This is it.  This is the week.  I can feel it.  Even though I missed out on the $340 million PowerBall because I was too lazy to drive my ass thirty minutes to the New Hampshire border, I really think that tonight is the night that I win Mega Millions' one hundred million dollar jackpot and finally get the chance to say "fuck you" to being poor and working two jobs like some sort of chump.  Yes, when I come back to my office on Monday for another week of sitting on my ass typing shit up all day and roaming the halls of Staples all night, I will be greeted with the winning lottery numbers, which will correspond to the numbers randomly selected for me by a machine when I gave my last two dollars to the crazy guy at the convenience store near my apartment.  And it will rule. 

In order to ensure that I don't blindly piss all my money away on stupid shit and end up living on the street in two years with nothing to show for it, I've decided to make a list of the first ten things I'm going to do with $100 million.  At least that way I can be certain that I'll be pissing all my money away on less stupid shit so when I'm living on the street two years from now I'll at least have some good stories to tell my drunken hobo derelict friends and roommates.

I decided that since I was already making a list, I might as well post it on my site since I'm always pretty much grasping for content anyways.  So here are ten things I'll do immediately upon winning the lottery.

1.   Have an Aneurysm

   First things first.  You gotta be realistic about this sort of thing, and even though I am one hundred billion percent positive that I'm going to have the winning numbers when they're pulled, I feel as though I'd be gypping myself out of the experience if I didn't have the requisite heart attack and freak-out session.  I've planned ahead though -- I moved our office's water cooler into my office and precariously placed a bunch of really important papers on top of it.  Next to that is a shelf full of office manuals and old exams given out by our professors, which I took the liberty of removing a few screws from.  That way, when I find out that I've won, I can leap up into the air, crash into the water cooler, sending water and paper everywhere, and then pull on the shelving and have everything in my office crash down into the watery mess while screaming, "HA HA HA!  I'm rich!  I'm rich!  See you in hell, jerks!".  Before running down to Andrea's office and letting her know that she can finally commence "Operation:  Staple Things to Christine's Head" without having to worry about getting fired for assaulting her co-worker.

   
   
2.   Quit My Jobs

   I don't dislike my day job.  In fact, at this point in my life I can't really think of anything I'd rather be doing.  I get to work in a field I'm interested in, have lots of responsibility, and still find time to update this site every week.  For that reason, I'll give the University the dignity of having me walk off the job at nine in the morning without stealing anything or setting anything on fire.  Staples, however, will probably suffer the ignominy of two weeks worth of "no call no shows" before figuring out that I don't work there anymore.  But sometimes that's just the way the world works, and retail jobs eventually are going to have to start getting used to the fact that I'm not going to let them know when I decide to quit.

   Some people (including Andrea) seem to delude themselves into thinking that if they won the lottery they would still get a part-time job doing something that they were really interested in so they could keep from getting bored.  Not me.  My primary goal in life is to sit around my house doing nothing without having to worry about being able to afford rent, food and Xbox games.  Some people think that this is a sign of laziness or immaturity, and let me tell you that it is.  If/when I get $100 million, I can promise all of you right now that I'm going to make a career out of being an unemployed loser.  Damn, that's the life.  Fuck working.  That shit's for chumps.  If it was so fulfilling and exciting, employers wouldn't have to pay you to do it.  There's nothing in the world I would rather do than nothing.

   
   
   
   That's what I'm talking about.
   
   
   
3.   Pay for Wedding

   I think I may have mentioned somewhere that I'm getting married next year.  Well, now that we're starting to reserve and pay for shit for the wedding, we are quickly finding out that Boston is actually the "ream engaged people in the ass" capital of the world when it comes to shit like venues, catering and photography (among other stuff), not to mention the fact that weddings in general are the "ream you in the ass" event of the year.  So compound that with being in Boston and you've got a wedding that is budgeted to cost exactly one-third of my yearly salary (before taxes), and that's taking into account the fact that we had to pass on our first choice of venue because they wanted $4K just to reserve the place for eight hours.  What a fucking rip-off.  So we decided that come the wedding day, we'd just jimmy the locks off with a crowbar or break some windows or something and have our own party without their consent.  Fuckers.

   Anyways, the point here is that I would pay for the wedding first.  Now I can already hear many of you out there thinking, "Oh my God, that's so fucking gay.  This guy is so whipped", or whatever it is that kids say these days when talking about a dude who is planning on spending $300 on flowers a year from now.  To you, I say this:  One of the things that you must understand about dating an incredibly hot chick is that she probably has been planning her wedding from the time she was old enough to put the living room drapes over her head and pretend it was a veil.  She knows what she wants when she gets married, and if you're not going to give it to her then she's hot enough that she'll find someone else who will.  So you'd better deal with it or don't expect to ever be able to put a diamond ring on her finger to serve as a permanent Sleazy Bachelor Repellant.

   
   
4.   Create Personal Mascot and Theme Song

   Have you seen this Starbucks commercial where the guy drinks Starbucks and then "The Hey Song" starts playing and people are lined up along the streets chanting "Hank" instead of "Hey" and he gets all pumped up to deliver a presentation at a meeting?  And he has a giant college football-style mascot of himself that runs around behind him with a boombox and does The Worm?  Yeah, I need that.  And I think if I had $100M I could pull that off.

   In addition to being a personal assistant and mascot, the Fake Ben would have to also act as sort of a stunt double as well, doing crazy shit to show people how awesome I am.  Like when I'm about to enter the grocery store, he'll cartwheel through the automatic doors blasting my theme song, break down and do The Worm over to the standalone Coke display, flip up and dump lighter fluid all over the display, set off a giant inferno and then somersault through the flames before doing the Scott Hall/Kevin Nash two-handed point towards the entrance as I come in.  Or as I'm going into Best Buy to get a couple of new PlayStation games, he can sprint through the doors (again blasting the theme song), run up a wall, do a backflip and then start knocking everything off the racks and kicking employees and customers to show them how awesome I am.  When I'm walking down the street, he'll walk just behind me blasting pump-up music and dancing around like a freak.  When people come over to my apartment, he'll greet everyone at the door playing my theme music and carrying a silver platter loaded with cheese fries and chicken nuggets, making sure to give high fives to everyone who eats the food.  In order for him to do shit like this though, the boombox will probably have to be built into his suit, but I think that can be arranged.

   The only real question is what I'm going to use for theme music.  I've given this one a lot of thought and narrowed it down to a couple of choices.  I guess I won't really have to decide for sure until after the Fake Ben costume is ready to be picked up.  Here's what I've got so far:

   • Kenny Loggins - Danger Zone
   • Mötorhead - Ace of Spades
   • The theme from Castlevania
   • Anything from Mega Man II
   • Andrew W.K. - Party Hard
   • MC Hawking - What We Need More of Is Science

   Like I said, there's still time to add or delete.  Maybe I can just hook him up to my iPod.

   
   
5.   Scrooge It Up

   I imagine that the best part about being rich is being able to lord your wealth over all the poor people in the world.  That would definitely explain why rich people are such douchebag cocks to everyone and why they blow their money on exorbitant and completely impractical stupid shit like gold-plated Humvees, eight million dollar shoes that look identical to five dollar knockoffs, and diamond-encrusted table legs.  Well I think that once I'm rich I won't go all Robin Leach with my money but will instead try to emulate my childhood idol, Scrooge.

   The first step to being a Scrooge is to make the lottery commission pay out two million dollars in gold dollar coins, effectively giving me more Sacagawea than even Lewis and Clark could handle.  Can you imagine the possibilities of having two million quarter-sized gold coins in big cloth sacks with giant dollar signs printed on them?  I'd feel like a cross between an old-time bank robber and the Monopoly guy.  Anyways, here are two Scrooge-related avenues I can take:

   
   
   • Uncle Scrooge McDuck: Remember in Duck Tales when Uncle Scrooge had that huge tower of gold coins that he used to go swimming in while local ducklings had to suffer with microwave dinners and insufficient housing?  I was always so jealous of that.  So I think if I had two million gold coins I could put something like that together in my living room, though I'm a little skeptical of the feasibility of swimming in a pile of money.  It seems like it would hurt, or at least be incredibly difficult/dangerous/unclean.  But it's more the principle of it than anything else.  I mean, who can say that they did a bellyflop and ruptured their spleen on a two million dollar pile of gold?  It would be awesome, and you know it.
     
     
   • Ebenezer Scrooge: Once that got boring (or I sustained some sort of gold-plated coin-related injury) I could switch gears and go Ebenezer Scrooge at the end of Great Expectations or whatever stupid Dickens book that guy's in.  Who knows.  The point is that Scrooge gets so pumped up about being rich that he spends Christmas Day running around throwing gold coins at poor people and orphans, who are so excited about getting money that they don't even care that this guy is running around in his underwear winging small bits of metal at them.  Well I think I can one-up that by building some sort of gold-plated coin launching semi-automatic handgun that can propel a Sacagawea dollar thirty feet per second with pinpoint accuracy.  I'll attach a laser sight to it and on Christmas this year I'll run down the streets of Boston wearing only a nightcap, snow boots and skull-and-crossbones boxer shorts shooting people in the gut with two million dollars worth of ammunition.  Not only will it be awesomeness on the scale of The Most Dangerous Game, but people will also heap praise on me for being a fucking kickass humanitarian and giving people money!  It's like I can't lose!
   
   
   
   Me getting ready to eat some kids.
   
   
   
6.   Xbox 360

   Seriously.

   
   
7.   Studio Time

   One of the best parts about being a millionaire would be that I could finally get some serious studio time to produce some non-serious music with a group of non-talented, non-serious musicians.  I could fly everyone up here to cut a Circle of Piss/Telephone Room 7/Bad Mojo mega album that would be so badass that when record shops put it on the same shelf as the rest of their Pop-Rock crap, our CD would grow arms and legs and break every other CD on the rack before self-destructing and destroying the entire store in an explosion of awesomeness.  People all around the globe would be like, "I can't believe how much I love a CD of songs exclusively written about oral sex," and then Ryan Seacrest would go to introduce the song on his crappy Top 40 show but his arms would fall off and his head would collapse because of how much this album rules.  Oh man, just thinking about the possibility of this record existing is getting me pumped up enough to bite off a chunk of my desk and spit it through the window of my office.

   
   
8.   Construct Secret Lair

   Every eccentric millionaire needs his lair.  Bruce Wayne had Wayne Manor and the Batcave, Hugo Drax had Moonraker Base, Shaq has his opulent mansion and Dr. Moreau had, er, the Island of Dr. Moreau.  I feel like I need to continue this trend by building a gigantic underground lair that can serve as my base of operations and a place to hide from adoring fans of the website.

   The most important thing about having a secret lair is making sure that it remains secret.  So the only way into the Amazing Ben Compound will be to drive out into rural Massachusetts and find a small paved road leading through the hills into a wide open field in the middle of nowhere.  The road will abruptly end at a life-size stone statue of Clint Eastwood looking like a total badass as The Man with No Name.  You'll have to examine the statue and find the loose shotgun shell in his bandolier and remove it, opening up a secret path in the ground for you to drive into.  Once you drive down to the parking garage, you'll have to pass a security screening where an ill-tempered foul-mouthed mean abusive robot asks you what the password is and if you don't answer "besonderes" he vaporizes your car.  Once you've parked, you won't be allowed in until you pass a Badass Test where a big Drill Sergeant type dude asks you three questions about the nature of being a badass.  If you don't answer them all correctly you get a "second chance" where he punches you in the face as hard as he can and if you don't fall over you can get in.  But we can always iron out the details later.

   Basically the secret lair will be awesome.  It would have everything I need so that I never need to go out in public again -- food, booze, games, babes, TVs, a harem, water slides, remote-detonated nuclear warheads, secret passages, a high-speed internet connection, music... you get the point.  It's going to kick ass. 

   
   
9.   Hire Loyal Followers

   Sadly, if there's one thing I've learned from reading about the United States' ill-advised "Wild Goose Chase Against Terror" and subsequent declaration of war against "The Middle East", it's that raising and maintaining a technologically-advanced standing army is wicked fucking expensive.  Unfortunately, what this means for me is that until state lottery jackpots break the $800 billion mark, I'm pretty much shit-out-of-luck when it comes to realizing my childhood dreams of conquering Earth.  So seeing as I'm just some lucky bitch with no managerial experience and not a diabolical international multi-billionaire I won't really have the luxury of Doctor Evil-ing and putting together a well-trained private army hell-bent on world domination, or even going all Sauron and building a couple dozen cloning vats to build mindless goons willing to run face-first into a wall of swords on my command.  I guess with just a measly $100M I'll have to settle for pulling a Lex Luthor and and just creating an elite cadré of hand-selected super soldiers.  I'll try to lowball them on their salaries so that I can keep them around a while.  Here's what I'm thinking in terms of evil henchmen:

   
   
   • A giant 15-foot tall robot constructed Voltron-style from about fifty of those stupid "spinning wedge with a hydraulic hammer taped to it" robots on lame shows like Robot Wars.  Must be able to fight as giant mega-bot against human opponents and cars and also break into smaller bots to control potential rodent problems or battle satanic puppets/midgets/leprechauns.
     
     
   • Two super mega hot scantily-clad ninja babes with huge boobs who have lots of pillow fights and make-out sessions.
     
     
   • An indian who can turn into a wolf.
     
     
   • A three-hundred pound ex-Marine heavy weapons specialist to man crucial blowtorch and machinegun stations throughout the secret lair.
     
     
   • Resident mad scientist J. Catfood, since I know he'll do his part in making sure the secret lair is stocked up on beakers with oddly-colored liquids in them that are constantly bubbling over, metal towers bristling with electrical currents, big ominous-looking laboratory tools and bright red biohazard signs.  Basically, he'll just be in charge of making sure there's no shortage of weird science experiment stuff laying around and freaking people out.
     
     
   • A Pakistani IT guy familiar with security systems and internet networking.
     
     
   • An android clone of myself that I can send to boring meetings and use as a decoy in case the Navy starts launching cruise missiles at me.  However, I think the temptation to try and engage myself in hand-to-hand combat would be overwhelming.
     
     
   • Jack Shannon.
     
     
   • An accountant.
     
   
   
   
   
   Someone's gotta do it.
   
   
   
10.   Take a Wine Tasting Class

    Nothing says "pretentious cock" like a guy who can tell the difference between a Merlot, a Shiraz and a Pinot Noir just by tasting them.  Since I plan on being the most pretentious of all cocks when I'm rich, I think that one of my first orders of business will be to take a wine tasting class so that I can do irritating shit like ask waiters, "I was wondering if you had a 99 Chateau Rieussec Bordeaux this evening my good man?" while I sit back in a dark red silk robe and puff on an expensive pipe while stroking my newly-grown handlebar moustache and peering through my gold-rimmed monocle.  I just think that since being rich is going to make me way better than everyone else, I might as well learn to start acting like it.  You know you'd do the same.

    
    

    Man, being loaded is going to rock so much ass.

    
    
    

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