Hypothetical situation: Through a series of trades and favors, you are now the proud owner of the world's only functional time machine. The previous owner has assured you that it will function properly, a statement evidenced by his vast collection of stolen presidential socks dating back to the 1700's.

The machine can take you to any time prior to the current date, and will deposit you wherever you wish. However, due to a flaw in it's wiring, it is only good for one more time jump, which can only last 60 minutes before you must either return to the present or remain stuck in the past for the rest of your natural life.

The question is simple: If you could travel backwards to any time and place for one hour, where would you go, and what would you do? After the hour was up, would you chose to return to the present, or would you remain in the past?

With regards to the title of the thread: The machine goes 'boink' when you hit the 'go' button. A shiny new cookie is yours if you understand the reference.

Calvin and Hobbes, Gimme that cookie.

Bored Tomatoe:
Calvin and hobbes

Cookies, all around.

I would go to Pink Floyd's The Wall performance, then return. Naturally, I'd be front and centre barrier, staring raptly upwards as they blew my mind away.

Labyrinth:
I would go to Pink Floyd's The Wall performance, then return. Naturally, I'd be front and centre barrier, staring raptly upwards as they blew my mind away.

Good call. Life changing experience, that.

I would go to the destruction of the Berlin Wall. I would have loved to be there for the sheer exhilaration of freeing half a population. Plus, it's a bunch of people gleefully knocking down a barrier with various implements of destruction. Who would turn that down?

Actually, I'd quite like to go from the fall of the Berlin Wall on, just keep living, go to all the gigs I've missed due to my age... and be there for the advent of Metal. It would win.

meatloaf231:
I would go to the destruction of the Berlin Wall. I would have loved to be there for the sheer exhilaration of freeing half a population. Plus, it's a bunch of people gleefully knocking down a barrier with various implements of destruction. Who would turn that down?

Yep, me too.

Well, my reason, though, would be that Mstislav Rostropovich (insanely fantastic cellist who died just under 2 years ago) played Bach right next to that wall while everyone tore it down.......I know it doesn't seem like a lot, but Rostropovich, like so many people, was hounded (then exiled) by the Soviet regime for sheltering enemies of the state.....Plus, it's Bach.....

Go back to the times of Jesus armed with a video camera. See if the things said in the bible really did happen.

I'd go back to the mid 70s, buy many options of the star wars ip, then return to the modern day.

Id go meet Tesla and get copies of all his work before it met a fiery death.

Indigo_Dingo:
I always loved Calvin and Hobbes, I've read it since I was younger than Calvin.

I would go back in time to 1986 and give my Wii to Nintendo and my Ps3 to Sony, while they were hammering out their details. Then return here to see how fucking amazing games would be as a consequence.

Same here, have read C&H since I was 5.

Change it from an hour to a week and I would be all over the fall of the Roman Empire.

With only an hour though, I'd probably just go back to when Microsoft had it's IPO and buy a metric ton of stock and bring it back with me to the modern day.

Agayek:

With only an hour though, I'd probably just go back to when Microsoft had it's IPO and buy a metric ton of stock and bring it back with me to the modern day.

Now there's a good idea. I was going to say that I'd go back and sign my name on the Declaration of Independence, but fuck that.

This just screams to me that Dane Cook skit about time travel...

I'M YOUR SON FROM THE FUTURE! AAHAHAHAHAHA!

Ahem...anyway I'd go back and have my parents buy stock in google in my name and be sorta rich when i came back

EDIT: Tack Microsoft, Apple, and a few others on that list...and it seems someone already had the stock idea

Wait, do you have to stay for a full hour? If so, then kill plans might get complicated. You would either have to kill the person at the end, which would require you to be able to be right up next to them for a full hour (probably not too easy with Mr. Hitler) or you would have to kill them then survive the onslaught of people seeking revenge.

That might be a pretty cool game idea. You've just traveled back in time, killed Hitler, but your time-watch-necklace-whatever is messed up, because history has been changed so much. There's a little processing bar on it (so it can change history and such) but it's going so slow because there's so much it has to change. So you have to try and survive the consequences of your actions, at least until your time machine gets down changing everything. There'd be different levels and such, too. You could take him down during a concentration camp inspection (or something like that, in a concentration camp), or during a parade, or during a speech (extremely hard), or inside his home. Since the watch is taking time to process, it might "lag" a bit, which gives you an excuse for random bullet-time moments. Because everyone loves bullet-time. And killing Nazis.

I'd probably go back and... well, my first thought would be to take down some very important religious icon, like Jesus or someone before him, but that's too bland. I would... I would go back, and make a shitload of money "magically appear" in TSR's money-place, so they wouldn't get bought out by WotC, and D&D would have stayed pure! Or something like that. It would involve TSR staying in business, though, that's for sure.

...I could go back in time and kill myself...so then i wouldn't be around to go back in time to kill myself, so i could go back in time to kill myself so i wouldn't be around to go back in time to kill myself...

You see where i'm going with this

I would:
1.) Kill Hitler
2.) Make Sure Bush doesn't get elected
3.) Give myself the numbers to the lottery
4.) Kill Hitler again
5.) Go to the first System of a Down concert
6.) Show people the dangers of oil/nukes/opium
7.) Kill Hitler a third time

One of those.

Isaac Dodgson:
...I could go back in time and kill myself...so then i wouldn't be around to go back in time to kill myself, so i could go back in time to kill myself so i wouldn't be around to go back in time to kill myself...

You see where i'm going with this

Therefore creating a massive time loop/paradox.

I can't seriously make a decision about how I would spend my only time jump without first considering how I might remedy that limitation. The "my last wish is to wish for more wishes" angle.

I would travel back in time to when the time machine was first built and steal it from the inventor. Though that might cause a world-exploding time paradox.

I'd save Jimi Hendrix from his vomit-choked death, personally. Then I'd get him to sign one of his guitars and I'd take it back with me.

Well... this all depends on if we can ignore language barriers (babel fish type translator, perhaps?). I'm going to assume we are ignoring the possibility of creating time paradoxes and the Butterfly Effect theory of time travel, so if we can ignore langauge and culture barriers, I would say Ancient Rome. As for what I would do, well, you know the saying: "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". I would do what the ancient Romans did, at least wha the upper echelon of society would do. I would probably want to stay longer than an hour, but I would definetly go back at the end of it. I couldn't live without modern amenities.

id go back to the garden of eden and burn down all the apple trees as well as kill any snakes i seen. the of corse id have to return just to see what the world would be like without sin

I'm not really sure, but setting myself up with some money would be nice.
Maybe write down a heap of things about my life and world events and give it to myself when I was six or so.

or maybe just this: http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=273

shadow_pirate22:
I would:
7.) Kill Hitler a third time

Just hope he doesn't show up in a power suit.

I would go back in time to the dawn of the space race, so I could go into space with the cosmonauts without having to pay them $20 million. And I would take a few hot Russian ladies with me so I could be the first person to have sex in space!

Go back in time and shoot George Washington in the head, thus preserving the British Empire in all it's glory.

Possibly kill Hitler, and then go back a year laterand try and make sure the Second World War still happens (without the genocidal aspects). Such a boost in technology is welcome, the murder of Jews and Slavs and so on is not. Besides, I calculate that the Germans would have won the Russian campaign if it hadn't been for the genocide.

Go back to 1453 with a heavy machine gun and gun down the Turks as the assault Constantinople.

Fondant:
Go back in time and shoot George Washington in the head, thus preserving the British Empire in all it's glory.

You're lucky you're hiding behind the Internet, boss. Fat, gun-totting American says grrrrr!

[And politely points out that George Washington would have had a harder time of it if your inbred, lunatic king hadn't been too busy talking to the walls to dedicate the necessary resources to the rebellion.]

Now that I've started a second War of 1812, I would go back to visit myself as a senior in high school and beat the crap out of me until I agreed to make better decisions about my future. Then I'd come back to the present and collect the CEO checks from Google.

Man, you guys are crazy. I'd either go back in time for live dinosaurs (even if they are small and / or non-predatory) or somewhere in the Devonian / Cambrian times (with oxygen tanks and stuff good for one hour just in case) and just take up as many specimens as I could take back.

Save it as a failsafe device, wait for the world to go tits up, go back in time to stop it going tits up, and then either return or stay there. Depended on how good said period was.

Or get very, very rich, and simply hide in my underground super-vault as the world goes tits up. And laugh.