Start a company perhaps. With a billion you could fund several peoples salaries for quite a while without even needing to particularly worrying (of course you could easily then go an blow it on advertising…)
Only one? I don’t know if I could limit myself to just one… how about one package deal?
I’d get myself an Island Lair, complete with a massive, oak-panelled study with a wall that slides back to reveal a massive screen which displays a map of the world with glowing red dots in cities that I have operatives in, as well as acting a PC screen and TV/DVD screen.
I’d also have my own private boat, helicopter, Sunderland Flying Boat, and SuperComputer with which to run my Evil Enterprises. Oh, and a bevy of morally flexible female Supervillain Groupies- as in, Groupies for Supervillains, not Groupies who ARE Supervillains. No, that wouldn’t work at all!
Hey, if I’m going to become a Supervillain, I’m going to need more than one indulgence! 
Ooooh, I would get myself one of them submersibles that can go really really deep down in the ocean, rebuild it with glass observatories, so that one could sit in a comfy lounge and just gawk at all the undiscovered critters down there at the seabottom several thousand meters below the surface, while sipping GT’s.
If that is not an option, I would buy myself and island in the tropical Pacific and become king. I would then walk around in only palm leaves, sipping GT’s, and have my minions build me that submersible.
Kotick
How foolish of me not to specify! American billion. $1,000,000,000.
Yeah, Kotick, but you could probably only stay down there for about 20 minutes. 1960 minutes, of course.
Does paying for my own college tuition count? It’d be my first though, but it’s really not an extravagance. I’d probably just keep a little handy so I can work less and take more vacations. To Europe and Asia. And maybe Mars.
I don’t know if this really counts as an extravagance if you’ve got a billion dollars to play with, but I’ve always wanted to go on one of those cruises to Antarctica. And I would like to see mountain gorillas in the wild.
There are lots of other travel-related things I’d like to do, too, but they can all be done semi-frugally, and I probably wouldn’t alter my usual travel style all that much, I’d just do more of it. Those two, I despair of ever getting a chance to do before the environment has changed irreparably.
What? What a rippoff. I want my money back (grumbles of to his tropical kingdom in the Pacific).
A perfect house and all that would go with it (food, furniture, maids, etc.). I can’t even describe it - I can see it in my head, though.
I’d build a log cabin in the woods in Australia near a beach – near Byron Bay, to be precise. Then I’d buy a bunch of cars.
I’d blow it all on Dijon Ketchup and Kraft Dinner.
I’d get a personal trainer and personal chef (that washes dishes) to help get my ass into shape. Then I’d be just like Oprah!
Oh and central air. I’d probably get myself some central air…
A nice house on a big, beautiful property with a fun car in the garage.
Oh, man, I don’t have to think about this for 10 seconds. My husband & I have an old house, which we were able to afford in the neighborhood we live in only because it was a little run down. We are doing virtually all the renovation ourselves (OK…we didn’t hang the kitchen cabinets, but we did do all the deconstruction, down to the rafters, drywalled, tiled, etc. etc.) Every room needs drywalling & paint stripping & floor refinishing, and on and on.) If I had a windfall, I don’t even think I would want a new house…I would just want to hire professionals to come in and do the work!!! I love the house, but I am TIRED!
Hmm… either a huge entertainment complex with computers, some arcade machines and a go-kart track, or maybe I’d just start a Nextel Cup team.
Well, it’d be a choice between a private yacht or living on “The World” or “ResidenSea”. (I’ve not thought about it much, really).
I would definitely take that trip to the North Pole. The $40,000 it would cost for the two of us would be a little easier to justify.
I don’t want a much bigger house really, because I don’t want maids or housekeepers or anything. But I would love to have one more room where we could host LAN games that also doubles as a kick ass D&D room. I’d also like a small but commercial-quality gym (the spare bedroom currently in use is too small for that). So I’d probably have a 3000 sq. ft. house built using real pine 2x4s and plywood sides instead of pressboard. Real, sturdy construction, not the cheap stuff used these days. And I would make it solar powered, not because I couldn’t afford the A/C bills, but because I’d feel too wasteful otherwise, and I can’t stand being uncomfortable when I’m at home.
Oh, and I’d have a landscaping service (low water lawns, though). I don’t want strangers inside my house; I don’t care if they’re working on the outside.
I would totally buy seats for myself and few friends at the 2007 World Series of Poker ($10,000 each). I’d also pay for the chartered jet to Vegas, the hotel rooms, the whole nine yards. I probably wouldn’t make it past the first hand (“I’m all in! JJ, bee-yotch!”), but one or two of the folks I play with regularly might stand half a chance at making it through the first day. Win or lose, it would be so. much. fun.
I…
Would buy a car that works.
The one car I’ve always loved, even though I hate sports cars, is the 2005 Mitsubishi Spyder. I love that thing! As much as I adore my 1990 Mitsubishi Mirage (that thing is the most loyal car ever - I think it starts when I turn the key out of love, because there can’t be much else in that there engine), I’m tired of driving a POS.
As for the rest of it, it’d sit in my bank account and I would spend as needed - although I have some charities I’d donate to (Make a Wish, the ACS, some educational programs around here, and my old ROTC unit), it’d probably just sit in my bank. I don’t even know if I’d buy a house. If you own a house, you also have to take care of the maintenance. Even if you hire people to do that, you still have to REMEMBER to hire people to do that. I like apartment living solely because the maintenance man has to do that.
I might move to a better apartment, though. lol.
~Tasha
A kitchen. One I’d designed myself, or had a professional design. Lots of storage, walk-in fridge and freezer. LOTS of counter space. I wouldn’t have to have tons of fancy appliances and gadgets, but the basic ones would be top of the line, and all small utensils would be the best quality. The absolutely best* knives * on the market, I once heard a TV cook say the best single thing you could do for a kitchen would be to have top-flight knives. And a glassed in bookcase, either in the kitchen or just outside, to hold my cookbook collection.
If I could have two luxuries the second would be a large library room, with a fireplace, big comfy chair and rugs on hardwood floors, and, again, glassed in bookcases.
I would go to some place other than America, like England or something, where they only have 6 or so billionaires on the entire island. Then I would invite them all out to lunch, but when we are close to being finished, I would then polite excuse myself to the bathroom and run like hell. That’s how you make and keep billions, bitches!