SouthFresh

What would you do right now if someone told you that you needed to run out to the store, buy some papyrus, a brush, some ink supplies and start writing in Sanskrit?   That’s what I had to do.  My plans, the designs for the time machine were provided to me, by me, from me.

Once when I was a bit younger, I “figured out” how to make it work, tested it, and successfully traveled back in time.  Then I only  had to make sure to put the designs for it in the place where I originally found them.

Of course shortly I realized, I had a time machine.  If I really had to go somewhere and find some papyrus and all the necessary accessories to write on it, I could just go back in time to when all of those things were available.  So that’s what I did. I went back in time, got the same type of media I had originally found…

I was having some issues today with my AIM and wanted to make sure that I had the most up to date version. When I got the download, the following page showed up;

What the fuck is eating his face?

I’m going through the “Create Your Own Level” tutorials on “Little Big Planet” for the PS3.  I’ve decided this game is awesome and has increased its awesomness quotient by having a British accent.

If the tutorial’s voice over had, for example, a Canadian accent I would have to decrease its awesomeness quotient.

The first time I met myself I was both 7 years old and in my late 40′s.   The 7 year old me was on vacation with my parents in the bahamas.  We had taken a Disney based cruise out from Florida and enjoyed a long vacation aboard  cruise ship for the first time.

It was a bit strange to work my 40ish year old self into the situation.  But somehow I managed to pull it off without coming across as a creepy old man.

I was struck with a twisted sense of melancholy.  I could still remember and feel the childlike fascination with everything that was happening while being stuck with the fact that I had aged, and done so in not so pleasant ways.

Having the advantage of knowing that my father was an armchair physicist my older self was able to easily engage him in conversations about the world, the cosmos, and the intricacies of theoretical physics.

“You seem to be a very well educated man.” My father told me at one moment.

I took the leap, an important step in my plan… to tell him what was happening.

“I’m going to tell you something that you’re not going to believe at first, but you will believe shortly.”  He looked at me questioning for a moment as I passed an envelope to him, addressed directly to him but his attention was quickly shifted.

We were interrupted at that moment by a character visit.  Donald Duck had decided to make an appearance in the area and people were all agog to get pictures with the large costumed duck with their children.  My older self offered to take a picture of my family with Donald from my father’s camera as a souvenir.  This was at a time when digital cameras may as well not have existed, so they would only see the picture weeks after they had arrived home again.

Once Donald Duck had finished making the rounds, I rounded on my father.  He looked so young at the time and again I was hit with the melancholy sense that time gives someone who has experienced it directly.  I told him, “This will sound crazy to you right now, but later on tonight you’re going to open up that envelope I’ve given you and realize I’m not just some crazy old man.”

“Are you feeling ok?” He asked, thinking possibly that I was taken with sea sickness.

“I’m fine, ” I replied and continued, “and I want you to know I’ll be fine for a long time.  I’m actually your son.  I found a way to come back in time to help me out through my life.  I wanted you to know because I was hoping you would understand.  Just… please… open up the envelope later tonight.”

My young father was visibly disturbed by what I had told him.  He looked at my younger self, and back to me.  “I think we’re going to go play some ping pong on the pool-deck.” He said this as a way to get out of conversation with the weirdo.

Later that night, after the obligatory semi-formal Captain’s dinner, my 7 year old self would find my fathter hiding tears as he looked at the already developed, and slightly yellowed  picture of us posing, with touristy smiles next to Donald Duck.  Had my 7 year old self been more observant he would have noticed the date scrawled on the back of the photo.  The date was the same day we were currently experiencing.

He seemed sad, but told me that everything was going to be great.  Better than he had ever thought they could be.

In 2005 students at MIT hosted “party” invited time travellers from the future to show up.  This caused a minor blip of amusement to go across the mass media of the time since nobody from the future showed up.  It was more amusing many years later when it was revealed that the entire party had been staged by people who had managed to find their way into the school from many years in the future.  I wasn’t there but I saw the joke in it.

When I died, the causes were natural but the circumstances… well the circumstances sure didn’t appear to be so.  I had fallen asleep at my desk, light on, surrounded by hundreds if not thousands of notecards.  They were the 4×6 inch note cards with the blue lines and one pink line at the top.  Every one of them with notes scrawled on them.   Every one of them had notes… not a single note card was left blank and I knew that there wouldn’t be.

I know all of this because I had set it all up.

While standing on line for a Toy Story themed ride at Disney’s Hollywood Studios if found myself surrounded by larger than life crayons used to guide us through the line towards the actual ride.  This triggered a memory that I doubt few out there would share.

I remember quite distinctly how on many occassions my friends and I would feed their dog Crayola Crayons because later on their yard would be littered with multi-colored dog poo.

Ahhhh childhood.

Ladies,you’re missing the point of a clear strap bra if it’s digging the equivalent of the Marianas Trench in your back

Just left that demonic spawn of satan, “It’s a small world.” I would have thought that someone before me would have found the exiting imagery of a boy spanking his dingo with his boomerang to be slightly inappropriate for a children’s ride.

And no,  the irony of  seeing a woman wearing a burkah standing on line for a ride based on Alladin is not lost on me