You are able to travel to 1977 for 10 minutes.

[Dave Starsky]

You can set your time machine for ANY geographic location you want. 

You can also bring anything you want with you, as long as it fits with you in a standard refrigerator, which is what your time machine is made out of. Anything you bring will also return with you to 2017 when the 10 minutes have expired. You can also bring something from 1977 back, as long as it fits with your other stuff. 

This takes an ENORMOUS amount of energy, so you only get ONE AND ONLY ONE shot at this. You have to make this 10 minutes count. 

Where do you go and what do you do? Seriously.

[Bayard]

1. No question

My brother, alive and well.

[Dave Starsky]

2. To talk to him, you mean?

Or to bring him back with you?

[Bayard]

31. Bring him back with me

And tell him everyday not to give up on life, and how much I love him.

[elehhhhna]

28. See my daddy, bring pics and videos of his grandkids, and my sis if she fits in the fridge w me

Tell my mom to buy Microsoft and Apple stock w his life insurance and to file a mesothelioma claim.

Tell young me I'll be okay and to finish college.

[marylandblue]

3. I'd bring a note to myself

telling me to buy stock in Apple. I don't want anything from 1977.

[Dave Starsky]

7. In 1977, you could still keep Reagan out of the WH.

That alone would stop the long chain of unfortunate events that eventually brought us the Cheetoh in Chief.

[Leith]

25. Same Here

I would run up to myself (I'm still recognizable) and tell myself to beg, borrow, and steal money to get as much stock as I could.

[jberryhill]

4. Yeah, that's what they said the last time they wanted to lock me in a refrigerator

[NotASurfer]

12. I hate it when that happens n/t

[Dave Starsky]

20. Trust me.

I know what I'm doing.

[Binkie The Clown]

5. After long and diligent research to help me identify the key turning point....

... I go back long enough to set in motion a chain of events that guarantees that, instead of becoming wealthy, Donald Trump ends up a penniless bum begging for spare change on street corners. What might that chain of events be? I don't know. That's what the long and diligent research is meant to discover.

[cos dem]

10. Take a video of present-day Orange Idiot back to Tony Schwartz.

He's the real author of the " (f)art of the deal". That's when the Trump mythology started.

[gordianot]

6. A serious conversation with my self.

Would bring investment advice.

[Lochloosa]

8. Easy. I wouldn't have married my first wife.

So I would have brought back joy and happiness.

[Dave Starsky]

9. So what do you do? Show up at the wedding?

Or just visit yourself and talk yourself out of it?

[jberryhill]

13. I doubt you could do that in ten minutes

My first rule of life is:

If you ever meet a duplicate of yourself, time traveling or otherwise, kill it. Kill it immediately, and without hesitation because that's exactly what I know the other one is also thinking if it's really me.

Don't you watch any movies?

[Binkie The Clown]

14. Reminds me of an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xander's wedding day. nt

[left-of-center2012]

69. What's Joy's last name?

I may have dated her in 1976.

[NotASurfer]

11. New York, January 15, Saturday Night Live

The Coneheads were unleashed on an unsuspecting public. Enough time to see that skit performed live, I think.

Completely frivolous, I know. Let me think on (1) frivolous personal wealth building schemes and (2) changing history, to see if I can come up with something I like

[Chipper Chat]

15. to Hawaii

To take a swim in the Queens Bath. It "will be" destroyed by lava in the years to come.

[ghostsinthemachine]

16. Cornell University, Ithica NY, 5-08-77

Grateful Dead, "Morning Dew".

[DFW]

17. Most selfish reply you'll probably get

What I'd take with me: I'd put together $40,000 in cash in $100 bills printed before 1977. They're still out there and they're all legal tender. Knowing what I do now, I'd go to the 1977 American Numismatic Convention in Atlanta and buy collector coins that I know would increase in value today by a factor of 50 or more. I know exactly which dealers had that kind of thing back then, and I'd race from table to table until I'd spent my wad. It would be tight having only ten minutes, but I think I could do it.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

18. On a similar note, buy Microsoft stock.

And Apple.

It wouldn't fit in a refrigerator, but I'd like to also buy a used Jaguar XKE and have it magically transported to my current garage. I'll clear a space for it.

[DFW]

19. WAS there such a thing as Microsoft or Apple stock in 1977?

If there was, then your pick is far better, although I'm not sure how easy it would have been to get such a transaction done in 1977 with cash within ten minutes, unless you kept a checkbook from back then in your attic, and there was $40k in the account at the time--no small sum back then.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

21. I think they were both new companies in 75 or 76.

I don't think I had 40k in a checking account at the time. But, I probably could have scraped 4k together. maybe.

I wouldn't have to keep an old checkbook, I could just meet my formerly young self and convince that other me that buying stock in this silly garage-built gadgetry would be a good idea. It could work.

But, my current old self would look at this time-machine thingy and say No Way Do I Get Into That Contraption!!!

[DFW]

23. You could try to convince your young self to do your old self a big favor and empty the bank account

To which argument, your young self would probably tell you to piss off, and then vow to lay off the booze and drugs for a month until these hallucinations stopped being so real. "Microsoft and Apple, what a lot of hogwash, as if any of that sci-fi stuff has a future....."

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

24. Ok, you had me convinced until ...

... until this "lay off the booze and drugs" nonsense. Hey, this was the seventies!

[DFW]

29. I never said it would work.............. n/t

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

55. Those of us who read science fiction

would IMMEDIATELY grasp the implications of our time-travelling older self and immediately ask for stock suggestions. Maybe even SuperBowl, World Series, and Triple Crown winners if there were time.

[DFW]

57. Might I suggest this one for you:

https://www.amazon.com/Time-Cellar-Marc-Emory/dp/159967971X

I know a few DUers have read it, Panader0, California Peggy and others.

Plus, how could Howard Dean, Stan Lee and Adrian Cronauer all be wrong?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

58. I actually bought it a while back

and found the print version unreadable because of crappy formatting.


A print book should NOT be formatted the way an e-book is, and apparently the author (is it you?) didn't look at the physical book before it got printed.

A PDF of the original manuscript would have been preferable, assuming standard manuscript formatting had been used.

[DFW]

59. Amazon did the formatting, and the author did not get a look prior to printing

And I agree, it was substandard. A reader did need to make compromises, but this is the first time I have heard it called unreadable. The hardcover version, only obtainable from the Ivy Press in Dallas, was better done. As for the author, guilty as charged.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

61. I'm appalled that Amazon didn't allow you to look at the formatting

before it was printed.

[TexasBushwhacker]

50. Apple didn't go public until 1980. Microsoft 1986

The original MacIntosh didn't even come out until 1984.

[DFW]

56. I thought 1977 sounded a little early

Not that the ten years are going to help any of us set our time machines more accurately.

Besides, if we are all billionaires, when you want to buy a newspaper, it'll cost you $25,000 for today's Dallas Morning News, and $50,000 a gallon for gas.

[lastlib]

51. Only AAPL existed then.

MSFT started in 1981 when PCs were in their infancy, and didn't go public until 1986. AAPL incorporated in 1977, but was closely held (i.e., not publicly traded) until 1980.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

60. Well, it seemed like good plan.

I'd better do more research before I get into the time-travel machine.

[Kali]

46. hmmm time travel and coins...

I think I read this story somewhere...

[DFW]

48. Now that you mention it.......

It DOES seem vaguely familiar...........

[jmowreader]

22. Apple's IPO was December 12, 1980

So everyone dreaming about buying Apple stock needs to ask to go back to July 8, 1982, when it was $11 per share.

I think I'd tell my younger self about the Army student loan repayment program, so it would have taken 4 years of math and two of French to get ready for university.

On edit: I would go to a clothing store with $20,000 and buy all the Seventies tops, sneakers and Hash Jeans I could get my hands on. Hipsters of today would snap that shit up.

[DFW]

27. When I got my first stock broker in 1998 (or had one gotten for me by my employer), Apple was $38

On their advice, I let them buy 1000 shares for me. For some reason, I let them talk me into selling half of them to offset some gain a year or two later. The 500 shares I had left split two for one twice, and I let them sit for about 15 years. They then called me up here in Germany and said their "analyst" said Apple was looking shaky and I should put in a sell order if it dipped below $190. It did dip briefly to $189, and they sold my then 2000 shares. Got me a nice profit even after taxes, but I was still skeptical. Sure enough it went to $700, split 7 for one, and the initial $19000 investment would today have been 14000 shares worth $2,296,000 at yesterday's close.

Oh, well, who needs a new house and cars anyway?

[bikebloke]

26. Leave a note to myself.

That was the year airfares dropped real low. I decided to see Europe on the cheap before following the script of job/career, mortgage, marriage etc. My eyes really opened. Sent me on another trajectory. So busy exploring, I didn't take that much time out to eat. Got burned out. I'd slip a note in my backpack (when my younger self wasn't around) to eat more and maybe take a lazy day to recharge.

[underpants]

30. Chester Va

Find myself and tell myself what was going to happen.

[gratuitous]

63. And get over that crush you had on Sue

Nothing good came of it, and while I've long since gotten over it, it just isn't a happy memory.

[underpants]

65. You have no idea how odd and funny that is

Sue

[gratuitous]

66. A Sue for you, too?

Phew!

[underpants]

67. Yes

[Fla Dem]

32. Tell my Mom one more time I love her. She died Jan 1997.

[Callmecrazy]

33. Buy berkshire hathaway stocks...

Just $1000 invested back then would be worth nearly $100,000,000 now.

[LeftInTX]

34. A giant poster of Orange Julius from 2017

With a warning:

"You thought Nixon was bad, look at BLOTUS"

[Algernon Moncrieff]

35. I'd probably go to the same place I wanted to go in 1977

The Playboy Mansion

[Tikki]

36. Grab the Mr. by the hand and run off some where in Hollywood to see...

10 minutes of a Screamers set.

It was fun and important back then..one of my favorite years.

Tikki

[NNadir]

37. Advice for the very stupid person I was then. n/t

[Phentex]

38. I would go to my grandmother's house

and beg and plead with her to let me stay there. And I would tell her that I was going to run away to her every time they made me go "home" and I would bring her back with me because we would both easily fit in a fridge.

[Dave Starsky]

41. But if you bring her back to 2017 with you, she won't be there...

When your past self tries to come to stay with her.

She will have become a missing person, and the authorities or her other family would confiscate her house and other property. Your past self would be hosed.

[Phentex]

42. there wasn't anybody there for her

which is part of why I'd either stay with her or bring her back. And they (her kids) put her in a home and did confiscate her property/sold her house like a bunch of savages. I wasn't of age to fight them and lived across the country.

My past self was already hosed.

[Dave Starsky]

43. Ah, I see.

[hunter]

39. Every time I've time traveled I've fucked everything up. You have no idea.

I may mean well, but I'm a very dangerous fellow when I don't know what I'm doing.

Last time I time traveled the time cops were waiting for me... they knocked me down, zip tied my hands behind my back, kicked me a few times just so I'd remember them, stuffed me into the cage of their time pod, and dumped me off in this time stream, which I assume is the time stream of my origin or something very close to it.

So no thanks, I won't be going anywhere near your one-shot time machine.

[zanana1]

40. I would spend those ten minutes with my mother.

She's been gone for a long time, but I still miss her. I would ask her some questions, but mostly I'd just let her know how much she means to me.

[becca da bakkah]

44. My Son Was Born That Year.....

....I'd go back to that day, and THIS TIME, take lots of pictures. Or borrow a movie camera, videos weren't a thing yet, at least not in my house, and film the whole thing...he was born at home. And capture the part, after he was born, and I showed him to his 4 year old autistic sister. When she bonked him on his little head and cried, "BOY!" Then I'd pack my now deceased brother, who lived with us, in the fridge...I'm sure a six two guy would fit in there, and back to 2017 we'd go!

[Initech]

45. 3 words: Led Zeppelin live.

[stevil]

53. Yes!!!!

June 21, 1977. L.A. - First 10 minutes of the show. Bonzo on fire. Rest of the band on point.

[Kali]

47. probably go to the house of the kids that stole my Martin guitar and get it back

not much time for anything else

[Thor_MN]

49. I would gather selected diagrams, go back and file them with the patent office

Then I would return and sue to financially ruin right wing assholes.

[Croney]

52. I would try to prevent 9/11.

I'd take reams of material; lots of newspapers etc., and even though I'd have to bring them back with me, there's no rule against copying them and leaving the copies. Hard to do in ten minutes, though, and how would I get them to send it to Washington?

This plan needs work...So I'll just change to a plan that prevents hanging chads from ever existing. Hmm...

[Auggie]

54. Pretty silly ...

I'd spend time with my grandfather and bring back an XK-140 Jaguar like he had in the 50s. I could afford 1977 prices. No way today.

[GreenPartyVoter]

62. I'd bring every scrap of climate change data I can fit, plus now declassified

but then classified materials and videos from former Presidents urging their later selves to take action as proof.

Not sure what I would bring back, though.

[Orrex]

64. I would tell six-year-old me not to put Chewbacca on the lightbulb

Early Bird figures melt, you know!

[hibbing]

68. Wherever Fleetwood Mac is

To do enormous amounts of booger sugar with them and stare at Stevie.


Peace

[taterguy]

70. To the airport Skynyrd took off from and top off the gas tank for their plane