Monday, April 22, 2013

On Getting Older But (Maybe) Looking Younger

Birthday boy.
Today is my birthday, and as I get older there are more people whom I've outlived. By "outlive" I mean "lived to a greater age," not "lived to a more recent year." Going by the latter, I've outlived everyone in human existence who died today or earlier.

As a Wikipedia junkie, I can quickly research the lives of famous people to see (that is, be depressed by by own lack of accomplishments while considering) how much many of these folks have accomplished during their shorter-than-my lifetime.

For instance, consider who died at age 27:
  • Jimi Hendrix
  • Janis Joplin
  • Jim Morrison
  • Kurt Cobain
  • Amy Winehouse
Sure, I've listed a quintet of live-fast/die-young recording artists who all died from drug overdoses — if you discount the conspiracy theories — but when you realize that you've reached the age that John Lennon never will, well, you start to feel old.


Saturday, April 6, 2013

On Theft and Time Travel

"Forget about that fire raging right
under my crotch — what time is it?"
More than I'd care to admit (but not so much that I'm too ashamed to admit on in a public blog), I spend a lot of time thinking about time travel. In fact, I've even written plays and the occasional article about it.

Obviously it's because I live in the past and am occupied with many regrets that I would like to someday remedy or erase, but one offshoot of my time-travel musings involves finding ways to make a lot of money with the assistance of transportation to (and, in most cases, from) a long time ago.

I tend to overcomplicate things when it comes to the consideration time travel, however — but not from a purely technical standpoint. I don't care about physics or metaphysics — which for all I know might be the same thing — nor am I interested in the actual transportation vessel. I'll let the scientists or physicists or metaphysicists handle the mechanics like how thick the walls of the time machine would be.

What I focus on (other than trying to kill the parents of my enemies before these enemies are conceived, which is fodder for a different post) is determining the most practical way to make a lot of money off time travel with ease and without causing too many major disruptions in future world history.

Most of my time-travel money-making opportunities involve stealing stuff and bringing them to the present day where they'll be considered old and therefore valuable. Here's a representative example of a scheme I've considered, along with some of the potential roadblocks to achieving financial independence: