School is fast approaching and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Mostly because I'll be working only slightly fewer hours and then going to class on top of it. It would be nice if I could budget well enough to get one full day off each week, but I doubt that is going to happen. Like everyone else, I wish secretly to win the lottery, or to find out I have a billionaire relative who suddenly died, leaving me all his/her assets. But if I were to suddenly come into a lot of money, it could only end horribly. The first thing I'd do would be the responsible thing, I'd pay off all the loans, credit cards and mortgages of all my friends and family.

As for the rest of the money, I'd say there's about a 10% chance I'd be responsible and save most of it, a 20% chance that I would do the same after some pressure from my parents and the GF. But there's probably a 70% chance I would just start buying every shiny, expensive thing that crosses my vision.

List 1: The exuberant but (somewhat) practical

1. A $5000 or more computer, probably made by NASA. (For any nerds reading, I'd do my best to trick it out with a Tb or more of solid state memory, BOOYA!).
2. A Lexus...or 5 (and of course new cars for all my friends).
3. 65 inch television set with surround sound and all the good stuff.
4. 6 bedroom house for my roomies and I. Mostly so I can finally have my Man Cave.
*Man Cave subject to contain many leather bound books
5. Pimped out wardrobe.
6. The biggest, baddest, most comfortable recliner on the planet, complete with massage, heat, built in cooler for drinks etc.
7. An iPhone

List 2: The straight up exuberant

1. A plot of land, maybe 100 acres, in some huge stretch of wilderness...maybe in Idaho. I'd build a vacation home there and an air strip/hanger. This way the only way in would be by plane and there would be no one around for miles and miles (aka I can do whatever the hell I want there, most likely involving explosives).

2. A plane on which to fly to said air strip/vacation home.

3. Extra computers/WoW accounts so I can multibox my brains out. (One man guild baby!)

4. A remote control helicopter (gas powered) with tiny rockets and a paintball gun with which to unleash a flurry of annoyance on neighbors, friends, passing cars etc.

5. I'd rent Six Flags for a huge party.

The last thing (that I can think of right now) that I'd do is not for myself. I'd buy things for people I don't know. For instance, I'd hang around at car dealerships and pick out people who look like they're scraping together their savings to buy a car and just slap down a check and pay for the whole thing up front. I'd also pay for someone else's meal every-time I went out, on top of leaving huge tips. (And if the service was bad, I'd leave a 100% tip but tip the other table's server double that.) I think I'd also like to carry around $100 gift cards to various stores and hand them to people I find amusing or who are extra friendly.

And last but not least, I'd make it rain...like every day.