I will admit this came to mind, especially after I have spent much time thinking of the dirty things I wanted to do to the manequins in the lengerie section of Belks.
“Mr. Johnson, we think you’re cheating by stopping time. You’re barred forever.”
Really, it wouldn’t take that long to win millions in blackjack. Just wait until right after the shuffle, then stack the whole shoe, and let it ride at the max bet, playing perfect basic strategy.
I’m not talking about peaking at the dealer’s hole card and making suspicious plays… stacking the whole shoe would be the key.
One shoe per year, per casino, would be plenty to get dirty rotten filthy stinking rich. And of course throw in some wins for casino so it doesn’t look that bad.
Of course in poker it would be even easier, though much sleazier IMHO.
In a big tourney like the WSOP it would only take maybe a dozen cheats throughout. Whenever you’re heads up in a big pot and your opponent says “ALL IN” just peak at his hole cards. Or peak first and then announce ALL IN yourself. Grab a few aces or hearts out of the deck while you’re at it, or stack the river card to make your boat to beat his nut flush.
The best thing, better than blantant robbery or the whole Casino gambit (though I wouldn’t feel too bad grabbing a bunch of chips from those guys), would be to just rig the lottery. Get into the drawing room, stop time to fix the ping pong balls to come out matching your winning ticket. There, money is solved forever.
After that, besides the obvious locker room fun, would be sleep. I’d stop time to sleep and be out and about day and night all the time. I’d never miss TV, movies, or any party just by adding 8 hours to every day.
I’d never work again after my lottery gambit. I’d never sit in traffic. I’d get into great shape. Eventually out of boredom I’d probably resort to some type of crimefighting.
I second winning the WSOP a couple years in a row. Between this year and next year top money is going to total somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million.
You beat me to it, Nemo! I loved that movie when I was a kid (never knew it was a book). Early '80s, with Pam Dawber, if I’m not mistaken. I’ve fantasized about having that power ever since.
Who’d need to lurk in locker rooms? With a talent like that you could be wealthy enough to enjoy all the consensual action you could handle - and she’d be mightily impressed by your ability to come up to the mark ten minutes later, as fresh as a daisy (ten of her minutes, natch).
And don’t mess about playing poker when you can wander into the casino, spend as much time losing at roulette as you like, then drop the house limit on a single number and walk away with the cash. If you need your karma boosting, spend your spare time travelling to hostage crises and ensure that things mysteriously work out badly for the perps.
I would use the ability to move in with my SO directly. I work and live a few hours away from her but I want to change that, and with this ability I could fix the travelling to work bit, or even needing to work at all. If I had some time left, maybe I would try to do some good in the world with this ability.
Apart from other opportunities, I’ll have to admit I would be mightily *tempted * to touch everyone I cared to (which, yes, would be mostly women). Just to find out what people feel like. I think people don’t touch each other nearly enough. I probably wouldn’t in the end, out of respect for others, but it sure would be tempting.
It would be tempting to pull one big bank job (like McNulty, the character in the Twilight Zone episode) and then take it easy.
But I think I would use it to win all the national Dobro-playing contests, which would result in all the gigs I could handle. (There are some who think this is Jerry Douglas’ secret!)
