Phone It In Friday: Back to the Future

Bonjour canards! I decided to use the Collective Time Machine one more time, to hop back two weeks ago and finally deliver the video I promised. I am a woman of my word, but I also love procrastination. (I mean, who doesn't?) Also I am suffering from a bad case of The Block, which I'm hoping will explain why I ended up not using anyone's suggestion.

Sorry.



Now that THAT is out of the way, I've discussed it with my partners in crime and we've decided to share our time machine with you lot. And if one of you inadvertently blows up the universe? Eh, we've had a good run.

So, Internets, tell me: are you going to the past or the future?

Time Travel: a play (or whatever) in two parts (or whatever)

SCENE: A young woman sits alone in her apartment, twirling her hair and reading a book. A large, green dinosaur covered in purple polka dots crashes though the wall. She glances at him and then goes back to her book.

Figment: Excuse me, Jennie?

Jennie: Shh.

Figment: Jennie!

Jennie: Reading.

Figment: Well, stop.

Jennie: Do you know me at all? Hey wait. Didn't you used to be purple with green spots?

Figment: Yes. I've been going through some changes.

Jennie: What kind of changes?

Figment: It's not important.

Jennie: But --

Figment: Seriously, stop. I've got good news.

Jennie: Oh?

Figment: Yeah. I've got the rocketship (duh) outside and I've made some improvements.

Jennie: What kinds of improvements?

Figment: I put in a home theater system . . .

Jennie: Nice.

Figment: And I installed a frozen margarita maker . . .

Jennie: Even better.

Figment: Oh, and also, I turned the rocketship into a time machine.

Jennie: Well, that's awfully convenient since this week's Collective topic is time travel.

Figment: Isn't it?

Jennie: How did you do it?

Figment: It's not important. What IS important is that you drop your book, put something other than pajamas on, and come time traveling with me.

Jennie: Why can't I time travel in my pajamas?

Figment: . . . I don't know. What if we meet Shakespeare? Do you want to meet Shakespeare wearing penguin pajama pants?

Jennie: Do you really think that's going to matter if a giant dinosaur is standing right next to me?

Figment: Touche.

Jennie: Besides, I don't want to meet Shakespeare.

Figment: You don't?

Jennie: I'm skeptical that he really looked like Joseph Fiennes. And anyway, I have other ideas.

Figment: Such as?

Jennie: I'd like to find Young!Jennie and fill her in on a couple things.

Figment: You can't do that.

Jennie: Why not?

Figment: You can't go talk to yourself . . . you'll change your entire life.

Jennie: Your point?

Figment: NO.

Jennie: Fine. I suppose going to the future and bringing Heather Anne a hoverboard is out of the question?

Figment: Yes.

Jennie: And going to the past and bringing Fitzgerald to the future for Kat isn't going to happen?

Figment: You got it.

Jennie: Can we at least go to Zach Braff's house circa, I don't know, last year, so I can program Abigail's number into his phone?

Figment: NO.

Jennie: FINE.

Figment: Stop sulking.

Jennie: I will on one condition.

Figment: What's that?

Jennie: Can we go see the dinosaurs?

Figment: I'm not sure that's a good idea.

Jennie: Why not?

Figment: The time machine doesn't offer a lot of protection from, I don't know, a giant carnivore hell bent on devouring us.

Jennie: You mean you didn't install a clear titanium bubble around the rocketship?

Figment: . . . no?

Jennie: What kind half-assed time machine is this?

Figment: Watch it.

Jennie: OK, but what if we just pop to the Jurassic era or whatever for a couple minutes? The dinosaurs won't even know we're there.

Figment: I don't know . . .

Jennie: Please? I just want to see a baby brontosaurus and then we can come back.

Figment: Well . . . OK.

Jennie: Yay! Also, I'm going to try to ride a pterodactyl, OK?

Figment: No. No, that is NOT OK.

Jennie: Fine. Can we go?

Figment: Are you going to change?

Jennie: No.

Jennie and Figment head outside and climb inside the rocketship/time machine (duh). The rocketship shoots into the air and then disappears. Not two minutes later, the rocketship comes crashing back down to the ground, with what looks suspiciously like a T-Rex bite taken out of the side. Jennie and Figment run out of the rocketship, fall down, and lie panting on the ground.

Figment: That? Was a bad idea.

Jennie: I know.

Figment: Seriously, seriously bad.

Jennie: I KNOW.

Figment: What were you thinking?

Jennie: How was I supposed to know we'd land RIGHT NEXT to a T-Rex?

Figment: Perhaps you should have taken it into consideration.

Jennie: Perhaps YOU should have covered the rocketship with a clear titanium bubble.

Figment: OK, OK, I'll install one.

Jennie: Good. Because next time I AM riding a pterodactyl.

Figment: Next time?



and SCENE

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. . . .

Because I ain't going to the future. I'm a-scared of robots.

I think my hatred for robots stems from the psychological trauma I suffered in my childhood at the hands of the creepiest movie ever made. I wasn't more than four years old when I first saw The Electric Grandmother, but I still vividly remember my horror as milk and orange juice shot out of the tips of the robot-granny's shriveled little fake human fingers. Gross, dude.

But as hard to believe as it is, I am no longer four-years-old. Yet, over the years, this mingled fear and repulsion has only been reinforced. Let's look at the evidence, shall we?

2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, Alien, The Terminator, I, Robot, Transformers, (presumably) Iron Man, and all of their big-screen permutations each feature one thing: killer robots.

Let me reiterate that, people--KILLER ROBOTS. KILLER ROBOTS!



I can barely open a bottle of vodka without whining at my boyfriend for help; there is no effing way I'm surviving a Kat! vs. Droid Battle Royale.

Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Awww, Kat - but what about the i-Dog? It may not be cuddly, but it sure is cute!" My only response to you is that killer robots have to start somewhere, and my guess is that the i-Dog is about two generations from ripping your throat out in your sleep. Seriously, I don't even trust my iPod. Have you seen the stats that thing keeps on you? Creeeeeeeeepy.

So are you saying that they could be stuck back there forever?

I say:
The year 2000 when some marketing team didn't realize what they had in their hands and didn't spend the appropriate amount of money on marketing a little film about dancing. As a result, the film was a box office flop and relegated to the $5 DVD section at Target. For such a phenomenally entertaining movie, Center Stage ranks only 24 in the box office genre of Dance being beaten out by movies like You Got Served and Roll Bounce(what?). In revised history, the movie would have been a smash. It'd be a cult classic for reals, not just in my head, and Cooper Nielson would star in the sequel. Maybe I'm in charge of convincing Peter Gallagher to reprise his role as Jonathan and all is right with the world.

I think:
Way too much about the implications of time travel and the heavy choices and challenges presented therein. I conjure up research from books and movies I've seen. I get frustrated when they don't work right and breathless when they do. I promise to continue to make good decisions, but I can't stop regretting the bad ones.

Today:
I wish I had a metal detector so I could comb my room for my house key. I wish I had a time machine so I could go back 10 days ago when I decided to leave my key, all alone, on my bed. I would not do that and instead put it in safe place, or at least put it on a key chain. But if I'm asking for wishes, I'm inclined to go back to 1984 when my DNA aligned in such a way that I am the kind of girl who throws a key into a sea of clothes and blankets never to be seen again.

This just in:
In my nightly internet dwelving, I discovered a IMDb profile for Center Stage 2! Talk about feeling breathless! I did a bit of research and it sounds like it's different, new students and one of them (standard) is a ballerina with a secret passion for hip hop (c'mere, boo). That seems way more lame than the first and according to one source this is a straight-to-DVD flick, BUT Cooper AND Peter Gallagher are listed as returning characters. BOTH OF THEM. MY WISHES CAME TRUE. I TOTALLY HAVE A TIME MACHINE.

If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour, you're gonna see some serious shit.

Dear Miss Hogan,

Congratulations once again on your recent graduation from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Timeflight School. It is the standard practice of the Timeflight School to review your first week of solo Time Travel so that we may address any potential actions that could jeopardize our current Space-Time Continuum (STC 6.4). While we are pleased that you did not make the mistake of trying to thwart either World War (after every graduating class, we are usually forced to reset the STC beginning in 1914), there was a pattern to your Travel, and some issues caused therein, that must be addressed. For the sake of expediency we have categorized your Travel as follows: Literature, Entertainment, Ex-Lovers, Accent, Personal Favors, Geography.

Literature

This week you registered your first of many stops in England in 1796. Your Travel log shows observation of Miss Jane Austen. You do not mention any interaction with the author; however, in the course of your visits, the entire text of Mansfield Park was erased from libraries, and replaced with a novel called Happily Ever After with the Darcys, which appears to be a sequel to Pride and Prejudice.

Your next stop was to Massachusetts in 1865. You noted in your log that this trip was to "observe the primary effects of the American Civil War on the northeastern United States." However, after your visit, Louisa May Alcott's classic, Little Women, was altered nearly beyond recognition. Jo March marries Laurie, Beth March lives, and Amy March and Mr. Fritz are eaten by a bear.

Additionally, the following literary changes were noted by our staff scholars after your first week of solo Time Travel: 1) In C.S. Lewis's Narnia masterpieces, Susan Pevinse is never restricted from Narnia; instead she embraces her sexuality and is allowed to fight alongside the men, eventually marrying Prince Caspian. 2) In J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, Professor Lupin does not die. 3) All of the Baby-Sitters Club books that were ghost written disappear. 4) Charlotte of Charlotte's Web lives to a nice, old age of 79.

Miss Hogan, you should know that to change literature is to change the course of human events. These intrusions have been corrected to reflect STC 6.4, and we trust that you will not interfere with any authors in your future Travel.

Entertainment

After your first week of Travel, all collective consciousness of reality television disappeared beginning with MTV's The Real World in 1992. The second and third seasons of The L Word were completely rewritten, as well as the entire West Wing series after season 4. ABC's series Lois and Clark has now been on the air for 12 years. The 2008 Writer's Strike appears to never have taken place, resulting in 47% more screen time for Pam and Jim in the American sitcom The Office, as well as a nine-episode Gossip Girl story arc featuring the character of Georgina Sparks, according to our entertainment statisticians. In addition, the character of Aidan Shaw at first disappeared from the Sex and the City canon, but was then repeatedly added back into the story and written off the show in all manner ways, including: bear attack, drowning, choking on his own turquoise jewelry (thrice), taxi incident (accidental), taxi incident (purposefully killed by driver), tossed from roof (Samantha), tossed from roof (Charlotte), tossed from room (Miranda), tossed from roof (Mr. Big), tossed from roof (Steve), impaled by a variety of wood-working furniture, assaulted with a candlestick in Billiard Room, beaten with a lead pipe in Conservatory, and tossed from roof (Carrie).

Again, these errors have been corrected. If you have a personal issue with modern STC 6.4 entertainment, we suggest you use fan fiction as an outlet.

Ex-Lovers

Miss Hogan, please: Timeflight 101: Do not interfere with your exes in any capacity. Do not drop paint buckets on their heads or the heads of their significant others. Do not set fire to bags of poop on their front porches. Do not toilet paper their houses. Do not put on Halloween masks and pop out of their closets in the middle of the night. In addition, do not practice any of these things on your friends' ex-lovers.

Accent

Perhaps the strangest incident in your first week of Travel is that you returned to 2008 with a perfect British accent. We cannot pinpoint the exact cause of this as it appears you tried several methods to ensure your English lilt in STC 6.4. Whether you moved your family to London for the first eight years of your life, or allowed only British grade school teachers to educate you, or hired a voice coach, please correct this on your own. It is absurd.

Personal Favors

We have corrected the following issues in STC 6.4: Your friend Abigail is no longer president of movies. Your friend Kat is no longer president of books. Your friend Jennie is no longer president of television. Neither are they married to David Cook, Ryan Adams, or Jim Halpert, respectively. Please refrain from "pulling strings" or "threatening with a blow torch" in the past to secure favors for your friends in the present/future.

Geography

The autonomy of the United States has been returned. It is no longer referred to as South Canada.

It has been a busy week for you, Miss Hogan, and while I commend your ingenuity, I must ask you to refrain from breaking any more NASA Timeflight rules in the future. Or, as it were, in the past.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Dr. Emmett Brown

P.S. We are missing a dozen hoverboards from our testing facility in Washington D.C. If you know anything about this, please inform us immediately.