Poem 3

What can I say? Less is better? Would that apply to this poem too?

a boulder 

a rock 

a pebble 

a grain 

dust 

me 

Poem 2

 I think this is somehow metaphorical.

once I watched a tree grow 

competing with a mountain 

it grew as high as it could 

but couldn’t reach the summit 

eventually the tree toppled 

the mountain still remained 

Poem 1

I found an old file that contained a couple of poems. The file was called poems.docx, and the date on the file makes it almost 11 years old. I think I wrote them, I can almost remember feeling very creative and sufficiently artistic at the time.

Of course they are just your below-average run-of-the-mill garbage, but they are my creations (as far as I can remember) so therefore they have a place in my blog.

This is the first of them:

in the shadow of twilight 

I see the glimmer of hope 

in the darkness of night 

the sparkling of promise 

in the weak light of dawn 

the gnawing doubt 

in the brightness of day 

the disappointment of it all 

Short 1

 I was going to write something, and then I did. When I was finished, I read what I had written and decided it wasn't good. And then I wrote this instead.

I sometimes suffer from inability to formulate my thoughts in such a way that I would deem them worthy of being published. And at other times I suffer from inability to see that my thoughts are not worthy of being published. The quality of the writing and the thoughts in both cases may or may not be the same.

More old things

Earlier I wrote about some old things I like. The post turned out to be little more than a list of TV shows from some years back.

I would like to add to that list, and perhaps say a few more words of some of the entries.

Moonlighting

The show that introduced me to Bruce Willis, and was just a delight to watch. I think the young me missed many of the nuances of the writing, but I still think of it fondly. If it ever comes available on any of my streaming services, I will surely anguish about not having time to watch it.

Richie Brockelman, Private Eye

I remember almost nothing about the show. One of the few things I remember is the name of the show in Finnish (Richien liikkuva etsivätoimisto), which translates back to English as Richie's mobile detective agency. Next to that, I have a memory of one scene that I associate with this show. A red open-top car, I assume driven by Richie, flies off a road and falls down into a canyon. Afterwards, Richie gets out of the car and limps towards the camera. I've tried to google this one a few times in the past, with little success, but just as I was typing this post I managed to find out the original title and saw a couple of clips on youtube. Based on this one, it would seem that my memory of the car flying through the air was somewhat exaggerated. Also, this show had only 5 episodes, so it is remarkable that it made such a lasting, if limited, impression on my young mind.

Babylon 5

No. I don't care how groundbreaking it was at the time and how amazing the CGI was at the time. Cannot watch it. I even have the DVD box, and I've tried, but I cannot get past the ridiculous posturing and over-dramatisation.  But I really want to re-watch it, and relive those magic moments from when I first saw it. That is why Babylon 5 is on this list. I want to go back in time and watch it like it was new again. Maybe the pull of nostalgia will get stronger over time, so ask me again in ten years.

Jeremiah

Yes, please. Ok, this is not quite so old yet. But still I'd like to include it here. One of those shows I always wished would get renewed or be resurrected. The post apocalytic world, with Luke Perry from 90210 in a very different role, briefly joined by Jason Priestley for a couple of episodes. Also Malcolm Jamal-Warner (that is Theodore Huxtable from the Cosby Show) had a prominent role. I just loved this show. Should check if it's available anywhere.

Robin of Sherwood

To me, this is the definite portrayal of the story of Robin Hood. It had a realistic feel to it, but mixed myth, legend and supernatural into the story. Everything about the show, the story, the actors, the music by Clannad, the mythology, but also the technical execution was just perfect. It didn't hurt that I've always been fascinated by the story of Robin Hood. I should put this on top of my wish list.

Fame

I remember really enjoying this one. Leroy (played by Gene Anthony Ray) being my favourite character. And the only one I can remember by name and look. I remember impressive musical numbers with lots of dancing but beyond that I don't remember too many details. I would suppose the story lines were mostly standard for any high school -based drama, but against the backdrop of performing arts. The show was based on a film which came out a couple of years prior. There was a remake in 2009 which did not garner too much praise. There has been talk of a reboot of the tv series over the years as well, but whether it will happen, and when, remains to be seen. Would I watch a reboot? I don't know. I might check it out. Would I re-watch the original? Also a maybe. It might be one of those things that just would not live up to the memories.

Hill Street Blues

There never was, and never will be, any police tv show that could live up to Hill Street Blues. It always was, is, and always will be simply the best. I have very fond memories of Captain Furillo, Mick, Renko, Buntz, and all the others. Could one re-watch the series? Might be a bit much, and could appear dated, but I would like to say I'd give it a good try. Reboot? Doesn't seem there's ever been any effort to reboot the series, and it probably would not work anyway.

Ok, I think that should be enough for now. There'll likely be more...

Fiction: My mail order time machine, fourth part

  My mail order time machine

Fourth

Turns out temporal shielding will not work unless I get Wil Wheaton to reverse the polarity of the chronometric flux amplifiers and he’s not answering my calls. Understandable since if he showed up I’d only make fun of his jumpers. So anyway I had a brilliant idea. I went to future and stole the long haired future me’s time travel machine. I thought he looked younger, so in one strike I’d deprive both of them from the technology they were using to harass me. Got back, and so I had two time machines. A few minutes later future me sent a note through time saying it was a brilliant idea (yeah, I knew that) and thanking me for the backup device. Fantastic.The day started off like many other days in my life. With a medium-strength headache. Maybe it was the whisky, I thought. Or the beers, possibly even the wine. Impossible to know.

The next morning, I woke up with a headache. I figured it was probably caused by too much screen time. Could also be the beer, the wine or perhaps even the whiskey, but it's most probably the screen time. Just spending too much time in front of the computer. I should try to cut down on that a bit, I thought to myself as I wrestled my body out of the bed. I’d read somewhere that the blue light of the monitor screen, especially late at night, really is not good for the eyes, and what is not good for the eyes is probably not good for anything connected to the eyes. At least that’s what I’d think. And the brain, where the headache happens, is quite directly connected to the eyes. That might be a slight simplification, but sometimes I don't care as much about total accuracy as some other times. I walked to the bathroom and stood in front of the sink. I took a good look at myself in the mirror. I wasn’t sure if I liked what I saw or not. With a shrug and a sigh, I opened the cabinet and looked inside. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, maybe painkillers, but I did not keep them in this cabinet, so unsurprisingly I did not find any. I closed the cabinet again and spent another couple of seconds staring at myself in the mirror. Still not sure about what I saw. I stepped into the shower to get ready for the day. After I was done washing myself, I wrapped a towel around my midsection and opened the bathroom door. I peeked around the corner first towards my bedroom and then towards the living room. “Anyone here?” I called out and waited for a reply. There was no answer. Amazingly, it appeared that I was alone. There were no visitors. I had not come to any kind of a conclusion on my research for temporal shielding last night, but maybe a not-so-distant future version of me has cracked it and has extended the protection to cover my present time. I guess that could mean I don't need to worry about it, since it will happen. One could also say that I must keep researching the topic, so that future me will eventually figure out. Let us say that usually time paradoxes involve someone going into the past and changing something that affects their current time, often for example taking away the reason why they would have ended up traveling into the past in the first place. Could I create a time paradox by not doing something in my present time that is required for an already established future situation to exist? It is an interesting thought. To try to answer that question, I feel I first must pose myself another question. Can future be established? I would say yes. I would further stipulate that at any given moment there must be an established future. However, that future, while set, is not unchangeable. Is that already a paradox of some kind? The way I look at it, since I can travel to the future, there must be an established future. It would be based on how things would proceed if allowed to do so without any interference. So, when something happens that changes how things would proceed, that changes the established future. One could say that as soon as I travel to the future, the version of the future that existed in the very moment when I made the jump forward in time no longer exists. But which future am I in then? The future at that point would be changing, based on what the impact of my experience in the future has to me, which effects how I behave and what I do when I return to my own time. And then there is the traditional causes for time paradoxes, the visits from future to past. A visitor from the future can affect the past in such a way that the future they came from doesn't exist anymore. Where do they return to? Is it possible that I could change something in the past that would change where I live, now, in my present time? I suppose if I would blow up the building, I wouldn't be able to have bought my apartment. And what about me and my presence through the timeline? If I were to die now, today, all my future selves would cease to exist. But they have already travelled back and forth in time, so they not only exist in various points in the future, but also in the past. There may be records of those visits, they may have interacted with other people, they may have moved something, created something, or influenced someone's actions. So, if I die, and they are erased from existence, the effect goes around from my present time to future, back to past and through to the present time, creating not only a new future but before that also a new past. This was too much complicated thinking for so early in the morning. I rubbed my temples and tried to reset my thoughts. I should tackle this topic when I'm feeling a bit better and start writing these thoughts down. And then there's my research on the temporal shielding, but I will have to get back to that later too. Right now, I need to get some of that gaming done, since I don’t know if I’ll be able to do much of it in the future. Based on my observation of the behaviour of my future selves I suspected that for some reason, there would be less than desired amount of time available in my future for wasting on playing computer games. So, I settled down to do some racing in my play seat. I had bought it a couple years ago, complete with a steering wheel, pedals and a gearshift, and it had really transformed racing games for me. My next step would be to get multi-monitor setup, or maybe one of those super-wide curved screens, and then maybe motorized base for the seat to tilt in all directions for a more realistic gameplay, but for now I was quite content with what I had. And I was doing rather well today, setting new records and getting more podium finishes, but something else was gnawing at the back of my mind. My plans for world domination. I was honestly not at all sure what I was planning to do. I should have asked the future versions of me to explain it to me so that I could get a head start on starting to figure out how to proceed. Though did I really want to go through with the plans? I wasn’t quite sure about that either. But to figure that one out, it would probably help to know what I was planning or was going to be planning in the first place. Right? Right, I thought to myself. I wasn’t quite as sure about this as I was pretending to be, but nonetheless I decided that I need to work out my plans. Making a firm commitment to something you are not necessarily one hundred percent sure about always helps to take away the lingering doubts. At least that is what I just decided to tell myself too. I switched the game console off and moved to sit down in front of my computer. I made a mental note to cut down on the screen time later. I hit the space bar to wake the computer up and stretched my arms while waiting for it to become usable. After some time and a half of crunching and whirring sounds, the screen came to life again. There were all the browser tabs on time travel and temporal shielding. I quickly glanced over the information. Sometimes taking a break from something will allow one to have a fresh perspective and see possibilities and connections that were eluding one’s eyes before. That was not the case this time. At least not right away. I really must get back to that research later, I thought, but for now I just couldn’t make any progress on trying to come up with any kind of workable hypothesis for shielding my immediate physical and temporal surroundings from time travel. I’ll have a breakthrough at some point. So, moving on to my world domination plans then. What on earth could I be planning? I did not even know where to start. I couldn't remember ever wanting to dominate the world. I guess for some it could be a childhood dream. If I had ever had a dream like that, I'd forgotten about it. My dreams were generally less ambitious, and I hadn't done a very good job defining and following them so far. Trying to come up with the plans for world domination now seemed like a lot. Maybe I could try to find some kind of a cheat sheet. “World domination for dummies” I typed into a search engine. Lots of hits, I thought to myself looking at the results of the search and started going through them. Most were recommending starting small and expanding when one gains more power and resources. That sounded like good advice, but also something I might have been able to come up with myself. Some made references to examples of people who had dabbled in world domination, these were generally charismatic leaders with a knack for persuasion and rousing speeches. If I were to start giving speeches with the aim to convince people to follow me, I would probably only manage to persuade the masses to ignore me. In fact, that would likely be the best-case scenario, a more likely one being locked up as a potentially dangerous lunatic, if not being euthanised for my own good. There are of course courses for learning to speak to an audience, to become more influential in one’s communication and so on, but I doubt that would work to the level of being able to instigate people to partake in a revolution. If that was even what my plan would ask for. I did make a note to further investigate ways to improve my charisma and persuasion skills. But I was still no closer to having any idea on what I would want to do. The instructions and guides were addressing the how, and I needed to figure out the what. I just could not think of anything, but obviously I will make the plans since my future selves have talked about them. I looked at the time machine on my bookshelf. I guess I could go and take a quick look at the plans. It couldn’t hurt. My future selves must have some notes on the plans somewhere. Maybe even some kind of a command centre with screens and boards. Probably not, though. That kind of stuff happens only in movies and tv shows. Would be cool, though. But probably not likely. I took the machine and turned it on. Only I did not quite know to where and when I should go. Then I remembered that the long-haired one had said he was from ten years in my future. So, I guess that’d be as good a try as any. I set my mind to travel ten years into the future, in front of my apartment building, and pressed the button. I should probably put shoes on, I thought to myself in that very moment, but it was too late. So, I was traveling barefoot. At least it should not be snowing. But it was raining, hard. I dashed, awkwardly trying to avoid my feet touching the wetness of the ground, over to the front door and realised I also should have brought my keys. I concentrated on the thought of going home, and in a flash, I was back in my own time and in my living room again. I picked up my keys from the kitchen counter and put my shoes on. Then I returned to the future. The rain had stopped but the ground was still a bit wet, glistening with the full sun from what seemed like fully blue sky. I walked over to the front door and tried my key. It worked. I stepped inside and checked my mailbox. It was empty. That must mean that either I had already taken the mail, or there had been none today. I am a regular Sherlock Holmes. There was no way to know if I was home though. I walked through the hall and opened the door at the other end, peering into the little courtyard. A few meters across the courtyard there was a door leading to the garage, and next to that the door to the staircase to go up. And down to the storage rooms but I was planning on going up. On the right there was the entrance to access the ground floor apartments. It was pouring rain again. I walked over to the door to the stairwell, only getting slightly wet as I did so. I opened the door and stepped inside, letting the door close behind me but stopped it just in time before it made an audible bang against the frame. Then I ascended the stairs to the top floor. There was a door to leave the staircase, and I opened it carefully. There was a suspended walkway with a door at the end, leading back to the main building where my apartment was. The door was currently closed. On the right side of the walkway, was my bedroom balcony. One could just hop over the railing from the walkway to my balcony. I had never done it. I didn't do it now either. I looked at my windows though. The curtains were closed, so I could not see inside. I walked over to the door to the inner hallway and opened it, stepping inside. I held the door open behind me just in case I would need to make a quick exit. My apartment door was at the far corner on the right. I looked around. It was quiet as usual, and there was no sign of anyone else. This was normal, of course. In the time I had lived in my apartment, which was close to 5 years now, I had never seen any of my neighbours in the hallway. By 'never’, I mean almost never, or very rarely. I closed the door behind me and walked over to my apartment. As I got to my door I stopped in front of it, looking up and down with the keys in my hand. There was just no way of knowing if I was inside the apartment or not. I shrugged and put the key in the lock and turned it. It unlocked the door. Either I had not unlocked the door yet today, or I wasn’t at home. I turned the key further, until I was able to push the door open. It occurred to me in this moment that I could have pressed the doorbell downstairs. It is possible, even likely, that I would have answered, if I was inside. But I did not want to go back downstairs. Not now, I was already here, and had already opened the door. Carefully I peered inside, listening for any sounds from the apartment. There were none. It was quiet. I stepped in and closed the door behind me. It looked like I was still living at the same apartment ten years later. Or was I? I had used my key to get in, but it could just be that the locks had not been changed, which would not even be that unusual. I looked around. The place looked mostly familiar, but some work and improvements had been done here and there. The floor had been redone. The door to the living room with the open kitchen had been permanently removed and the whole doorway made a bit bigger by knocking out the narrow glass wall that had stood next to the door. There was a new set of a sofa and a coffee table, and a new TV. I didn’t see any game consoles, so that might explain why the future versions of me were so keen to play on mine. I reminded myself again to game more, while I still can. The kitchen had also been completely redone with a new stove and overhead extractor. The fridge was standing free instead of hiding behind a cupboard door and there was a little breakfast bar with a couple of stools. The question was, was this still my place? I walked out of the living room and to the bedroom door. The door was ajar. I pushed it carefully and peeked inside. The first thing I saw was that there was a baby bed. And next to that a double bed. Both were luckily empty. But there was a bed for a baby, which implies there is a baby. The future version of me hadn’t mentioned becoming a medical miracle, so one assumes there is a mother for the baby. Was he married? Or was he living in sin with some poor hapless girl? How the heck has he managed to get a girl looking like he does. Looking like me. Being like he is. Like me. An important question, but I was obviously assuming that my future self was living here. Was he? I looked around for a computer but didn’t see any in the bedroom. I never used to have my computer in the bedroom either. I walked back to the living room and at first didn't see anything but then I noticed a laptop on the book shelf. Right next to the time machine. I looked at the laptop and then at the time machine. It looked like my time machine. I guess if there was any doubt, that was confirmation that I did still live here. Unless I had left it behind for the next person living in the apartment. I thought that would be a quite unlikely scenario. I wondered if my future self was out traveling in time, or just out in a more conventional way. It dawned on me that he could appear out of thin air any moment without any warning. Or hardly enough warning to do anything about it. Though I supposed if he were to step in through the front door it would not be so different. I would still be caught in the middle of his apartment with nowhere to go or to hide. If it came to that, I'd just have to wish to return to my own time, and hope that it worked quickly enough. But whatever I wanted to do here and now, I had better try to be quick about it. I took the laptop and opened it. It woke up at once. As I was looking at it, it unlocked automatically. I guessed it recognized my face. I wondered if this was the first time in history that breaking into someone’s laptop turned out to be so easy. If time travel would become more common, people would definitely have to rethink their use of facial recognition and other biometric security features. I checked for any active programs or open windows. There were none. My current self (that is, I) leaves everything on when he put his laptop to sleep, but evidence suggested that was one habit my future self might have dropped at some point. I clicked on my computer. The icon, that is, using the touchpad. Then I double-clicked, and the file browser window opened on the screen. I opened my documents, and quickly looked over what I could find. There were a couple thousand documents, many named book1, book2, another book1, document1, doument2, etc. I sighed. Some habits seem harder to drop. It did not seem that I would be able to find anything very quickly. I tried searching for things like world domination, evil plans, and other similar terms. The searches returned nothing. I shook my head in frustration. Nothing. And yet I was sure what I was looking for was on this laptop, if only I had time to go through everything. But I felt time was something I didn’t have right now. My future self would surely appear any moment. I looked at the time machine. It didn’t seem like it was on. When I used my machine, I had to press the button when I was deciding when and where I wanted to go, and when I pressed the button, the light would go on. The light on this machine was not on. I picked it up and looked at it, thinking. According to my understanding of how the machine works, the future me was not traveling in time right at this moment. Which meant that he was not using this machine right at this moment. Which meant that there was no risk of him being stranded in time if he suddenly did not have his time machine. Wait, was that actually a real risk? I stopped myself to concentrate on that last thought. I might want to store my own device a bit more securely, especially when I was using it. I did not want to find myself stuck in some other time just because someone might break into my apartment and steal my time machine. Of course, I did not even know what the impact would be if someone would take it somewhere else. Would my point of return be where the machine is? Or would I still return to where I had left from? Would the distance the machine was moved make any difference? And what if the machine is moved to a different time? Similarly, would the point of return in time move with the machine or remain at the original point of departure? I decided I should try to study this a bit more. But now I wanted to make sure the future me would leave me alone for a while and if he did not have his time machine, he should have some difficulty coming over to my time to bother me. I held on to the machine tightly, and let my mind be filled with the wish to return home. In a flash I reappeared in my own apartment. I looked around, and felt I preferred the future state of the apartment. I put the time machine on the shelf next to my original and went on to my computer to look for a new floor and some other improvements I had just seen. A couple of hours later I had ordered a new kitchen, was busy scheduling a replacement of the floor and was looking at some options for a new sofa, when the time machine suddenly rang. What is this now, it’s also a phone? “There’s a message from Jari,” the machine spoke. “Would you like to hear it?” “Yes please,” I replied, bewildered. There was a second of silence, then my voice spoke from the machine. “Hey there old me. What a brilliant idea to steal my time machine.” I smiled to myself, thinking the same. But then how was he - “So now we have two machines. I had been thinking about getting a backup machine, and you solved that problem, so thanks very much!” I took a deep breath and shook my head. Super, well done. “Would you like to reply?” asked the voice of the time machine. “No,” I croaked. “I didn’t quite get that; would you like to reply?” the machine repeated the question. “No, I do not want to reply!” I shouted as clearly as I could. The machine light blinked a couple of times and then went off. I took another deep breath and slumped into my chair. Well, at least none of the future versions of me visited me today, even if my mission was not successful. And, I had some home improvement projects planned now, so that was a win for today. All in all, I should be happy. I went to the fridge and got myself a beer and a ready made meal which I popped into the microwave. When the meal was ready to eat, I switched on my tv and retired to my sofa to enjoy my dinner and some streaming tv gold. Much later that night, I wrote an update to my loyal social media followers. “Turns out temporal shielding will not work unless I get Wil Wheaton to reverse the polarity of the chronometric flux amplifiers and he’s not answering my calls. Understandable since if he showed up I’d only make fun of his jumpers. So anyway I had a brilliant idea. I went to future and stole the long haired future me’s time travel machine. I thought he looked younger, so in one strike I’d deprive both of them from the technology they were using to harass me. Got back, and so I had two time machines. A few minutes later future me sent a note through time saying it was a brilliant idea (yeah, I knew that) and thanking me for the backup device. Fantastic.” Of course I had not even tried to reach out to Wil Wheaton, nor had I even considered it. I am not a complete idiot, even if evidence might sometimes indicate otherwise. I just thought it would make the update a little bit funnier. Though to be honest, I am not sure how many of my connections even know who Wil Wheaton is.

Comment on the Time machine story

 If anyone is wondering about the time travel story and the social media updates within that story, those are the actual updates I posted on Facebook back in 2013 or so I think. And this is actually true even if anyone wasn't wondering about them. Anyway, I had managed to save the updates in text form, even if I did at some point clean up my FB account. I now wish I had taken screenshots, but I didn't.

Anyway, I posted them once a day, as one would post any updates from one's life. It was a kind of story telling experiment. Anyway, the plan was always to build the story around those updates but I was debating between various formats from just writing out the story to creating a comic to even animation or live video.

Now it seems I've finally managed to make a start on writing out the story.

Fiction: My mail order time machine, third part

 My mail order time machine

Third

Had more visitors. First another future me (this one was bald, while the one yesterday had long hair) came by and told me that the robot overlord will get whiff of my plans for world domination by researching old NSA archives. Then the one from yesterday showed up and the two proceeded to have an argument about my plans and what I should do. I was in no mood for my stupid crap so went out for a beer. When I got back they were gone, and so was what was supposed to be my dinner for today and tomorrow. Bastards. I am now researching temporal shielding to see if it might prevent further visits. 

The day started off like many other days in my life. With a medium-strength headache. Maybe it was the whisky, I thought. Or the beers, possibly even the wine. Impossible to know. I got up and walked into my bathroom for a quick shower. As I was rinsing my hair, the door opened and a bald head peeked in. “Ah, you are in the shower,” the head said, with my voice. “Yeah, go wait in the living room or something,” I said. “And close the door!” I added when the head pulled back. The owner of the head did as I asked and closed the door. Is this how things were going to be now? Future versions of me just dropping by unexpectedly, invading my privacy and in general being a massive source of annoyance and nuisance. I wondered what this new version wanted. And what’s with the bald head? Am I going to lose my hair? Of course, I reminded myself that I had shaved my head before, so it could just be that in whatever time this new visitor came from I am still going through the cycle of letting my hair grow out and then shaving it all off and letting it grow out again. I suppose it could even the guy from yesterday, I thought, if he had shaved his head. Then again, it's all the same guy, me. Is it the one who visited me yesterday if he waited one day to come back? Is it still him if he waited a week? A month? And further, what if it was him but a month earlier? After I was done with my shower, I went back to the bedroom and got dressed, choosing for a simple black t-shirt and blue jeans. Then I walked out to the living room. The bald me was sitting on the sofa playing with my game console. Do I not have one in the future? Or do future versions of me not have a lot of time to play? I need to make sure I spend a bit more time playing while I still can, I thought. “So what is it that you want?” I asked, perhaps a bit more rudely than I wanted. Or perhaps just slightly less obviously rudely. Or maybe I wasn’t being and sounding rude enough. I couldn’t quite make up my mind. “I just woke up this morning with this memory of visiting the older version of me that had just got the time machine, and I thought I should follow up on that,” the bald me said. “Yeah, ok.” So, he was from further in the future than my visitor yesterday. “I didn’t really have much time to try to do anything yet.” “Good,” he said. “You also shouldn’t rush into anything. Time travel can be ...” his voice trailed off, along with his gaze that seemed to suddenly be concentrating on something other than the physically present world around him. “Time travel can be dangerous,” he finished after a moment, his eyes turning to look directly into mine. “Ok...” “You met the robots.” “Right. I did. Well, one, I met one.” “They are not necessarily happy with someone else planning to take over the world.” “But I didn’t - “ “Not yet, but you will,” he cut me off. “That was another thing I just remembered this morning, the plans I – you – made for world domination after the first visit.” “Good plans?” “The best plans.” Clearly, I had retained my mock arrogance. Also, I hadn’t made any plans. Not yet, anyway. Maybe he’ll share some of them to save me some trouble. “So did I – we – follow through on those plans?” I asked. “I only remember making them, not acting on them yet. Time works in a funny way, with changes. They take time to propagate through time. Come to think it, maybe I could try to explain it, that might help me to understand it even better myself. You know, if you learn it now, you’ve had plenty of time to think about it by the time you become me.” The bald me got up and looked around as if looking for something. “I don’t suppose you have a whiteboard I don’t remember having?” I shook my head. “Oh well, I just suddenly felt inspired,” the bald me said. “But I’m still not really a presenter.” “You seem more comfortable with it than I am,” I offered. He looked at me with a small smile. “To be fair, that is rather easy.” Then he brought his hands together with a clap. “Ok, imagine that you are able to travel through time.” “That I -” He pinched his index finger and thumb together on both hands in front of his face and pulled them to sides as if he was pulling on the ends of an invisible string. “Just listen now.” I zipped my lips and threw the key over my shoulder. He nodded approvingly. Of course, zippers don’t have keys so my gesture was flawed and nonsensical but that didn’t bother either of us. “So, imagine that you are able to travel through time,” he started again. I lifted my hands, rolling my eyes. “And you decide to go into the past and change something.” He looked at me, pointedly. Should I now say something? I wasn’t the one that had changed anything, though I did go to the past... but nobody saw me, and I did not change anything. As far as I knew. “Maybe you don’t even directly change anything yourself, but you somehow initiate a change. Doesn’t really matter, the end result is that something in your past changes from how it was, and that change has consequences over time all the way to your current time.” He looked at me again. I made an effort to look interested. “Before you went to the past to make that change,” he continued, “you had certain specific memories of your life, of events around you, et cetera et cetera.” I was nodding my head slightly; where this seemed to be heading was sort of making some kind of sense. So far. “When you get back, the change has been made in your past. Again, whether you directly changed something, or someone in the past did something different because of your visit, doesn’t matter. What matters is that the timeline is in flux at that moment.” I opened my mouth to speak, and he lifted one finger up tilting his head slightly. “Now, you still remember the original timeline, and you don’t right away know what the full impact of the change has been. I, for example, remember not having a time machine.” “Well, so do I, I only got it like yesterday or so.” “Not what I meant. And I believe it was the day before for you.” He looked at me as if I was the biggest disappointment he had ever dealt with. I have to admit I sometimes feel the same. “The point I’m trying to make is that the changes catch up with your present gradually. And it can be very disorienting, it all depends a bit on the magnitude and number of changes the timeline – and you – have to adjust to.” “So, what you meant is that the time machine is new to our timeline. You went through being me without having had a time machine.” “Correct. And learning about it was not a big change. But the slightly earlier me learned about it before I did and as I was a bit more gung-ho during that period of my life, he naturally paid you a visit. And suddenly I remember making that visit. And then the memory of being visited makes its way to me too.” “Sounds disturbing.” “That’s one way to call it.” The bald me sat down. “And then I start to get these memories of the plans I had made – you made – will make.” He looked at me. “And those plans are becoming clearer and clearer.” “But you still have no memories of having followed through with any of those plans, right?” “That is correct, but the robots have caught wind of it, so I must have done something.” “Or maybe we’ve talked about the plans somewhere where the robots have seen or heard it?” I offered. The baldie shrugged his shoulders. “Can be I guess.” Then he looked at me pointedly. “Actually, didn’t you post some stuff on social media about it?” I hesitated. “Not really...” The bald me pulled out a mobile phone and fiddled with it for a bit. “Yeah, you did. Just yesterday you mentioned your nefarious plans.” He showed me my update from last night. “Just that could be enough to get the robots interested, especially if they have a way to detect the time travel activity, which I actually suspect they do. Anyway, I cannot see if you’ll post more, since when here I can only access what is current, so just try to avoid it ok?” “Sure,” I said, trying to sound convinced. Or convincing. Or both. “Will do. Or won’t do, rather.” I flashed a smile. He looked at me blankly. I think I was failing on the convincing goal. “Anyway, I think I should get going,” the bald me said and got a constipated look on his face. I wasn’t sure if that was the reason he wanted to go, or a result of him trying to concentrate on going home. But suddenly there was a rush of air being replaced by something arriving with a flashy bang. It was the other future me. He looked around, saw me and the bald me, and shook his head. “Right, who’s this then?” “Hairy, meet baldie. Baldie, hairy,” I offered introductions. “I don’t remember you,” the hairy me said. “That’d be because I’m future you,” the bald me replied. “Though in a moment you should probably remember me visiting your past self,” he continued. “Right. I’m still a bit new to this time travel stuff,” the hairy me said and took one of my dining table chairs and sat down. “So, what’s up?” “I was just telling our past self about the attention we may be getting from the robots, because of our plans for world domination,” the bald me started. “Do you think they are getting worried? Good.” “Not so much worried, as perhaps annoyed. You see, we are nothing but ants to them.” “I think I disagree.” “I’ve actually spent time monitoring them, which I don’t remember you having done. So I think I know just a little bit better how the robots think. And I can tell you that they would find your attitude disrespectful. That alone would invite a smacking down.” “We cannot live in fear of a bit of a ´smacking down´. We have to do what is right.” “Taking over the world is what you would call doing what is right, then?” “If the alternative is them taking over the world, as they did when there was nobody to oppose them, yes.” “And do you think with the plans we have, that we would be any better than they are?” I looked at the two future versions of me. They were starting to become irritated with each other, and I didn’t think this argument was going to go anywhere anytime soon, so I started to think I probably had something better to do with my time than to watch and listen to myself arguing with myself, when I didn’t really have anything to offer to the argument. Not that I felt they did either, but they had convinced themselves otherwise. I quietly made my way to the door, put on my shoes and a hoodie and slipped out. I returned home later that day, and both future versions of me were gone. They seemed to have stayed a while though. I cleaned up the empty beer cans and bottles, closed the half empty bottle of wine – then on second thought poured myself a glass and took a sip. Checked the fridge and saw they had not restocked. Also, my left over pasta casserole was gone. I headed back out to get some fresh food and drinks from the supermarket. Later that night, I was in front of computer. I had the thought I would like to find a way to prevent these visits from my futures selves, so I was diving into the world of imaginary physics of temporal displacement theories – which I guess were not necessarily as imaginary as I would have thought just a couple of days ago – and trying to look for ways to create some kind of shield that could stop anyone from being able to travel to my current time and location. Before turning in even later that night, I wrote a quick update for my devote fanbase on social media. “Had more visitors. First another future me (this one was bald, while the one yesterday had long hair) came by and told me that the robot overlord will get whiff of my plans for world domination by researching old NSA archives. Then the one from yesterday showed up and the two proceeded to have an argument about my plans and what I should do. I was in no mood for my stupid crap so went out for a beer. When I got back they were gone, and so was what was supposed to be my dinner for today and tomorrow. Bastards. I am now researching temporal shielding to see if it might prevent further visits.” I fell asleep to the steady dinging of the avalanche of likes.

 

Fiction: My mail order time machine, second part

My mail order time machine

Second 

Had a visit from my future self. Apparently I never got around to taking the time machine out on garbage collection days, which doesn't surprise me. He wanted to know why I didn't make more of an effort to take over the world when I had the chance. So taking another look at my nefarious plans. 

The next morning, I woke up with a mild headache. Too many beers, I thought to myself and decided for the umpteenth time to not do it again. Or maybe it was the wine that was the problem. Who could tell, I thought and went to take a quick shower. When I got out of the shower and walked into my living room, towel in hand drying off bits and pieces, I saw myself sitting on the sofa and playing a game on the game console that shall not be named to avoid any unpaid advertising. I looked like myself, with long hair and short stubble. Not bad, I thought. Not great, but not bad. I wrapped my towel around my waist. It was just me in the room with myself, but I still felt some level of decency should be observed. The me on the sofa turned to look at me standing there with my hair still a bit wet and hanging over my eyes. I brushed the hair away from my face with my hand and wrapped the towel around my waist a little bit tighter. “Um.” That’s all I managed to say, looking at the other me. “Hi,” the me on the sofa said. “Sorry to pop in like this, but I wanted to have a bit of a chat.” He turned off the console and the TV. “Why don’t you get dressed though, I’ll make us a cup of coffee. Or two cups of coffee, since I don’t like sharing.” He got up from the sofa and started toward the kitchen, then stopped and looked at me. “That is, if I can remember where everything is,” he added with a smile. “Um, ok,” I said, and turned around and walked to the bedroom. “Just don’t wear the same thing as I’m wearing, because then even I might start getting confused,” the other me called out after me. “Ok,” I said and closed the bedroom door behind me. I couldn’t remember what the other me was wearing, and I felt it would be stupid to ask, so the first thing I did was to try to logically decide what would be the least likely thing for me to wear if I was a future me and decided to pop back into the past to give myself a visit. “I’m wearing one of my Commodore –shirts and blue jeans,” I heard from behind the door. And then I heard steps heading back into kitchen. “Got it, thanks,” I replied. How helpful of me, I thought to myself as I opened my wardrobe and started to look through my not-so-extensive collection of clothing items. As I was going through my options, my brains engaged in a quick process of decision making. I don’t think I have any commodore-shirts so should easily manage to avoid that. Blue jeans are the only kind of trousers I have these days though, but if I wear something already a bit older then I think I’ll be safe. And for the shirt just a plain white one will do. I closed the wardrobe and checked myself in the mirror. After I was finished admiring the view I headed back out to the living room. The coffee was ready and the other me was sitting at the table. There were two cups full of steaming deliciousness. I took one. “That’s mine.” “Oh, sorry.” I put the cup down and reached for the other. “That’s mine too,” the other me said with the wink as he picked up the second cup. “As you are the past me, anything you have is mine, because I am you. You, however, are not me, because you lack the experience that would make you me.” “The cups, of course, are both yours as well,” he then added. “Next time I might bring one of my own.” I gave a small mock laugh. “Ha-ha.” Leave it to me to spoil the joke and make it into philosophical exploration of self. I took the first cup and tasted the coffee. It was as it was supposed to be. We are talking about instant coffee anyway, so expectations aren’t set too high to make it easier to meet them. “What did you want to talk about?” I asked the other me. “I was just curious why you never made more use of the time machine.” He put his cup down and stared into my eyes. “No schemes to make money, no attempt to get ahead in anyway. The least you could have done is to take over the world, so I didn’t have to.” The future me seems to think himself quite a comedian. “To be honest,” he continued, “I had forgotten about the time machine myself. I think I thought I – we – you – had thrown it out, but I just found it in one of my moving boxes. I tried it out, and it worked just like it did the first time.” “Where did you go?” I asked. “Well, here,” he said, gesturing to his physical presence and the space he was in. “Oh, so coming here to my time, this is your proof that the machine still works.” “Indeed, it is.” “Works as well as any other trip, I guess.” “And it was safe, since I knew you had just got the machine. And I wanted to give you a nudge to do something with it.” “So that you don’t have to.” “Exactamundo,” the other me said and pointed at me with his coffee cup before taking one more sip. He then stood up. “But now I probably should head back to my time.” “When is that?” I asked. I had no plan to visit the other me, but I was curious how old he was. He looked good. The other me smiled. “I know what you’re thinking. I’m from ten years in your future, and I’ve taken up some slightly better habits than the ones I had when I was you.” He walked over to the centre of the room and waved his arms around as if to check that there was nothing too close to him. “You know, the thought just came to me that it’s a little bit odd that I had no memory of me coming to meet myself before I made the trip. And then some memories suddenly started to pop up,” the other me said. “I wonder why that is,” he continued with a puzzled look on his face. “Oh well,” he then shrugged, “Now I want to be home.” The other me vanished in a flash of light. There was a quick disturbance of the air as it rushed to fill the space where his physical body had been. Later that night, I finished the day with another update on social media. “Had a visit from my future self. Apparently I never got around to taking the time machine out on garbage collection days, which doesn't surprise me. He wanted to know why I didn't make more of an effort to take over the world when I had the chance. So taking another look at my nefarious plans.” Again, after a few moments the computer speaker started making dinging sounds to mark people liking my post. One could get addicted to this, I thought, and turned the volume down. I should probably look into those habits of mine, and take up some better ones, I thought to myself as I opened my first beer. But before that, some relaxed relaxing. Obviously, I'll get to it at some point.