Have you ever heard of the country Niue? Neither have I, but then again, it has a population of about 1200 people. But it may not be an independent country much longer. Just recently a cyclone hit the island nation, and now the Niue government leaders are considering joining New Zealand after suffering over $50M in damages. Which gets me thinking.

Why doesn’t Bill Gates have an island nation? I know he’s all into making money, and would probably lose on the deal, but he should own an island nation. He could be really bizarre, and start all sorts of crazy traditions, pave the roads of the island with rat bones, require that every citizen get a tattoo of the Pink Panther, pipe mashed potatoes to every house, or some crazy wigged out thing. Which gets me thinking even more.

Why isn’t Bill Gates more blatantly evil? Some might argue that he is, or he’s at least subtley evil, but I mean seriously, can’t he be a Dr. Evil? Or maybe the other extreme, why doesn’t he run around showering acts of kindness and generosity on unsuspecting people. I know he gives to charity quite often, but those are obvious tax shelters. It seems to me if you’ve got the sort of drive, ambition, and money that Bill has that you’d be all over doing insane stuff, not just fiddling around with your silly computer software empire.

If I had Bill Gates money, the first thing I’d do is start a think tank. I’d hire, then retire, the smartest people I’ve met or worked with in the past, and I’d create an environment that encouraged cool new ideas. If the ideas weren’t flowing, fine, there’d be plenty of money to burn while playing video games or air hockey.

Then I’d focus on my house. I’d want nano paint walls, and a chip embedded in my body that told my house where I was at all times. Walk into a room – the walls change color according to my settings – settings I input through my dancing shoe computers. Need to send an email? Simple, do a little tap dance to spell out the words. Want a book from Amazon. As easy as an Irish Jig.

The fruit bowls in my house would be robotic. No matter what, fresh navel oranges would abound in every fruit bowl. If a bowl wasn’t full of fresh navel oranges, a robotic device of some sort would make sure it was full of fresh navel oranges.

And there’d be no walking in my house. I’d want nano floors. Step out of my nano car, and the floor would move me to the bathroom after work, using cilia or whatever a nano floor does to move me. I could even sit down, and I’d still get to the bathroom, where the bathroom would be smart enough to “take care of business” for me.

All of these niceties would be there so that I could remain focused on building a great island nation, where everything was backwards. Walking, talking, writing, driving, everything – reverse. And you’d be paid to live there, because all that kind of stuff is hard to do.

That’s just a sample of what I’d do with Bill Gates money.