Look, I may not be a venture capitalist … or even a garden-variety capitalist, but this much I know: it’s not going to work. I would stake my reputation on it. And maybe even stake something valuable on it as well.

Yes, you guessed it – trouble at the mill. How is it that you can see into our very souls? Are you Kreskin? Criswell? Big Green must know … but not right away. For now, suffice to say that our squatter’s household has been turned upside-down by the raw power of unbridled ambition and simple, bald greed. I ask you – what other band has to put up with this kind of shit? (And don’t say Chefs of the Future.)

You know, I told my illustrious brother not to leave the T.V. on during the day. The reason is simple. There’s always a chance that our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, will see it and start obsessing over something, anything. Well, it happened this past Sunday, during the multiple hours of coverage they gave to Richard Branson’s space flight.

Missile envy

Now, maybe Mitch is getting a little old. And maybe he’s just getting a little more crazy. Whatever the explanation might be, he is determined to beat Branson at his own game. It is HE, Mitch insists, who first traversed interstellar space (from an Earth launch point, mind you). “Why is Branson getting all the credit?” Mitch says, his fists waving in the air.

I think what really got Mitch, though, was the knowledge that Branson is planning on charging his passengers $250K a seat. Ever see those cartoons where a character’s pupils turn into dollar signs? That’s actually what happened to Mitch. Next thing we knew, he was forging hard alloys in the shop and sticking them together.

Let’s do launch!

Okay, so I think Mitch is failing to consider some important factors in his competition with various space-happy billionaires. One is that he is not, in fact, a billionaire, though as a mad scientist, he can invent all the money he wants. The other is that he doesn’t get scads of free media every time he uses the can or launches a rocket shaped like his penis. I don’t think he can invent his way out of that deficit … OR CAN HE?

There is one more thing. Branson and Bezos and the other one have access to a handy launch pad for their space flights. We don’t have anything of the sort at our disposal. Unless, of course, Mitch is thinking of using the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill as a kind of mission control center, maybe launch his flights from the courtyard.

Holy shit, Mitch. We’ve got enough trouble with the codes department as it is.