Pros and Cons of Time Travel

In movies and books, the concept of time and the significance of the individual is frequently explored. If time travel were possible, it would be interesting to see how much like it is in movies. Does one person's presence (or lack thereof) really make that much of a difference in the world like George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life or Marty McFly in Back to the Future? Or will the power of one person have little effect on the outcome of history like Michael Crichton's theory from Timeline? Will the power of time travel be used to save humankind and bring back long extinct species like in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home? Will musicians of the present be inspired by musician from the future (Taylor, it's your cousin, Marvin Swift. Ima let you finish, but listen to this!)? Only time will tell.

As awesome as time travel may seem in movies, it also has it's negative side effects. I learned from the book Timeline that traveling too many times through quantum wormholes can lead to transcription errors where your body parts do not fit back together properly. Nothing could be worse than having your body malfunction on you when you are stuck in the middle ages and they think you are a witch for having six toes or something. Also as awesome as the effects of time travel were for the McFly family in Back to the Future, nobody ever hears Biff's side of the story. It isn't fair that someone else can be so successful and others have to suffer just because they don't have a crazy mad scientist friend (Seriously, why was a guitar playing, skateboarding teenager like Marty McFly hanging around a crazy old guy like Doc Brown in the first place? Hmm.). Once this technology becomes available to the public, there is no telling how many times history will have to be rewritten. Like Dr. Seuss' Sneetches, after a while, nobody will remember how things were before and the world will be in chaos.

The logistics of time travel still needs to be worked out and laws would have to be passed to regulate it once time machines became available to the general public, but the idea of it still seems pretty cool. It is something to think about, but like I said before, only time will tell.

Sunday Afternoon Couch Voyage

Today, I spent most of my afternoon watching one of my most guilty pleasures: the NFL playoffs. I am a geek, but something about football really fascinates me. Every game is like a battle in the long war with the eventual goal of winning the Super Bowl. There is good versus evil, complex story lines and plot twists and an intrepid, adventurous leader captaining his rag tag diverse ship of teammates. His name is Brett Favre and his shipmates call themselves Vikings rather than space explorers but he, like Captain Kirk, is also trying to boldly go where no man has gone before: to raise a championship trophy as a forty year old quarterback.

On the other sideline, there was the Dallas Cowboys--a franchise that earned the title of "America's Team" many decades ago but had since fallen into mediocrity after going thirteen years without winning a playoff game. Before last week, their last playoff victory came at a time when they were perennial contenders led by three stars who were nicknamed after another group of legendary figures: "The Holy Trinity."

Could Brett Favre and his crew ward off the Klingons long enough to see another week of TV? Or would they have to retreat back to base, lick their wounds, and regroup for the next season? Would it be the last season for their captain before Picard takes over the "next generation" of football? In the words of the great gridiron philosopher Chris Berman, "That's why they play the game."

The game plays out, Brett Tiberius Kirk is fired up and uses his emotional intensity to motivate his teammates in the early going. Vikings head coach Brad Childress is the stoic advisor to the captain on the field. He reminds Brett that throwing an interception would be illogical. In the end, the defensive engines powered by Jared "Scotty" Allen turn out have too much power for the Klingons to take. Swashbuckling recievers like Sidney "Sulu" Rice continue to snipe into the end zone.

In the end, the battle is clearly won by Team Kirk. Good luck next year, Klingons. But unlike the real Captain Kirk, Brett Favre does not spare the Gorn in the end of the Arena battle. He lets his emotions get to him and adds another touchdown in the end to disprove all the naysayers who thought he was too old to run a football team. Some call it running up the score, or adding insult to injury, but some just call it life. If you can't stand getting beat up when you're down, don't fall in the first place. Brett's ship lives to fight another day, but will his next mission be his last? That's why they play the game.