I’m the kind of guy who daydreams a lot. I just enjoy daydreaming and thinking ‘what if’ sometimes. Quite often I wonder what I would spend my money on if I had a cash windfall. It’s fun and can be a bit of an escape. It can be also be motivational sometimes too as I tend not to go too crazy with my ‘what if’s and a lot of the things I want I could probably get just by saving up a bit more. I wouldn’t really want lots of crazy expensive things as I don’t like being too flash.

There are a number of ways you can win money of course, whether it’s winning the lottery, winning the Pools in the UK, winning big in a casino (whether it’s a real-life casino or an online casino like http://slots.info/) or gaining a big increase on stocks and shares (I’m certainly no expert in that). I once even rang up to try to get on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, but I couldn’t answer the qualifying question so I took that as a sign! I think if I won a huge amount I would like to think that a large majority of the winnings would be shared and given to charitable causes. Otherwise I’d probably live in guilt for the rest of my life. But I would certainly like to keep just enough to have a comfortable life (for my family and friends too) and have a few little goodies. My main ‘goodies’ are ‘whisky’ (my second hobby) and ‘retro stuff’ (my main hobby). So let’s get brainstorming!

I wouldn’t want to suddenly buy a new house and start being all flash. That’s just not me. And we’re very happy in our family home that we have just now. But I would love to have a proper retrocave log cabin at the bottom of the garden, fully decked out with electricity and broadband. But what would I put in this retrocave?

Arcade Machines
Definitely the first thing that I would think about adding to the retrocave would be a few arcade machines. I wouldn’t be able to have loads, due to space, but let’s say I could squeeze in six cabs. What would they be?
Star Wars – Obviously I’d love to have the cockpit sit-down version. Let’s assume there would be space for it. This would be so cool to own (as long as I knew someone fairly local to come and fix it whenever it broke!).
Out Run – This is the other staple arcade that would always be on my list. And again it needs to be the sit down mechanical version. My retrocave would definitely have space for that. It just has to. I’d probably leave it switched on all the time just to enjoy the incredible background music.
My MAME cab – I would have to have my own MAME arcade cabinet in there I think, as I put my heart and soul into building that thing. And it’s good for playing all the other arcade games that I can’t fit in as dedicated cabinets.
Electrocoin Jamma cab – I would, however, love to have a cab with an upright monitor to play the classic games properly such as Donkey Kong, Pac Man, Space Invaders, 1942 etc. I’d go for one of those 19-in-1 boards or 60-in-1 boards that have multiple games on them. And I’d probably stick it in one of those Electrocoin cabinets that were so prevalent in the UK.
Track and Field – I really love Track and Field. And the cab is pretty cool too. I nearly went for the Hyper Sports cab as that’s awesome as well but I think I’d go for Track and Field and then I’d probably get it modded so that it could house the Hyper Sports PCB too and I could switch between the two games.
6th and final cab – Too much choice here. I thought about maybe Galaga (because I love the film WarGames and that’s the game Matthew Broderick plays), or perhaps Street Fighter II as that’s another classic game on my list. I’ve also recently fallen in love with the game Juno First and the cabinet is ultra cool too, so I might even get that because not many people would have that in their home collection so it would be quite unique.

Retro gaming area
Obviously I would need a retro gaming area with lots of computers and consoles. This would have to be cleverly fitted so that it didn’t take up acres of space. But I can imagine some sort of shelving unit with a couple of big CRTs in the middle and a sofa in front of it all. Awesome.

Pub games
I love pub games. Always have. So I would definitely need to have a dart board and also ideally a pool table if there was space. Probably a UK pool table or perhaps even some kind of custom built pool table and I’d make it so that the top can flip over or something and I could use that surface for an ultra cool hybrid slot car racing circuit or something.

Whisky wall and bar
It’s not retro but I need to mention that I would have a big whisky wall with loads of nice bottles of whisky and a bar to entertain friends from. All part of making this a social gaming place.

Retro collections
I’d need to have several shelves to house my collection of carded and non-carded toys, action figures, retro gaming magazines, sticker albums, comics and books. There could be a lot of stuff here and I would buy a lot more stuff to add to the collection. I would splash out on some expensive ones such as carded He-Man, carded original Star Wars and G1 Transformers.

Artwork
One thing I would splash out on a bit would be artwork for the walls. I would love to own original pieces of some of the following. And trust me some of these would only be possible to win after a very large financial win.
Drew Struzan – This man is a legend and to have any sort of original art by him would be fantastic.
Frank Frazetta – I’ve always loved Frazetta’s art. I’d love to get my hands on an original piece of his too.
Comic book art – I used to want to be a comic book artist for a long time. I’d love an original pencil work from Jack Kirby, John Buscema or Todd McFarlane.
Animation cels – I already have a couple of Masters of the Universe animation cels, but I’d love some better ones or perhaps a cel from a cool earlier show such as Battle of the Planets, or even a Disney movie.
RoboCop movie poster – I actually saw this RoboCop movie poster up for auction a few years ago, and I really wished I had been a millionaire back then as I would have snapped this up. It sold for $47,800. A bargain. I’ve always loved the RoboCop movie poster. One of my all time favourite posters. But I always thought it was a photograph. I only discovered through this auction that it was actually a painting. It has aged a bit over the years, as you can read in the letter from the artist on the auction site, but I would dearly love to own this.
Asterix art – Yep, Asterix art. I love it. The artwork by Albert Uderzo is just superb.
Calvin & Hobbes – And you know what? While I’m a millionaire why not through in an original Calvin & Hobbes comic strip too. My all time favourite strip.

EXTRAS
So that’s pretty much the retrocave. Not too extravagant really, apart from the artwork. As I said that’s the main thing I would want, but hey, let’s push the boat out slightly more and see what else I might get if I really splashed the cash.

Flash car
I’ve never really been hugely into cars, but I certainly do appreciate beautiful automobiles. I love the AC Cobra, I love Ferrari Testarossas but most of all I am totally in love with the Lamborghini Countach of course (since the days of having this poster on my bedroom wall). But I’m not the kind to prance about in a flash motor though, so I would probably get a lockup somewhere and put the cars in there. I would actually try to track down the black Lamborghini that Keith Harmer, the artist behind the amazing Athena Countach poster, owned. That would be pretty special. I’d drive to the lockup and then drive the car round the countryside, rather than drive it round my local streets in front of people that I knew.

Businesses on the side
And if I had enough money to start a business on the side, I would look into opening up two businesses. Firstly obviously an arcade. A bit like Arcade Club but in the south of the UK. And secondly I would love to build replicas of famous TV and Movie cars such as K.I.T.T, the A-Team van, Face’s Corvette, the DeLorean time machine, the General Lee, the Countach from Automan, Streethawk etc. And either hire a space just as a museum for people to see them or perhaps even use an old race track and allow people to go for a ride in them. I just think that would be great fun to do whilst in ’semi-retirement’.

Well there you have it. Now you know what I would spend some of my millions on. After I feed starving children and find a cure for cancer of course. This stuff above is just what I would settle down to enjoy after all that. And hey, a boy can dream can’t he?