Hypothetical Wednesday

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Hypothetical Wednesday – Brains or Brawn

February 8, 2012 in Hypothetical Wednesday with 4 Comments

Once day while out picking strawberries, The Great Gazoo (little green alien of Flintstones fame) appears before you and offers you one of two things. Option one is for seven days you can have the business savy of Warren Buffett. Now, you won’t have any more cash than you have now to invest, and you will have a hard time convincing your friends or a bank that you all of a sudden have a brilliant brain for business, but you will, for seven day. Or, option two, for seven days you will have the basketball ability Michael Jordan, in his prime. Again, you will not be any bigger than you are now, but if inserted into an NBA game, you would not have much trouble going for 50 points, freaking brothers every way like MJ.

So, which one are you choosing, and which one do you think you could make the most money with in your seven days?

Hypothetical Wednesday: Looking Good

February 1, 2012 in Hypothetical Wednesday with 4 Comments

You and your spouse are shopping for socks at Old Navy when a genie pops out from behind the weird half-moon curtain dressing room. This genie then decides to grant you one of three things. You ask why he is not granting you three wishes, and he replies that he is not that kind of genie. Then he proceeds and says either…

1. You will look the way you looked on the most attractive day of your life, for the rest of your life.

2. Your spouse will look the way he/she looked on the most attractive day of their life, for the rest of their life.

3. You will both age like regular people.

Which one are you going with?

Hypothetical Wednesday: The Discovery

January 25, 2012 in Hypothetical Wednesday with 5 Comments

You and your significant other are vacationing in Syria (What? It could happen). And one day while strolling through the Syrian countryside you stumble into a cave, where you discover clay jars with ancient scrolls inside. You smuggle the jars back home, have the scrolls analyzed by a friend who specializes in such matters, and he tells you the scrolls date back to around 40 AD. He also tells you the scrolls contain information that scholars will use to argue against Christianity. Your friend estimates collectors would likely pay you over $300 million for these scrolls, but also warns their unveiling will be the news story of the decade, and magazines will run headlines like, “The Scrolls that Killed Christianity”. In reality nothing will change, Christianity will be as true as it always was, and people will continue to convert at the same rate before the scrolls went public. Scholars and unbelievers will just have a new, powerful way to argue against Christianity, and you will have $300 million. Confused, you talk to a couple of pastors and they urge you to sit on the scrolls. So, do you go public and sell the scrolls, or keep them in your basement?

Hypothetical Wednesday: Coyote Ugly

January 18, 2012 in Hypothetical Wednesday with 6 Comments

You are on the pastoral search committee at your church, and after months of searching, the team lands on the perfect candidate. He is theologically sound, a dynamic speaker, and has a phenomenal record of growing churches wherever he’s been. The pastor in turn shows interest in coming to your church, so a month of trial sermons are arranged. But it is during these trial sermons that you notice a bizarre trend. Each week, the pastor mentions the film Coyote Ugly. Nothing big, just quick passing references that no one seems to notice. Everyone in the church agrees the pastor is perfect, and the next week the search team visits his office to offer the job. But here you realize the pastor has several framed Coyote Ugly posters, along with props from the film, prominently displayed on his shelves. You glance out the window and see his car, the tag reads COYOTE. The head of the search committee is handing him the contract, do you speak up?

Hypothetical Wednesday: National Championships

January 11, 2012 in Hypothetical Wednesday with 6 Comments

Mike Slive appears to you in a vision with a bizarre offer. Your favorite team is guaranteed to win five National Championships over the next ten seasons, but you will not be able to see any of it. If you try and listen on the radio, you will only hear static. If you turn the game on television, you will only see the test pattern. If you go to games, you will be turned away. If you try to read about the games afterward, you will be beaten with a six-iron. Not only that, but when the ten years are over you still cannot read about or watch videos about the five championships. When clips come on TV you, for some mystical reason, will not be able to see or hear them. Even the championship flags at the stadium will look blank to you. You will only know about these games through conversations with friends. If you say no, your team is guaranteed not to win a National Championship over the next ten seasons, but you can watch them as much as you like. Mike Slive is waiting, what do you say?

Hypothetical Wednesday: Commute

January 4, 2012 in Hypothetical Wednesday with 11 Comments

Let’s say you have two job interviews. The actual jobs are identical, and after charming the interview panel you are offered both positions. When you sit down that night to decide which job to take, you realized the only difference between the two is the commute.

The Agony of Victory, The Thrill of Defeat

August 4, 2011 in Hypothetical Wednesday, Sports with 5 Comments

As most of you know I’m currently writing a book on sports rivalries. It’s been interesting talking to the fans of these great rivalries, particularly asking them about wanting their rivals to lose. Most of them really enjoy watching their rival go through all sorts of trails and tribulations, and they particularly enjoy watching their rival lose. You may say you are not that way, but think about it, are you more likely to turn on Finebaum the Monday after your team wins, or the Monday after your rival loses, or has some scandal break. I know my answer. I think if you are a fan of a team involved in an epic rivalry, it just takes a little more for your joy to be complete. You need a win on Saturday, but you also need a loss across the state.

Hypothetical Tuesday – Virtual Reality

May 17, 2011 in Hypothetical Wednesday, Uncategorized with 5 Comments

Ten years from now Sony releases PlayStation5, a gaming system that brings life-like virtual reality to the masses. Only one game is released for the new system, and it is called e-Life. With the PS5 the player wears a suit and helmet, and once inside the game, it is virtually impossible to distinguish the game from reality. In the game you can be a rock star, famous athlete, special forces commando, President of the United States, or whatever you can dream. However, the game is so real that the prospect of returning to everyday life has caused depression in many players. Within weeks, reports of gamers quitting their jobs begin to surface. Marriages are also being destroyed because of life-like sexual scenerios in the game that are being called infinitely more addictive than pornography. That being said, the game is pretty much the most awesome thing ever, and the closest you will ever get to fighting with Navy Seals, or hitting a home run over the Green Monster. The system costs $499. Are you buying one?

Hypothetical Tuesday – Bears

May 10, 2011 in Hypothetical Wednesday with 10 Comments

Once again, I’m using a Chuck Klosterman hypothetical, in part because they make me laugh, but also because I just got back from vacation and don’t really want to think for myself today. Here we go. Think of someone who is your friend (do not select your best friend, but make sure the person is someone you would classify as “considerably more then an acquaintance”). This friend is going to be attacked by a grizzly bear. Now this person will survive the attack; that is guaranteed. There is a 100 percent chance that your friend will live. However, the extent of his injuries is unknown; he might receive nothing but a few superficial scratches, but he also might lose a limb (or multiple limbs). He might recover completely in twenty-four hours with nothing but a great story, or he might spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Somehow you have the ability to stop this attack from happening. You can magically save your friend from the bear. But his (or her) salvation will come at a peculiar price: if you choose to stop the bear, it will always rain. For the rest of your life, wherever you go, it will be raining. Sometimes it will pour and sometimes it will drizzle-but it will never not be raining. But it won’t rain over the totality of the earth, nor will the hydrological cycle de disrupted; these storm clouds will be isolated, and they will focus entirely on your specific where-abouts. You will also never see the sun again.

Do you stop the bear, accepting the lifetime of rain?

Hypothetical Tuesday – Sweet Dreams

May 3, 2011 in Hypothetical Wednesday with 8 Comments

Today’s hypothetical comes courtesy of one of my favorite writers, Chuck Klosterman. At long last, someone invents “the dream VCR.” This machine allows you to tape an entire evening’s worth of your own dreams, which you can then watch at your leisure. However, the inventor of the dream VCR will only allow you to use this device of you agree to a strange caveat: When you watch your dreams, you must do so with your family and your closest friends in the same room. They get to watch your dreams along with you. And if you don’t agree to this, you can’t use the dream VCR. So, are you buying a dream machine?

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