If you had a Time Machine...

[Chaldfont]

I probably should have asked, "After you have become wealthy and powerful, where would you go?" It should go without saying that you would be equiped with the best survival gear, a nigh-infinite supply of period currency and extensive research on the destination time/place.

Anybody can go back in time and make a fortune on the DotCom boom and bust. Where would you go on vacation?

Here are some more:

* Talk to the guy(s) who designed Stonehenge
* Go to a chariot race at the Circus Maximus in Rome
* Visit Mayan Chichen-Itza during its heydey
* Play poker on a Mississippi riverboat in the 1800s

Actually this would make a pretty cool RPG campaign. Make modern-day characters. Ok, you have a time machine. What do you do with it?

 

[JimAde]

Hmm. For pure recreation (assuming we don't need to save the world or something equally noble) I suppose I'd start by meeting some interesting historical figures. Go hob-nobbing with Oscar Wilde, hang out in the basement and watch spiders with Robert the Bruce, etc.

Assuming I could also speak the local language, that opens up a lot. Charlemagne would be cool.

 

[Blue_Kryptonite]

I'd like to move forward, until I find something functionally equivelent to the perfect world:

If it can only go backwards, I'd selfishly travel back to 1988 and prevent myself from taking the Navy's offer to accept an early enlistment date in San Diego instead of going on time to Great Lakes. Then I would likely never have gotten as sick as I did, and wouldn't be fighting disability right now.

The me who was never that sick for that long would likely have a different answer when he got the machine.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Well, if you're the only one with the machine, this can probably be accomplished in a single trip - all it requires is a couple winning lottery tickets, after all. Then, with your mundane home-time comfort as secure as it can be (given that you're about to be mucking with the timestream), you're free to go and see the world.

Hmmm. I'd have to do some test to make sure the timeline was stable at any point before my daughter's birth (well, conception really, but why press my luck?) Assuming a robust timeline, I'd like to meet:

Ben Franklin
Cole Porter
General Thomas Jackson
Winston Churchill

Then I'd have some fun. I'd dress up in reflective spandex and drop in on random people that no one will ever believe and say things like "I am from the FUTURE! In order to save humanity from itself you must get to the train station in New Haven, Conneticut by Tuesday at exactly 11:43am. Order a hot dog from the vendor on the left and throw it at the Senator who will be passing by fifteen minutes later. DO NOT USE ANY MUSTARD!!! That was where we failed the last time. Good luck. Earth is depending on you."

 

[kenobi65]

Go back in time about 20 years, to meet my younger self. Tell myself: "Lay off the Pepsi, stop eating so dang many fries and white bread, and maybe you won't be diabetic..."

 

[kenobi65]

I'd dress up in reflective spandex

And this is different from everyday how?

 

[Acquana]

Then I'd have some fun. I'd dress up in reflective spandex and drop in on random people that no one will ever believe and say things like "I am from the FUTURE! In order to save humanity from itself you must get to the train station in New Haven, Conneticut by Tuesday at exactly 11:43am. Order a hot dog from the vendor on the left and throw it at the Senator who will be passing by fifteen minutes later. DO NOT USE ANY MUSTARD!!! That was where we failed the last time. Good luck. Earth is depending on you."

Ah, good stuff, good stuff.

For vacation type things ... I would really like to see the hanging gardens of Babylon, I'd love to be an overly-intelligent woman good at debate during the Decadent Period and see the expressions on some of those guys' faces ... heh heh heh

I honestly think Edgar Allen Poe needed a hug from a random person on the street just once, and I'm the person to give one!

I'd love to have been at Janis Joplin's high school reunion because I'm from that area and I hear it was pretty crazy.

Speaking of music, I'd like to see the Beatles perform in Houston and see if I can see (from a non-paradox-inducing distance) my mom there too.

And hey! What did dinosaurs look like?! And how the heck did stegosauruses mate?!

And you know, for a random one, I'd love to show up at one of the first meetings of the founders of Image Comics and tell them all not to sell out and how to properly write a book as opposed to just draw it ... Or at least just sit in and see what happened.

And on the topic of comics, I want at least one timeline altering one. I wanna kick Fredric Wertham in the junk until he agrees to shut his damn mouth and not write "The Seduction of the Innocent." That's all.

 

[smootrk]

Simple go back in time about 25 years. Beg, Borrow, and Steal all that I could and invest the proceeds into Microsoft and Real Estate in Las Vegas and San Diego.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

And how the heck did stegosauruses mate?!

Very carefully.

Thank you. I'm here all week.

 

[John Crichton]

Then I'd have some fun. I'd dress up in reflective spandex and drop in on random people that no one will ever believe and say things like "I am from the FUTURE! In order to save humanity from itself you must get to the train station in New Haven, Conneticut by Tuesday at exactly 11:43am. Order a hot dog from the vendor on the left and throw it at the Senator who will be passing by fifteen minutes later. DO NOT USE ANY MUSTARD!!! That was where we failed the last time. Good luck. Earth is depending on you."

Sounds like last Monday to me...