Laser Beams and Leather Pants

People are constantly asking me, “James, why do you write for the school newspaper?” Well, the simplest answer to that question is, of course, money. Writing for The Chimes has netted me an almost two-figure income with each and every article that gets published. Let me put that kind of money into perspective for you: one single article for The Chimes will fill nearly a fourth of a tank of gas in my car. But, as many of you know, the cost of living has skyrocketed even as the housing market has collapsed. This means that I can no longer afford to live on $15 a week. Not if I intend on enjoying the finer things in life, like car insurance.

That’s why I’ve decided that it is time to come up with another source of income, preferably one that doesn’t involve me working. So, the first step in coming up with a plan is to look it up on the Internet, or as I like to call it, the poor man’s library. The problem with the school library is that it has a $120,000 four-year membership fee that has left me unable to afford the $2.65 I currently owe in late fees. It turns out that there are many students who are in the same situation that I am in. Some of them have even come up with ways to overcome that. For instance, I read about this one guy who invented something called “Facebook” and is now a gazillionaire.

So I decided that I should invent my own Facebook. Unfortunately, I don’t know a whole lot about web page design. So, I went analog with my idea. I took a sheet of paper, drew my picture on it, wrote out a list of all my friends, and left a blank space for people to write messages on it. Unfortunately, gas prices are high, and as a result, the whole “social networking” market is apparently pretty tight right now. So in order for me to remain financially competitive with Facebook and MySpace, I am forced to charge people $30,000 every time they write on my “wall,” and that’s assuming that everyone I know writes about 150 times a day.

Thus I turned to the alternative of joining a highly successful rock-and-roll band. However, I ran into a brick wall with that one as well. When I went to purchase the mandatory rock and roller leather pants, no one would sell me any. They just flat out refused and said something about some new legislation pertaining to selling leather pants to people of Midwestern origin and body type (the Pasty Puffy Act of 2008).

“But James,” you’re probably interjecting, “what about the highly lucrative and glamorous career of scientist/celebrity?” Well, it’s funny that you bring it up because I just about to get to that. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, our nation has certainly taken a nose dive both morally and academically since our top American scientists such as Mr. Wizard and MacGyver first put a man on the moon. Those were the days when men were men and scientists were celebrities even though nobody knew their first names (MacGyver’s is Angus). But brains have gone out of vogue, which means that in order for me to reignite the dream of becoming a celebritist (scientist/celebrity) in the hearts of little boys and girls, I have to start a space program here at Biola.

So let other schools brag about their NCAA basketball champions because we will be able to sit confident in the knowledge that we could easily vaporize their gymnasium with giant orbiting laser beam in space. Plus, once I’m the first undergrad on the moon then I’ll finally be able to get a date to the spring banquet — maybe they’ll even let me wear those leather pants. If not, I’ll just go in my spacesuit.