our Furbee dream become a reality, then as far as I’m concerned, the sky’s the limit!
Aside from the whole world domination scare (which they’d simply have to make illegal – problem solved!), I think that time travel would prove to be a very valuable, and very cool, resource for our society. Educationally, it’s already been proved by Steven Spielberg himself that the best way to teach a child about dinosaurs is obviously to cover them in Brachiosaurus snot, and I’m sure that this very scenario could easily be expanded to fit other areas of study, too. Why bother just reading the works of Charles Dickens when instead, you could take the entire class back in time and let them ask questions on their own…no doubt it’d at least be a little less scary than watching A Christmas Carol. History class still putting the kids to sleep every afternoon from 1:30 – 2:45p as scheduled? How’s about tossing the whole gang into the time machine and jumping back a few hundred years so that they can witness a pre-Monica Lewinsky / Paula Jones government, when actual work got done by day and the dry-cleaning didn’t magically turn into lawsuits by night…
But enough with the worthwhile (boring) educational benefits of time travel – just think of all the fun things we could do with it! Fast forward through all of that working nonsense and skip right to happy hour during the week, or simply cut out the middleman and relive that awesome weekend in Vegas with the convertible and those Asian hookers over and over again! If your idea of social interaction culminates with the annual midnight showing of the latest Star Wars or Lord of the Rings flick, then don your light saber or musty, old cloak and enjoy the entire series back to back, complete with reenactments, late-night trivia contests, and of course the Aftermath When Reality Chimes In and reminds you that you just spent the last sixteen hours dressed up as a storm trooper…in public…to see a freaking movie – some memories truly are priceless, even if they do also prove to remind you just how much of a dork you really are! Even a routine trip to the grocery store could benefit from time travel – ever get that feeling of hopelessness after you find out that the person ahead of you got the last box of Frosted Flakes? A few jigawatts of electricity and you’ll be the one chillin’ with Tony the Tiger while the competition walks home empty-handed in defeat! The possibilities are endless here!!!
As it worked its way into the mainstream, we’d see Hollywood using it time after time (no pun intended!) to make corrections to its blockbusters, ensuring perfection in our cinematic entertainment and hopefully even preventing such atrocities as Battlefield Earth and Little Nicky from ever happening in the first place! Our politicians and lawmakers could settle the disputes once and for all, going back to ask our founding fathers what they really meant in the constitution when they spoke about the freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, and a woman’s right to vote. All the environmentalists could go back to a time when we weren’t completely destroying the Earth and just shut the hell up for a few minutes. Even the Detroit Tigers could…oh, who am I kidding? Not even time travel could help the Tigers at this point…
Nevertheless, if there’s one thing that I’d like to see come to be over the next year in 2003, time travel would most certainly be at the top of my list. That, and invisibility would be pretty sweet, too, but that’s another column altogether! How about little wings that we could use to fly around, that would just fold up and fit in our pockets, or even better – teleportation! Still a bit out of our league? Maybe just something that could create sandwiches out of thin air?
Man, I love science…