@ The Doctor:

Well, look at that – a comment from The Doctor himself. :)

Anyways, since no one but you seems to be sharing their time traveling secrets let me share mine like I promised.

In most cases when you time travel you can usually figure out a ballpark date range where you are going to be based on available technology, fashion and etc. Once you got that, you pick an important event people would remember in that era: 9/11, World War starting/ending, etc.

You find an outgoing person or group of people and you get into conversation with them, steering it towards a topic related to your event. Then at some point you sigh and say:

“Man… I remember [event] as if it happened yesterday. I can’t believe it’s been… How many years now?”

At that point you pretend you are slowly counting down the years in your head. Chances are the person you are talking to will chime in with the correct number before you finish.

I think this has to do with human psychology – people don’t like long pauses in conversations. So if you stop talking and start counting, the other person may get uncomfortable and will just give you the number to keep the conversation going. The longer you keep this up, the higher the chance is that they will speak up. It’s like a game of chicken – and the only way to lose is if you lose your nerve out of fear of looking stupid or silly, That or if the other person does not feel like talking about [event] and will use the pause to change the subject to something completely different.

The problem with your method is that my natural response to your cue would be:

“Nope, I’m afraid it’s not.”

I wouldn’t actually offer the year because… Well, why would I want to do that?

Another good method is the “year switchover” conversation. Sadly it only works in January/February. You basically go to a bank or other place where you have to fill out and date forms. You stand in line, then take a form and start filling it out – close to another person. You scribble something in the date column, cross it out, then throw out your form and start again saying:

“Can you believe it that I still keep putting the wrong year on everything?”

The usual response you get is:

“OMG, me too. I keep putting XX on everything out of habit”

It’s not as good as the first method but it might work if you are in a pinch. Added bonus is that if you are at a bank, you might actually see the date displayed somewhere – like on a calendar or some display screen on the wall.

This schtick works for me:

“How strange.. my media player seems to have gone on the fritz again.”

*picks random person nearby not wearing earphones*

“That update seems to have gone bad – it really is not 1970, is it?”

“No, it’s 2010.”

“Why, thank you.”

The webcomic you’ve linked is so awesome :) Thanks a lot :)