Today, New York plays a little game to make you feel like a moron. What if you had had $100,000 to invest in 1998? Well, you would probably still be a rich person now, but bear with them. They offer a number of examples of investments you could've made instead of spending all your time getting wasted and listening to the New Radicals (was it really that long ago!). Sure, they include a couple ringers that woulda lost you money (theglobe.com stock! A BMW!), but otherwise it's a rich catalog of things you were too poor to afford then that now you are all the poorer for not having bought. 3,300 shares of Apple! A townhouse just about anywhere in New York! Gold! Investments they missed, after the jump.

  • $100,000 worth of cigarettes. Which, depending on the brand, would've bought you tens of thousands of packs. They would be a bit stale, but you could still clean up on a Harlem streetcorner.
  • $100,000 worth of magazine subscriptions. You would be sad and probably poor. But maybe they will be worth something in another ten years, on the eBay, when we all read Conde Nast's Gawker Magazine on the Kindles because print is even deader.
  • $100,000 worth of blog. You would be a zillionaire, just like Nick Denton and Jason Kottke.
  • $100,000 worth of funny photos of cats. ZOMG SO RICH.
  • $100,000 worth of access to the Clintons. Sorry, bro.

Relative Investment [NYM]