Inconsequential Time Travel Addendum - Consequential Time Travel

It has been brought to my attention that my presence at some of the events I listed might be a little more than inconsequential. I suppose trading pornography could have serious repercussions, but when you consider the taboo around such things, it's unlikely anybody would dare break the obscenity laws of the time by willingly going to the authorities to present it as evidence of a time traveler from the future. And were I at a Greek orgy I know the appearance of a clothed, Asian male would be jarring, but I think they would have more urgent matters to mind. But riding on the back of a triceratops? What harm could that do?

So I now present a list of things I would do with a time machine that would be more consequential:

- I would go back in time to tell myself not buy this or that thing of which there are too many instances to list.
- I would go back in time to tell myself not to order this/order that instead of which again there are too many instances to list.
- I would go back in time and tell John Delorean that he must insist on sticking with the 6-cylinder engine rather than going with the weaker and more compact 4-cylinder. And also that he should lay off of the cocaine. Who knows, maybe Doc Brown wouldn't have to wait to accelerate to 88 mph.
- I would murder George Lucas around 1994. Ditto for Harrison Ford in 2004.
- I would tell Woodrow Wilson he needs to calm down and rest a little bit.
- I would suggest Captain Smith of the R.M.S. Titanic that maybe it would be a good idea for the ice breaker to come around, thus avoiding a little film that appeared in 1997.
- I would stop Sirhan Sirhan from shooting Bobby Kennedy. I would not stop Lee Harvey Oswald though.
- I would tell myself not to chug that 2 liter of Hawaiian Punch right before watching "Pineapple Express."
- I would refuse to go to watch "The Englishman Who Came Up a Hill and Went Down a Mountain" with my family.
- I would tell Don Simpson that he must for the sake of future movie goers and television watchers lay off of the drugs and prostitutes since somebody needs to balance out Jerry Bruckheimer. Then I will list off all the movies and TV shows that Bruckheimer has produced since. I'm pretty sure that would sober him up some.
- I would tell M. Night Shyamalan after "Unbreakable" that he should quit while he was at the top of his game. On second thought, I would wait until after "The Happening."
- I would invest in the Asylum.

The Pitch - "Future Porn"

This title is a bit misleading since it has nothing to do with the adult entertainment in the future. Rather it's a short story concept about pornography and how it's evolved over time.

The basic premise is this: a man develops a time machine so that he can go back into the past and collect Tijuana Bibles. For those who don't know, Tijuana Bibles were pornographic comic books produced from the '20s through the '60s. But since currency has changed over time, he takes with him the only currency he knows that would have fair trade value: pornography. But since computers, DVD players, and VCRs don't exist in the past, he only takes print material, mainly dirty magazines. He expects people of the past to be appalled by modern day pornography, but is equally surprised at how skewed sexual morays were in the past as perceived by the present. Some of the items he trades for turn out to be quite graphic, whereas the most significant claims to his magazines are that they exhibit greater photographic fidelity and that the women have less hair. In the end he returns to the present with his collection of Tijuana Bibles and destroys the time machine so that it cannot be misused for more dubious acts.

I find writing about the story is far more fun that actually writing the story, although that still stands as a possibility. This is probably because it falls in line with my dreams of inconsequential time travel. If I could time travel, there are number of things I would like to do that don't stand to impact the flow of history at all. These are:

- Buy a pair of every single Air Jordan from the AJI to the AJXIV when it was originally released.
- Watch Napoleon's men use the Sphinx's nose for target practice.
- See the roof blow off of the Parthenon.
- Watch the 70th Academy Awards on TV.
- Catch the original airing of the last episode of "St. Elsewhere"
- Videotape Michael Jordan's first retirement ceremony.
- Watch the 1961 Rose Bowl game live from the Golden Gophers' side.
- Stand on line for the premier of "Star Wars."
- Watch that infamous performance of a local Peter Pan production as recounted on "This American Life."
- Eat at McDonald's in the '50s.
- Eat Ortolan before they became protected.
- Check out a Greek orgy.
- Ghost watch.
- Drink a Coca-Cola in the early 20th century.
- Ride a dinosaur.
- Ride a zeppelin.

So yes, maybe I would like to go back into the past to trade porn for porn. There could be worse things a person could do with a time machine.

If I Won the Lottery

My family was watching an old episode of "Castle" wherein the question of what would you do if you won the lottery was posed to every character in the show.

Here was my verbatim answer:

"I would pay off my debt and hire a financial planner. Put a large chunk into savings, invest the rest. Take a small part of it to live off of. Move out into an apartment. Maybe buy a new TV. What do I need with like a hundred cars, I can only drive one at a time. Quit my job and take some time looking for one I really want, or a part-time job. Buy some construction paper. Stock my refrigerator with soda."

That, in a nutshell, is exactly what I would do if I won the lottery, whether it be $100,000 or $100,000,000 dollars. And for the record, it would be a 3-D TV. Probably a Sony.

Shitty Movie Review - "When in Rome"

Sometimes you see a trailer and you just know that the film is going to be awful, and then you can't wait for it to come to Netflix. "When in Rome" is that film. I knew from the moment that a comically-wigged Will Arnett was pictured in front of an obvious bluescreen mural that I would have to see this film. It had me at wiggy Will and bluescreen.

From the very opening seconds the caliber of "When in Rome" is quite clear. Stilted dialog, forced situations, predictable, overly-long jokes, bizarre casting, and poorly executed and unnecessary CG sequences overload the film. Despite all that it is very much a modern day slapstick film a la the Marx Bros. or Three Stooges, except that it's a romantic comedy and technically not good. Much of the film feels like it was designed as a joke on the viewer. But I for one relished the joke.

Without saying why they are in the film, I just want to rattle off some of the better known actors and personalities who contributed to the film: Kristin Bell, Josh Duhamel, Will Arnett, Dax Shepard, Dan Heder, Danny Devito, Anjelica Huston, Don Johnson, Alexis Dziena, Ghostface Killah, Lawrence Taylor, Shaquille O'Neal, and David Lee. This is a remarkable and eclectic cast that never in a million years would anyone have predicted would all be appearing in a film together. The seemingly random appearances by some of these people throughout the movie had me jumping out of my chair with my fists raised in the air—"Why, why are you, [insert actor's name here], in this movie?" As magic is one of the major plot devices in this movie, so too did it feel as though everyone involved had been enchanted and forced into participating in something that subconsciously everyone knew must have been wrong.

I must admit that I'm a bit torn over some of the gags. For the most part they are horrible. But at the same time I was laughing out loud at them, so I am uncertain whether the film can be considered genuinely funny at times or merely funny-but-not-really-in-the-way-it-was-intended-to-be-funny funny. You can pretty much spot the oncoming jokes from a mile away as they race towards the present a horse and buggy version of Doc Brown's Delorean. Watch any slapstick movie from the '30s or '40s and chances are that one of those jokes are in this movie, only dragged out even longer for maximum pain. One sequence features a vase that Kristin Bell's character is supposed to break, only it won't. Instead it bounces around oblivious to the rules of physics, smashing other objects and injuring people in the process. Now this has been done before, and it wouldn't even be that awful if it didn't feel like an eternity before the scene ends. As if that wasn't bad enough, the makers of this film thought that if a joke is good once, then clearly it should be good for two or more times. And in a way, they're right—the same joke twice is bad, the same joke three times is laughably bad.

Perhaps the ending credit sequence best symbolizes the movie overall. It features all of the principle characters dancing in front of a bluescreen with a poorly represented Rome as the backdrop. With the exception of Rome in the background and the actors from the movie, this sequence has nothing to do with anything else in the film. Perhaps it was fun for everyone involved in the making of the film, so maybe the viewer can take solace in knowing that someone derived some inkling of enjoyment from this film. That being said though, I did enjoy this film in all its shitty glory such that while I typically take notes while I watch a film, I enjoyed this one so thoroughly that I had trouble tearing my eyes and ears away for the most part. It is crap, but pure grade A crap.

My shitty movie rating: 9 out of 10 turds. This is a modern day shitty classic.

Cobb Salad

Cobb salad probably ranks as my third favorite salad behind Caesar and Chinese chicken. I've been wanting to make a Cobb salad for the past three weeks but just haven't been able to do it. But today I had the time and was able to get all of the ingredients.

My salad included all of the requisites: lettuce, watercress, tomato, avocado, hard-boiled egg, Roquefort cheese, chicken breast, bacon, and a red wine vinaigrette. Traditional Cobb salad doesn't have ham, but I included it since that's how some restaurants serve it. I still included the bacon though because, well, it's bacon.

It's not the best Cobb salad I've had, but it was good, and very filling. I'll probably still prefer to make Caesar salads, but every once in a while a break is nice.