You wake up in 1991

[KazeAizen]

Buy some stock in Apple and Microsoft, Buy two a lot of gaming stuff, FF VII, GB, NES, SNES, and preserve them to sell for a pretty penny.

So yeah pretty much all the electronics that would become big over the course of the next ten years. Invest in them and then sell them to retire. Kind of a heartless thing to do but I'm only human. Now if I woke up in 1938 I'd just buy two action comics No. 1s and call it good.

 

[Shiftygiant]

Why not prevent it? Avoid decades of war and misery and hopefully make a more peaceful relationship between the west and the middle-east?

Because no one is going to believe a crazy guy spouting about terrorists bombing the twin towers and the pentagon and some field with hijacked planes.

They'd probably think I'm drunk.

Given that it was perpetrated by a known terrorist organisation that had already committed an attack on the Twin Towers, tell them right after Oklahoma and...

(Or hell, just tip off the FBI a guy called Timothy McVeigh has a ton of Fertilizer you don't think is going to a farming project.)

Me? I'd start taking bets. Or steal modern songs and sell them off as my own.

 

[And Man]

To be perfectly honest, I'd probably kill myself. I'd only have the money that is currently on me. I wouldn't be able to use my SSN or any ID I'd have, so I wouldn't be able to get a job (not that I'd have my degree or any proof of graduation anyway). I'd be stuck with '91 technology and internet, assuming my now-broke self could even acquire any. I'd have no friends, family, or home. The only thing I can think of is the possibility that I would have my 3DS or iPod on me, which I could probably sell or exploit or something to get rich. I wouldn't have any way to charge them though (unless I for some inexplicable reason had chargers on me?), so I'd have to figure out how to do so and then do it pretty quickly.

 

[FPLOON]

Huh... I would do everything that did not involve running into my past mother, my past (still alive) father, and hopefully not run into myself... Other than that, I would be too busy buying/selling stocks and stopping Columbine from happening as bad as it did, since that was something even my 6-year-old self knew about...

Huh... The more I think about this, the more I feel like the 1991 I woke up in would not lead to the following years that most would remember afterwards, given how we would have some say on the changing of events... (Whoa...)

 

[Treeberry]

Like And Man said, it'd probably be awful (although it would also depend on where you were dropped off) but presuming my actions wouldn't provide for too many negative consequences in the future I would...

-Give tips offs about the scandals, tragedies and such that I know about.
-ARCADES
-Buy a Sega Nomad, Master System, Mega Drive, NES and SNES plus the games. ALL OF THEM. Even the ones not released in the UK. *cackle* (I'm not greedy...)
-Hopefully exploit my knowledge of technologies etc. in a meaningful way.
-Write my own versions of Harry Potter or ASOIAF. MWAHAHAHA! (Although that'd probably be bad for JK and GRRM :/)

If any of those plans actually worked in my favour I'd use my money FOR THE GOOD OF MANKIND...and myse-

Wait. Would my parents and Mini Me be around at this time? >.>

 

[babinro]

- I'd get a job flipping burgers and spend all my money buying cases of Magic: The Gathering beta/Arabian nights/Antiquities boxes. Wait a decade or 2 and live an easy life.

You stole my idea!

The good old days when people traded duel lands for craw worms and both parties felt it was a fair trade. Want my game breaking Shivan Dragon for your 'meh' Black Lotus? Sure!

Heck, you could just buy boxes and keep them sealed for 20 years.

 

[Bestival]

1991 is when Terminator 2 plays out right? I'd assume I am a (slightly malfunctioning) terminator and go on a Sarah Connor hunt.

 

[Azure23]

Go to a Formula 1 race to see Ayrton Senna before his death.
Go to a Nirvana concert.
Become angry because it's 91 and I missed Germany becoming World Champion in '90. GOD DAMMIT, do I have to wait over 2 decades until the next one again?

Senna, what a MAN. It would be worth going back to 91 to hang out with him.

 

[game-lover]

I have no idea. I was about 3 years old that year.

Maybe just maybe I could find my mother back then. Either I warn her of things to go down like how she'll end up sick about 5 years later or something. Or... I keep on the sidelines for fear of doing too much shit to my timeline and be some anonymous donor person.

Granted, this would imply I were in Texas or could get there.

Other than that, I'm just not sure. On the bright side, I could be mostly sure I have a place to stay since I woke up in a bed, right?

 

[Mr.Mattress]

-2001 help in 9/11

Why not prevent it? Avoid decades of war and misery and hopefully make a more peaceful relationship between the west and the middle-east?

I can only think of one way to actually stop 9/11 as a Civilian: Go into the Airport where the Terrorists will hijack the planes before they get onto the planes, and cause a panic by shooting bullets into the air. Then you could kill them if you wanna go to Jail forever, or just leave immediately after the panic and pray you can avoid being arrested as you go somewhere else. Of course, this might not deter the Terrorists if they live, and they could try again (So we'd have like a 10/25 or something like that instead), but it's the best I can think of...

OT: Join a Band and ride the wave of Grunge Rock, perhaps make Psychedelic Grunge (Stoner Grunge?) songs. Then retire by 2002, and then get back in the game in 2012 to ride the wave of Nostalgia Music!

 

[psijac]

I'd probably hit on most women I couldn't get now, but hope to get them then (Spoiler alert, I don't get with any of them). I was 1 year old in 1991, so I might get to meet myself as an infant, but maybe change my appearance so I end up meeting myself without destroying the future (Why don't we think about doing plastic surgery in most movies involving time travel? At best, you meet yourself without causing your former self to question humanity because he met you from the future).

I'd also attempt to right some select wrongs (Sad but true, some terrible things need to happen in order to prevent even worse things from happening. Time's a *****, I didn't write the rules).

Probably attempt to see a lot of movies I wanted to see on the big screen, even a few of the flops so my first timeline self would have retroactively celebrated some of the movies I know I like without actually having had the ability to see them.

Find somebody who knew what programming was back in the day, give him my porn stash (What's a USB drive? Is that like a Floppy Disk?) and start a porn empire. That's how you make a lot of money.

Would pornographic video of an adult not yet born constitute as kiddie porn?

 

[psijac]

Crashing airplanes into buildings sounds like a problem in theory, but didn't seem like a real threat people really had to react to, so the preventative measures failed.

The biggest reason 9/11 happened was that people in power didn't really care to have it not happen. It was a boon for the Bush Administration, making it way easier for them to achieve their foreign policy. The very people responsible for preventing it to some extent care about the lives of Americans, but they also care about their careers - rocking the boat by criticizing the way intelligence work was conducted in the American government may or may not have saved 3,000 American lives but it may well have gotten the criticizer fired.

The same thing is happening on a smaller scale right now in Gaza. The murders of three Israeli teens allowed the Israeli state to achieve their policy objective of a military assault on Gaza, killing over 150 Palestinians so far. This corresponds to the 3,000 American deaths leading to the deaths of over a million Iraqis, displacement of millions more, and many more deaths and destruction across the Middle East.

I don't agree with "eye for an eye" justice, but even the most staunch Old Testament advocate can't possibly agree with "burning a town down for an eye". This is a bit tongue in cheek, because neither the American nor Israeli state cares about revenge or justice - they care about their degree of power and control. Everything that happens, whether it's 3,000 dead or a mere 3, is an excuse to implement another power move.

The World Trade Center was attacked in 1993 just two years from now?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World_Trade_Center_bombing

Some Critics say Clinton could have done a lot more to stop 9/11, but the sentiment at the time was that every non- domestic terrorist group had behind them a legitimate complaint. Like Hamas in Palestine and the IRA

In theory the best way to stop 9/11 would be to prevent the Installation of the Shah of Iran. Which pretty much set the ground work for his overthrow and the rise in power of the ayatollahs.

I guess you could also try to stop the Russian invasion of Afghanistan were Osama Bin Laden was trained by the US as a freedom fighter

 

[Randoman01]

I would probably just try to avoid meeting myself. That wold be the best.

 

[spartan231490]

Invest in microsoft, grab some gold while it climbs, then switch to silver while it spikes. Also pick up some google stock when it goes public. In short, make a fuck-ton of money.

 

[shogunblade]

I'd probably hit on most women I couldn't get now, but hope to get them then (Spoiler alert, I don't get with any of them). I was 1 year old in 1991, so I might get to meet myself as an infant, but maybe change my appearance so I end up meeting myself without destroying the future (Why don't we think about doing plastic surgery in most movies involving time travel? At best, you meet yourself without causing your former self to question humanity because he met you from the future).

I'd also attempt to right some select wrongs (Sad but true, some terrible things need to happen in order to prevent even worse things from happening. Time's a *****, I didn't write the rules).

Probably attempt to see a lot of movies I wanted to see on the big screen, even a few of the flops so my first timeline self would have retroactively celebrated some of the movies I know I like without actually having had the ability to see them.

Find somebody who knew what programming was back in the day, give him my porn stash (What's a USB drive? Is that like a Floppy Disk?) and start a porn empire. That's how you make a lot of money.

Would pornographic video of an adult not yet born constitute as kiddie porn?

I was talking about a general porn stash, but that raises more problems of ethics then it does anything else, and those ethics raise even MORE problems of ethics, considering most of the people I'd be bringing from the future to the past wouldn't have been of age yet.

Let's just hire Robert Zemeckis to just write that awkward part out of the timeline and make it so my parents kiss at the "Enchantment Under The Sea" Dance, just the way History intended it.

 

[Vault101]

go to the movies

1991 was a good year for women in movies

 

[VyseRogueKing]

Invest in Apple/Microsoft/Google.
Become my own Godfather.
Try to stop some terrible things from happening.
Use my uncanny predictions to screw with everyone.

The us'

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

I'd get involved in a death metal scene when the genre was still growing and full of energy, and go to some pre-Dimebag's death shows, where it was less regulated by security. I'd also play all the classic RPGs back in their time, instead of 15 years later. The lack of internet and good quality porn would be a massive bummer, though.

 

[Remus]

I'm surprised no one suggested this, but I'd get an SNES and get a bunch of games for it. Seriously, being able to buy Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, FFVI,etc. would be fucking rad.

Chrono Trigger new was $80 at Wal-Mart. That's 1991 money, which is about $140 now. I'd still buy it - at this point I had been soaking up any preview information I could on the game and thanks to a certain movie trilogy, I was really digging time travel stories. Square was in its prime at this time so their games sold at a premium above MSRP.

If I could go back to 1991 I'd tell my parents to seek a specialist in St Louis and fix a problem that would become a black cloud even to this day. That would be enough to ensure my future.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

QUICK, MY COOL UNCLE IS ALIVE!

*steals the nearest car and drives to wherever he can to stop Uncle Shane from getting killed in a tragic railway accident*

I HAVE TO SAVE HIM