A gnome walks up to your computer...
 

… and hands you a letter. The letter reads as follows:

You have been cursed and blessed at the same time. The curse is that you must abandon your present life immediately – indeed, you are already dead to it, and all memory of it will fade in mere moments after reading this letter. The blessing is that you will be transported back in time to any location in the world and any period in the past 1000 years, and dropped into a full life with complete understanding of that time and place.

There are three aspects of your new life: time, place, and “who” you are (king? farmer? soldier? anything you wish). But alas, you can only be specific about two of the three. The third is left completely to chance.

You must decide within a minute of reading this sentence, or the gnome will rip your head off and uses it for a cosmic bowling bowl.

Have a nice day.

Make your choice.

Dallas, 1963, hopefully not riding in an open-topped car

Lesbian supermodel about five minutes ago.

Yeah, that would work...

Maine, 1980.

Cosmic bowling ball. Get to see the stars.

Alternatively, me, six hours before the gnome arrives, so I can decide not to eat the brown acid.

I think I'd be a stud high school quarterback any time in the last 25 years.

Hey, it's your trip.

Hmmm, over 30 views + 5 responses = lots of cosmic bowling balls :D

Emperor.
China.

MIT, 1972, student

astronaut, 1969

frigate captain
Boston

President, 2000.

Edit - Yay! 3000!

Indy 500 racecar seat, 2005.

this one is a big gamble.

1776
constitutional delegate

New York Yankee

1927

Rock star, 1967.

WSU Couger, 2:27 pm today

whoa.

Multi-Biillionaire, Current day....I could care less where I am. I'll buy something and make it better or go somewhere else and buy things.

So if I said Draft Dodger at 2:26pm today, would that mean that I would become WSUCougar?

*keeanu voice on*

whoa.

I'll be the gnome.

What if you don't follow directions?

Also, who gets to pick your third choice? I could see lots of crappy random possibilities:

MIT, 1972, laboratory rat
Rock Star, 1967, Saudi Arabia
Emperor, China, 1949

Oh yeah, for me--Sultan of Brunei, 1995.

Myself, March 1994, Galesburg, MI.

NHL Referee
May 27, 1993

Yeah, I was hoping that wild card aspect might prompt some interesting choices or discussion.

If the gnome was a rules lawyer, I'd imagine that he'd take a hard line on some of these answers, including yours. "Sultan" would be boiled down to a generic equivalent, and Brunei would be tossed out. Altough a cool choice, "New York Yankee 1927" is fudging the three aspects (either "baseball player 1927" or "New York 1927" would be more in keeping). But it's all meant in good fun...

1) Sultan
2) Of Brunei
3) 1995

:)

Personally, I'd go with...

Regent, 340 BC.

WSUCougar gets to pick all 3.

Yes, though "Sultan of Brunei" can be considered a singular title...

The one minute aspect is a bit harsh. I panicked and chose San Francisco 1965. I have absolutely no idea why.

Heh. You mean something like:

Richard Simmons
1990s
videos everywhere

Oh my god, you're Willie Mays!

Horace Grant's goggles
NBA Finals, 1993

Buzzbee picked mine

You do realize you could be a cosmonaut...

Apple employee with large amounts of shares
1980

No. Cuz then I'd be a cosmonaut, not an astronaut.

Yeah- I think we need a rules lawyer gnome that assures that your previous two don't make the third true. For instance, if you say astronaut 1969, it doesn't make you Neil Armstrong- you could be some Cosmonaut in Siberia or a little kid who will be one of the ones who dies in a shuttle accident. Or 1776 constiutional delegate could be some guy helping establish a colony in Africa and not Tom Jefferson.

EDIT: (already mentioned in examples above)

SI

Someone should go through and fill everyone's requests...

Fucking Nazi Gnome. :mad:

Wrigley Field - 3rd baseline lower level seats, October 14, 2003

Poof! You are a beer!

I was going to say he was a peanut shell.

Poof! You are sweeping up trash.

Benevelont authoritarianism kinda sucks, does it not?

That's a pretty big risk. :eek:

As long as I'm a peanut shell that Steve Bartman will slip on and bowl over the entire section of fans who are trying to go after the foul ball! Though I did make the assumption that you could not determine your social standing but that you were at least a person ;)

Ok, thinking back on my chocies, I would probably place a greater value on some assurance of prosperity if having another chance to pick. I think social standing would be far more important to me than location or year... so i could gamble on one of those two.

I wonder if

Movie Star, Hollywood

would get you there. How would you define 'star'. Would the gnome make you an extra and consider that a movie star, or would you be on the level of a Jack Nicholson or John Wayne? Or might the gnome turn you into a porn star? Maybe star in a home movie? Hmmmm...maybe too much lattitude here for a fucking Nazi gnome.

Hmmm, I hadn't considered that but you didn't give much time. :mad: Being behind the iron curtain in 1969 would be bleak. I imagine that a cosmonaut had a better life than the average Russian but not one I would willingly choose.

my first thought was anywhere in the United States in 1985. All I need is to not be absolutely flat broke and I'll buy some microsoft stock. The odds on that seem reasonable. I would really rather not take my chances on location.

Ahh, but you have lost all knowledge of your current being. Therefore you could end up a janitor in Boise and not know to buy Microsoft Stock.

Sounds like fun- I'll give some a try.

Congrats- you're not Kerry Frazer and he overrules you in the game anyways. Either that or you become Kerry Frazer and don't screw up the call but you have to go through the rest of your life with the handicaps of being deaf, blind, and dumb just like he is. The gnome even lets you choose which ;)

Castro it is.

December 17th, 1773. You probably shouldn't have been drunk that night and passed out on deck. Thankfully history doesn't remember your name.

The supermodel standards in Somalia just aren't quite as high as they are here. Ouch.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/s/shockur01.shtml

You're actually pretty good. But you sport the name Urban Shocker and you die the next year at the age of 36.

You're a groundskeeper who is found playing around in the garage before the race.

SI

Wanna be a new Missy Elliott(maibe just a little slimmer..but in the end, fuck, who cares!), 1995, somewhere in the States.

Men, money and big cars...something that should be experienced once in life. ;)

I choose to be Fraser. At the pivotal moment in the game I confer with my linesman, skate over to the timekeeper's booth, and ask for a microphone. I address the crowd and explain to them, in a straightforward manner, that I am a weak and cowardly man. I describe how I do not have the courage to make the toughest call of my career, and how I am already planning the excuses I will rely on for the next decade. Then, I skate to center ice, produce a nickel-plated pistol, and shoot myself in the mouth. After a standing ovation (and quick cleanup) the game continues, and the world is a better place.

I'd be really in favor of a gnome with a crazy sense of justice. People who wish to be kings or some sort of celebrity get the lowest rung while those just asking for a better life like, say, someone in Ethiopia during the famine just wanting to be in Western Europe or the US during the 1980s becomes JK Rowling or Oprah or something.

SI

Good morning your worship. The year is 1221 and today is shaping up to be a fine fall day here in Beijing. someone arrived just this morning at the palace and requests an audience with your highness. He says his name is Temujin and he brought some friends with him. Shall I show him in?

A:)Anywhere in U.S.
B:)1960's
C:)Avid guitar player

You die of overdose approximately 10 minutes after inhabiting this body. :)

Monty Python troupe member, 1969

So what could the downside be to choosing to be a Multi-billionaire Shapeshifting Powerful Sorcerer in current day, anywhere?

Anyone else starting to really like her?

How long until we get the post:

Ben Lewis
October 2000

Hmmm?

Joe Namath.

1969.

Or Suzy Kolber, 2004.

England, 1966 ... might as well watch the World Cup ;)

...or perhaps end up as Mick Jagger.

gnome, last week

It's a stupid exercise because life gets better and better with each passing year; less suffering, more affluence, more options for happiness. Or maybe I should say, this game is like an iq test; the further in the past you pick, the dumber you are.

Poof! You just got passed over for a bit part in a Travelocity commercial...

I am convinced that WSUCougar watched Charmed recently...they just had an episode where a gnome gets killed by a character in a book - turns out the book is "charmed" and sucks people in to the 1930's...the authors (brothers) were killed before they could finish the book so it's writing itself - kind of along the same lines as this thread!!!! :)

FWIW, radii watched this episode with me (as he does most nights) and actually commented that it was one of the better episodes/story lines they had done... :)

Or perhaps you just have very little imagination?

And no, oliegirl, I honestly didn't see that, although it's a strange coincidence.

And yet people are NOT happier. Paradoxical? Perhaps, but all of the reasons you mention as life getting better and better are not leading to a happier population.

It's not my fault people aren't happier; I, personally, get happier every year, and would rather be a wage slave today than a baron in 15th century germany.

Poof! You just became a refugee fleeing Darfur.

This does not change the fact that your initial assertion that people who chose anything but these times were morons because life is the best is has ever been now is not supported. If people were to choose based on when they would have the best life, wouldn't that be the time when people were generally the most satisfied with their lives? That would not be the times we live in now.

I'm not sure that's true. I don't know how you measure that, anyway. Objective measures like rates of depression are pretty much impossible to measure in the 19th century, for example.

What call is this? Mc Sorley's stick?

Nah, this is a week before when the Leafs are in the Conference finals against the Kings.

SI