I’d probably do this as well. I’d especially like to search out the odder games, not just the classics like Pac-Man.
So then I can make it look like I was murdered and wait for those meddling kids to show up.
I’d also build cottages on the extra land for my friends to rent instead of living the crappy places they do.
No worry. There will be a “lite” version, with I LOVE HILLARY and a picture of Ms. Clinton on the can. For the “ladies”.
I will form the Navin Johnson Foundation and stop cat juggling once and for all!
To add to this. Hold a job competition for the position of Reviewer in Chief(public title/Refuser in Chief is the true title). Primary job qualification is the ability to refuse requests in ways that amuse you. Then have all the presentations made to this new employee and live streamed to you and then recorded for later entertainment as well.
I think once you get beyond 100 or so classics and historically important machines, you’d almost be required to have the odder games. When I visit Funspot, I pay homage to the classics, but then spend all of my time on lesser machines like Pulsar and Triple Hunt. It’d also be nice to buy and restore some of the old simulator center games (Battletech, Red Planet, or even things like Galaxian 3)
I’d probably also have all of the machines set to Twin Galaxies specs, and offer to be an official record-setting tournament venue; might be difficult, since my overall desire would be to have it be a private arcade otherwise. Having 1000 different games would almost guarantee having some unique cabinets not available in other venues, which would in turn guarantee new records every time an event was held… and I could kick Billy Mitchell out for being a dick.
Oh, and since I’m in “third grader designing his dream home in the margins of his notebooks” territory, there would also be a full-sized movie/video theater attached to the arcade. Just because.
Random contests and scholarships.
$500 for the best song/poem about sewage* treatment.
$500 for a floating remote controlled mini-raft that strains small trash out of a small lake or pond - must be powered by a shop vac.
And one that I keep fiddling with thinking about doing small scale: $25-50 grants to fund elementary school science projects.**
I’m sure I’d come up with bigger and better ones if I had the cash at hand.
- wastewater for the PC
** I keep trying to put together the ideas that:
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a lot of kids dismiss the possibility of a science career when they’re very young, just on the grounds that it’s not the thing that their sort of person does,
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not just kids, but most people don’t know that scientists spend about a third of their time writing grants to get next year’s research funded, and
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a lot of kids don’t think about doing science projects because they don’t have the equipment or the funds to do them.
I’d outfit my band with entirely new equipment, upgrade our studio (which is in our bass player’s garage) with all new everything, from boards to wiring to fuck it I’ll just build a new studio in his back yard, and then hire Bob Ludwig to come produce our Tuesday night jam sessions.
I’m gonna build a secret underground bunker like in Fallout
I’d colorize the moon.
There’s an abandoned, run down train station near the town where I grew up. I’d love to buy it, get the road that goes there paved (once it’s been paved once, the government has the obligation to keep it up, since it’s public) and fix it up.
I’d like to buy a ghost town, fix it up, move everyone I know out there, and live like it was the Old West, only with electricity and running water. And paintball. And Playstation 3.
In the OP, Silenus said “What ways would you use the money to screw with people?”
It all depends, of course, how much money you won. Let us assume since the current payout for the US Powerball is $550,000,000 then your winnings are the same.
Pay all of the homeless in Atlanta,Georgia (very well, mind you) to superglue $100 bills to the sidewalks of downtown.
That would truly confuse the masses.
I like the way you think. 
Buy up all the foreclosed homes in some of the WI counties. Bulldoze the homes, hire the Amish to build their wonderful cabins on the land.
Build/buy a professional building. Hire as many dentists and administraters as possible to run a free dental clinic. Now that’s really screwing with people … no excuses for not visiting the dentist anymore.
I would buy Stone Mountain, and put a huge mansion on top, but also carve out a secret lair inside. I’ll sculpt and landscape the west side and put in snow making machines for my own ski resort. Then we can have James Bond-style machine gun skiing with hired goons on motorcycles and the like.
I’d also put several luxurious cabins along the lakes for friends and relatives to stay and play when they want. There’s already a golf course, but the nearby airstrip is shut down, so I’ll have to re-work that for my jet.
And, with 3,000 acres, I should have enough room for all the shelter dogs and cats and horses in the U.S. to come hang out, right?
Then, I think I’d buy Cumberland Island or St. Croix. I just want some privacy, ya know?
I would fund car repairs or replacements. I’d run a tab with the really nice mechanic who patted my hand and told me in a very fatherly way NOT to put a new (or even rebuilt) transmission in my last car. I’d give him instructions to bill me whenever someone came in needing crucial repairs and was clearly undone by the expense. I’ve never been wealthy and it seems that whenever I have a month where the ends actually meet and I’m feeling like i can exhale either something on the car breaks or I need emergency dentistry.
So I guess I’d make the same arrangement with the dentist.
I’d do some seriously extravagant tipping.
And I’d take my whole extended family (not hard, there are only 14 of us) on really nice vacations every other year.
That hardly seems wacky enough. I do like the croquet statue idea.
You could go nuts if you were a movie buff…
Pay to do a shot for shot remake of the movie “Independence Day” with the same cast as the original.
Except Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum switch roles.
Remake “Road House” using the cast from “The Office”.
“Pain don’t hurt.” -Jim Halpert.
“I fucked guys like you in prison.” -Dwight Shrute.
Make a good Punisher movie.
I think I’d convert my garage into just a kickass free bar. Neighbors and friends can pop in anytime. Put in a trampoline farm for the kids to play on while their parents are at my “bar”. My bar also comes with a barbecue artist and rotating (daily) seasonal drafts. Heck, I’m going to have my bartender hand out drinks to passing motorists during slow times on the job. No TVs or cell phones in my bar, just good music and a set of encyclopedias for authority during disputes. The rest of the money would be spent traveling the world to find the good beers to serve at my bar.
Heh. I was confused by this until I realized you must live in a place where the drive-through line is busy enough that the cashier would know the total on the next person’s order already. :smack: I’d have to sit there for a little while till someone came along!