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Message started by C.N.Pitts on Jul 3^rd, 2011, 7:37pm

Title: The Kindle Rant - Where In History Would You Be Happy?
Post by C.N.Pitts on Jul 3^rd, 2011, 7:37pm

Okay, no more wonking about the evils of Kindle, promise. ::)

The one thing about ranting about how the digital age is destroying such a huge chunk of human accomplishment got me to thinking though... if there were such a thing as a time machine and you could visit any period in history thus far that you wished to live out your life, where would you choose to go?

Obviously, all of it's good and bad. You pick the 80s, you can make a killing in real estate but the music is terrible. (Oh yeah, and you end up dying where we are now). Go a bit further back, men are all wearing hats and gapped toohed children named Jimmy deliver your newspaper every day in a cloud of americana, but the world trembles in fear at the threat of nuclear holocaust. Further back and there's a war on. Further than that, beer is illegal and women cant vote. Back a little more, war again. Back some more, everyone's on horses and scurvy is a terminal illness. And so on.

Me, I think I'd plug in niceley somewhere around 1936. Prohibition's over, cars exist, writing is appreciated, and the great lurch towards modern life is just getting underway. And I'll be dead before social networking shows up, thank god.

It's either than or Victorian England. I can't help but think I'd be happy there as well.

So, given the choice, would you stay or would you go? And if so, where?

Title: Re: The Kindle Rant - Where In History Would You Be Happy?
Post by Adrienne_Ray on Jul 4^th, 2011, 4:17pm

I would probably stay right here. There's a lot of good things about the past but I think we take our civil rights for granted. I remember when I went to college in the 70's, girls climbed out of windows to escape date rape and the boy would come back next week to see if she wanted to go out again.
When I was 13, my mother told our neighbors she didn't have a problem with her kids going to school with black children and they treated her like she had the plague.
My mother told me when she was a girl, 1920's, babies were born at home and if it looked like the baby wasn't going to make it, a sensitive man might rock it all night but a regular guy probably wouldn't bother.
Her father was born at home without a doctor and NOBODY in the family could write well enough to record it in the Bible. It WAS recorded in the family Bible and it's a mystery how it got there.
Nope. Give me the 2010's. I'm happy where I am. But I DO think we ought to respect the past and try to preserve the parts that we admire. I wouldn't want to live in the past but if I could visit it for about 15 minutes....
If I could go back in time for 15 minutes, I would go back to when Marilyn Monroe sang "Happy Birthaday" to John Kennedy. I would love to get a chocolate pie and slam miss Monroe right in the face.
How dare she humiliate Jackie that way?
Wouldn't that be a perfect 15 minutes of fame?

Title: Re: The Kindle Rant - Where In History Would You Be Happy?
Post by C.N.Pitts on Jul 4^th, 2011, 7:07pm

That would frigging rawk! Lol.

Title: Re: The Kindle Rant - Where In History Would You Be Happy?
Post by J. Davidson Hero on Jul 7^th, 2011, 6:11am

I have to agree with Adrienne. There's no time like the present. Visiting the past would be nice, but I wouldn't want to live there. From our present, the future is still unwritten, so the possibilities are endless. Although being in the past with knowledge of the future intact might be interesting. :)

Title: Re: The Kindle Rant - Where In History Would You Be Happy?
Post by Webbie on Jul 8^th, 2011, 1:22pm

J. Davidson Hero wrote on Jul 7^th, 2011, 6:11am:

1) Buy that silly sounding stock, "microsoft"
2) Profit
3) Retire
4) Buy a Mac
5) LOL!

Title: Re: The Kindle Rant - Where In History Would You Be Happy?
Post by C.N.Pitts on Jul 9^th, 2011, 7:45pm

Couldn't do it, the present is like a frigging nightmare, the more it advances the worse it gets. Money is no longer a physical thing, it's a binary string in some computer you can't access. Music is now the opiate of the masses. You can now be famous for being famous.

We live in hell. Go read the Inferno. Even frigging Dante Allegheri couldn't envision a world populated be the Real Housewives of New Jersy or Sukie (or whatever her stupid-ass name is) from Jersey Shore.

Given the whole of human history to choose from, I could NOT bring myself to pick now, the end of days. I want a goddarned fedora and holding a car door open for a woman that ISN'T gonna sue for sexism...

Ya wanna know what hell is? Be a person out of time. :-/

Title: Re: The Kindle Rant - Where In History Would You Be Happy?
Post by Webbie on Jul 10^th, 2011, 11:20am

C.N.Pitts wrote on Jul 9^th, 2011, 7:45pm:

Sounds like a plot waiting to be written.....

Title: Re: The Kindle Rant - Where In History Would You Be Happy?
Post by Gary A. Markette on Jul 11^th, 2011, 1:04am

The past is gone. The future hasn't come. We have only the now.

Let's party. :o

Title: Re: The Kindle Rant - Where In History Would You Be Happy?
Post by Gary A. Markette on Jul 11^th, 2011, 1:11am

Sorry about that last post. I temporarily travelled back in time to my college days. Frat boys and racoon coats and dorm halls filled with the sweet aroma of . . . well, you know. Tiny school; middle of nowhere; lots of time on my hands. BSing in the Union; scoping the dollies; sweating the tougher profs.

Why do I keep hearing that old refrain . . . "cause we were young and sure to have our way . . ." Gotta go. MASH is on in 10 in the common room.

Title: Re: The Kindle Rant - Where In History Would You Be Happy?
Post by Adrienne_Ray on Jul 13^th, 2011, 3:23pm

This is for C.N. Pitts:
Do not be discouraged. Perhaps you are not a person out of time but a person whose time has not yet come.
I was a young staunch conservative growing up in the 60's and 70's. It seemed like the world had lost its mind. Legalized abortion? Feminism? The Church smothered in scandal? I felt like a fish out of water.
But you know what? If you are true to yourself and if you stand up for what you believe eventually the world starts to make sense. I hated my younger years but lately I have spent a lot of time saying 'See? I was right!'
Hang in there. It's going to be okay.

Title: Re: The Kindle Rant - Where In History Would You Be Happy?
Post by Tim P. on Jul 13^th, 2011, 4:45pm

Screw the past. I already know what happened, why would I want to live it? and screw the present, it stinks. I would not want to live in a world were the term "Belieber" exists, and were "Guuurl" is in the dictionary. No. I would go into the future. However I can't help but notice that the impact I am going to make on this world and it's very existence, would not be there had I moved my place in time. So I am going to sit down, shut up, and make my move when the time is right. The future will come eventually, and it can't get much worse. :-X