The Long Road

12/15/2003 Archived Entry: "If I Had a Million Dollars"

I would:

Invest at least 200 000$
Pay off my parents’ mortgage
Get a nice yet reasonable car, like a Corvette
Buy a room full of comics
Have an amazing home theater in my basement
Own all seven seasons of DS9 on DVD
Take separate groups of friends on trips through Europe, Asia, and South America
Go on a cruise
Eat out at fancy French restaurants constantly
Get no-limit air miles credit card and rack up a ridiculously large amount of points
Own enough clothes to do laundry only once a month
Have someone else do my laundry
Sit at the high-rollers’ table for 30 minutes
Purchase an insane computer with something like 9 LCD monitors. Use said computer for instant messaging and web-browsing
Burn a thousand-dollar bill
Buy a 1000$ lotto 6/49 ticket to see the look on the girl's face
Be even MORE materialistic
Hire a personal trainer
Say “have your people call my people” and mean it
Own one of every game console ever made – and maybe some games
Throw my weight around
Always win at Monopoly
Contemplate if having a million dollars makes one happier and tell you the answer
Still not buy music
Imitate certain rich people by denying my wealth and lamenting about how financially downtrodden I am
Buy your love

Replies: 18 comments

You'd run out of a million dollars pretty quick...

Posted by . @ 12/15/2003 10:36 AM EST

Sounds like fun but yeah, you're gonna need more than $1,000,000. ;)
There's a new commercial for a shopping mall in Vernon that asks "Could you spend $5000 in one day?". Hell ya! I could spend it in a couple hours! :D

Posted by Andrea @ 12/15/2003 12:59 PM EST

Me + 5000$ + Mall = 35 seconds, maximum!

Posted by Mike @ 12/15/2003 02:32 PM EST

nah, I think a million will be just enough. Though it would go by real quick.

Posted by Rayne @ 12/15/2003 04:36 PM EST

I could spend 40,000 in one store ;)

Posted by Hyperion @ 12/15/2003 08:09 PM EST

40K at Future Shop would be EASY. Get the most expensive TV, amp, speakers, pc, lcd, digiCAM, mp3 player, and a huge library of DVDs.

Posted by Rayne @ 12/16/2003 12:52 AM EST

Did you know it's actually illegal to burn money?

If my brother won a million dollars, he'd pay off my parents' debt, my student loan and then burn the rest publicly.

He would advertise the event ahead of time, of course, and if police showed up to stop him, then that's all they could do. Stop him. They couldn't arrest him for having intentions to do it (or so he and I theorized). So if they did stop him, he'd do it privately and then release the tape.

To the best of our knowledge, no one's yet been penalized for destruction of money (though it is government property so they're legally allowed to do so) so we're not sure what the punishment is. Probably jail and or a fine - which means he'll e in debt again, but oh well. He thinks it would be well worth it.

Posted by Romer @ 12/16/2003 01:10 AM EST

yeah, i agree. it will take you no time to spent a million dollars, but i like the stuff on your list. if i had a million dollars too, thai, i will eat out at french restaurants, go on cruises and trips with ya! :D

Posted by Katie @ 12/16/2003 04:38 AM EST

Actually destroying paper money isn't illegal. The closest thing in the criminal code talks specifically about defacing coins, and it's mostly related to trying to pass off a coin you've modified in some way (for example, by removing some metal) as a real coin.

If you just deface a coin, that's punishable by summary conviction, which is a maximum of $2000 fine and/or a maximum of 6 months in jail.

That's not to say you wouldn't be arrested for burning a pile of money, only that either a) no charge would stand against you for specifically destroying money or b) the charge they did level against you would be unrelated, e.g. pollution or open fires.

Posted by Joe @ 12/16/2003 02:44 PM EST

It shouldn't surprise you that the criminal code of Canada does not contain a clause about paper money. Perhaps the lawmakers are thinking since the smallest paper denomination is 5$, the penalty should be the loss of that note. The coin clauses exist because the value of the coins is not enough of a deterrent to prevent tampering or destruction. So if you want to burn a million dollars you were just fined a million dollars... ;) I find it hard to believe anyone could burn enough money to piss off a federal mint, I mean its ink and paper after all

Posted by Hyperion @ 12/16/2003 04:41 PM EST

Oh yeah, coin costs more to make :)

Posted by Hyperion @ 12/16/2003 04:45 PM EST

Good to know! Now there's nothing stopping my brother! (Except that he doesn't bother with lottery tickets and I can't imagine him getting it any other way)

Posted by Romer @ 12/17/2003 12:50 PM EST

but if everyone started to burn money they're gonna throw off the bank of canada's measure of how much money there is in the country! oh the madness! hehehe ...

to continue with burning paper money isn't as bad as destroying coins arguments ... paper money also has a much shorter (circulation) life than coins (i believe it's supposed to be like 2 years or something like the such and coins are closer to 15 - 20 years) ...

you know what i'd do if i had a million dollars? i'd buy sheets and sheets of $5 bills, uncut and then i'd wallpaper my room with them (hildi's my inspiration, my hero, my idol) ... that'd be such a better trick than gluing quarters to the floor

Posted by melpie @ 12/18/2003 09:44 AM EST

Hildi's weird to say the least. I'd have a heart attack if I came home to find hay or feathers or cardboard on my walls!!! But if I had a million dollars I'd just hire Ty and Vern to remake my room. :)

Posted by Andrea @ 12/19/2003 03:01 AM EST

5$ bills as wallpaper is a much more interesting way of wasting money...I like it!

Posted by Rayne @ 12/19/2003 04:28 AM EST

If you invested the million and lived off the interest you'd never have to work again unless you wanted to. Say you get 6% return: that is 60k/yr. Or in your terms: about 160 bucks a day. Save up a few days and you'd have a shopping binge.

Also: if you got better returns and re-invested it you might just make a FEW million. Then you would be living how you want to instead of pennyless within a year...

Posted by maouse @ 11/30/2004 07:04 PM EST

don't forget about taxes. they like to eat up a lot.

Posted by melpie @ 12/01/2004 10:01 AM EST

yea yea, we can all be "responsible" with our money, whatever!

Posted by Rayne @ 12/01/2004 03:26 PM EST