If i had won that $640 million...

In case you are wondering, and I know not a single one of you who might be reading this column are not, I do not hold, nor am I one of the three people who possess that winning $640 million lottery ticket who won the jackpot March 30.

Like I really had a chance! Quite frankly, the odds are more in my favor of never, ever flying in, much less piloting a starship through an asteroid field as Han Solo (Harrison Ford) did defying the odds spoken by protocol droid, C3PO (3,720 to 1) in "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) in my lifetime than I do winning a lottery worth more than $600 million.

That didn’t stop me, and countless others across the country from dreaming up lots of delusions of grandeur on what they would do with the money if they won as they purchased their lottery tickets last week.

Oh, the things I would spend that money on! Of course I’d take care of priorities first. I’d give my parents whatever they need to pay off the house, make repairs, then they can sell the place and get the hell out of the lousy town they live in now. I know that’s one of the first things I’d do, and I am not talking about leaving town. I am talking about leaving the state!

I’d move to some beach and buy myself a lighthouse that I can maintain myself. I read a few years back that the government is trying to sell the Penfield Lighthouse in Connecticut for just one dollar. It’s reportedly haunted but with all that money I’d win whether it’d be the lump sum for the next twenty plus years or the entire amount after taxes, that might be more than enough to hire a Medium to get rid of the ghost.

I’d also give my sister whatever money she needs to pay off her house and bills and start a college fund of $10,000 each for my two nephews, ok, maybe $100,000.

Then I’d focus on the real necessities – my needs - like getting a house built to my personal specifications that would have besides a pool, a movie theater with a big screen and a cold dark auditorium that is as large as the General Cinema Northpark I & II in Dallas that closed and was eventually torn down in 1998. Forget about those home theater centers and the 52 plus inch flat screens with the stereo surround sound systems. I’ll watch all my movies on Blu-ray on my own big screen with its own state of the art sound system and much more comfortable seats but yet still maintain that cold dark atmosphere real movie theaters of yesteryear had. Not the 20 plus screen megaplexes today where when kids are bored by the movies, they go play video games in the lobby.

That’s not to say my home won’t have a game room or a “man cave” as we guys call them with several arcade games like Space Invaders. The walls would be adorned with old classic movie posters that are currently going for more than $5000 like "The Yellow Submarine" (1968) according to Cinemasterpieces. Perhaps I’d get back to collecting those 12 - inch Star Wars figures from Sideshow Collectibles and Hot Toys that I no longer get thanks to their ridiculous $200 plus price tags.

As those $19 million checks came in for the next twenty years, I’d probably start getting into more extravagant expenses like complete some of the things on my bucket list and move to England, for example, and would not return to the states and until I got what I came there for. I am not telling you what that is except to know that that pipe dream will never happen now but if I had won, however, it would all be legal.

Perhaps I’d rent out an entire floor at an office building and start a movie production company and bring in all the people I know who dream of making and writing films they want to see made and not the predictable regurgitated unimaginative garbage “Hollyweird” churns out today.

Since I would be moving to England, I do need a private jet to get there. For me, one of those Airbus A380 superjumbo double decker planes will do. I wouldn’t care if one of the plane’s four Rolls Royce engines explodes during flight so long as I get to where I am going. When I need to, I’ll use my new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Perhaps I’d buy one of those retired Concordes that’s now out of service and sit in aviation museums around the world. Not to fly it, mind you. I’d just want it to say I got one. I can always auction it off on eBay later and get my money back.

On the other hand, I could put all that remaining $200 million plus into getting NASA to build me a spaceship just like the Millennium Falcon that will take me to one of those possible habitable planets we are hearing about. Like the Man of Steel’s nemesis, Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) in "Superman: The Movie" (1978) and "Superman II" (1980) who has a love for real estate, especially beachfront property like owning all of California and Australia, I have always wanted a planet I can call my own.

If only I had won that $640 million.

©4/4/12