I’ve suddenly come into a billion dollars. Alas, my money is only good to spend in simulacra. What the hell does that mean anyway, in simulacra? I heard a buddy use the term and liked the way it sounded so I’ve been using it, but I have no idea if I’m using it right. But I suppose that’s not really relevant to anything right now. I should be explaining who the devil I am and what this "Obadiah’s Billion" is all about. My name’s not really Obadiah. I’m blogging in the character of Obadiah. You could say I’m an actor who will be playing a character through a blog. It’s a simulation experiment of sorts being conducted by your friends here at ephosting.com and I’ve volunteered to help them out. You’ll have to bear with me because I’m not so sure yet how I want to go about this little experiment. The gist is, I’m supposed to see how long it would take to spend a billion dollars buying big things and little things and basically just spending without reservation. A billion dollars. That’s a lot of money. Not sure what I would do with that kind of money in reality; but about to embark on a journey of spending that kind of money in virtual reality. I’m to go all over the Internet and pretend to buy things. Cars, jewelry, houses and so on; and I’m to detail my imaginary purchases and the costs and so on and so forth. But I can’t make any super major purchases, like paying half a billion for a single product for example.

So let’s see. I’m a pauper. My adjusted gross income on my 1040 was less than $25,000. So this billion dollars I’ve just come into is obviously going to change my life dramatically. I’m already getting phones calls. Don’t have the slightest idea how word got around about my billion dollar windfall. The only person I told was my girlfriend Heidi; but come to think of it, Heidi’s been all bosom buddy with my sister Anne so I guess she told Anne who probably told Claire who probably told Bryan who probably told dad…. When you suddenly come into money the whole world finds out about it and suddenly your phone’s ringing off the hook….

So what’s going to be my first purchase? Hmm. I suppose it should be something for Heidi. In an ideal world where all a man ever does is think about his girlfriend/wife and how much he lives to please her I’d be surfing the net trying to find a great place online to pretend to buy some jewelry; but you know what, I think I’m going to go to the supermarket and buy myself a grand worth of food. I remember when I was a little boy I used to watch these shows with my mom where people would get to run through a supermarket and fill their multiple carts to the brim and I used to fantasize about winning grocery shopping sprees. So, as crazy as this sounds, I’m going to the virtual supermarket to pretend I’m the winner of a grocery shopping spree. Maybe I’ll pick up some of that six-dollar goat cheese Heidi wanted me to buy the last time we went shopping together. At that time I had to ask her if she was crazy. "I’m opposed on principle." That was my explanation when Heidi asked why I wouldn’t buy the cheese. What I was thinking was, I could buy six items for a dollar each with that six dollars she wanted me to spend on goat cheese. Or better yet, 12 items for 50 cents a piece. Like 12 cans of generic sweet peas or something. Today, I’ll pick her up 2 packs of her gourmet goat cheese. So see ya in a bit. I’m off to indulge in some grocery shopping.

UPDATE 02/25:

I’m told it’s important in this experiment for me to also talk about what it’s like to be suddenly obscenely rich. Well, hmm, it’s gonna be tough to simulate the thoughts and feelings of a billionaire when I have no idea, in reality, what it feels like to have $100,000 much less 1 billion.