Research funds sorely lacking

Editor's note: This happened two or three months ago, and still the funding hasn't poured in.

I looked at the altimiter and it read: -20,000. 20,000 Leagues below the sea! I was all alone at the bottom of the ocean. Nobody was looking. I took the beer out of my jacket and opened it. I drank it, and became so inebriated, from only one beer, that I could not move or think for what seemed an awfully long time, considering that I was heading for the bottom of the Marianas Trench. The buzz from one beer---just one!---felt so good at those depths that I could have died a happy man. About to crash into a wall? No problem. Still, I have family back home, I thought, so I better get back there and tell them about this. I thought: this is going to make me rich. When people find out how good it feels to drink just one beer at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, everyone will want to do it. I will charge them one million per. If Bill Gates thought he had a good idea with Windows, wait until he hears about this. Maybe he will provide the funding for more expeditions. I sure hope so.