Ming Is Miffed

So you want to contact a company. Take your medication first. They provide a cutsie number to call giving you letters that spell out some word having to do with the company that corresponds to the numbers on the dial. You now have to peck out those numbers after scanning through the letters they pertain to.

Then you are asked to press two if you wish to continue in English. How are those that don't wish to pick English to know that's what's asked of them? If they do know then perforce, they can communicate in English. Ming has never gone to the non-English option, but he hopes all of the approximately 6,700 languages still spoken are offered since to do less is discriminatory. Ming just bets that Pashto and Urdu have been slighted.

Next you're put on hold, while some recording lies it's head off telling you how important your call is to them. After that you are presented with a list of options to press, none of which are in the least responsive to your needs. Pick some and there is a secondary list and even a tertiary list of options. All such options are for prerecorded responses and all know that they don't answer your question since they all ultimately direct you back to the first option and you get to proudly select English once again.

Ming fervently hopes there is a place in Hell for designers of mechanical phone responses who can only escape Hades by dialing the right number, selecting the right language and striking the right option.

Men Are No Longer On Top

Just watch any couple being interviewed on a news program. It doesn't matter what the topic. The woman is fielding the questions, providing opinion and commentary in stentorian tones while the poor schlub stands half a pace behind , shoulders stooped, wearing the look of a poleaxed steer, not even daring to speak.

Today women are even more buff than men. Female body builders are everywhere. Television hasn't portrayed a positive father figure since Robert Young in the 1950's sitcom, Father Knows Best. Women are now police officers, firemen (firewomen?), and have invaded every other tradition bastion of male superiority.

When Ming was a tyke, a wife walked two paces behind her husband. He was the breadwinner. King of the castle. Lord of all he surveyed. Ming blames the estrogen thy feed cows that gets into infant formulae.

We men must now courageously retake our traditional role as..... oops, Ming sees his significant other approaching and must now close out this screen or there will be hell to pay. "Yes, my love. Ming was only playing freecell just as you agreed he could before scrubbing the floor"......

Ming Discovers Key To Success

All those Horatio Alger stories are just so much bunk to use a term extant when they were written. Slogging away at some thankless task will never get you all the good things in life. The yachts, the pied-a-terre in the South Bronx, that diamond-studded yo-yo you've always lusted after.

Success can be yours sans effort. Ming has been seeing the correlation all his life and in a paroxysm of generosity that surprises even himself, he will share the secret. People with two last names always succeed. Those with two first names invariably fail. Those with a first and last name have a shot but for them it's all uphill.

But Ming, you whine, what do I do if stuck with the dreaded lack of surnames? That's what the Courts are for you dolt. Get a legal name change. Powers Booth has a nice ring to it but some actor that would never have gotten a bit part without it already stole it. Likewise for Harrison Ford.

At the very least,if you can't even afford the court costs, use your first initial, middle name and surname such as F.Murray Abrams. For once at least the poor Chinese get a break since they get to put their surname first. Wu Hu Tu Yu is a real winner what with four surnames almost guaranteeing success in any endeavor and it even sounds friendly. So Wu Hu Tu Yu To.

Ming's Management Manual

Someday when you've finally hopped all the arcane academic hurdles and they are actually stupid enough to give an undeserving you a diploma, you will ask "what's next?" as that diploma becomes your ticket to the sturm und drang of corporate life.

Lucky for you, the one good thing you've ever done in life is to read Ming's blog which will guide your faltering footsteps. Primarily to succeed no matter how modest the station in the dung heap of commerce you find yourself wallowing in, the sine qua non(don't you now wish you took Latin?) is to build an empire. This means you must acquire subordinates. Be very careful when doing this. Chose only those who lack ambition and possess no more than pedestrian intelligence. This is de rigueur. After all, we can't have the wretched rodents undermining you and acceding to your glorious position.

"But what does one do with subordinates other than having them do the job for which you were hired?" asks you. "Special projects" replies Ming. The more arcane and obscure the better so no on can figure out that they are really spinning wheels and the "projects" are duplications of effort at best and totally unproductive and useless at worst.

However, the greatest utility to you in empire building and accumulating subordinates comes when corporate fortunes are at their nadir and draconian cuts become necessary. You will have cannon fodder to contribute as the ranks are decimated. After all, without subordinates it could have been you that would have had to fall on your sword.

Naturally there are many combinations and permutations inherent in the successful execution of empire building. Too many to elaborate on a mere blog. Just think of that palindrome about poor Napoleon as he tried to build an empire. "able was I ere I saw elba". You too can still get the chop through faulty execution of your game plan. Be ever alert. Success belongs to the paranoid.

School Daze

Ming is older than the students, their teachers and most of the buildings from which higher education spouts. In short, Ming can boast of the virtue of experience. Yet looking at sundry syllabuses of several such purveyors of pedagogical pap he is appalled.

Business students are fed a diet of management, marketing and malarkey. Liberal arts students ingest philosophy, political science and fanciful foolishness of every sort. Where are the courses that matriculating munchkins can use to survive once hatched and shoved out of their well feathered academic nests into the real world?

Are there are no courses in elementary backstabbing? Can't such inferior institutions offer up even one course in intermediate office politics?

Any neophyte landing in corporate America, academia, government or even a religious order such as the military needs to master the art of obsequious phraseology. "Great idea, sir". "You inspire me by your example, sir". Even the tried and true but much overrated, "Light your cigarette, sir?"

Careers are advanced most especially in social situations such as when on the golf course. Unfortunately, so-called institutions of higher learning never prepare one with career enhancing phrases such as, "Great shot sir" as the ball dribbles off the tee. Nor do they arm one with career makers such as, "Professional golf lost one of their great players when you went into ladies underwear , sir". (or whatever other banal business the clod has his grubby mitts in).

One sure winner that is always well received is the proven ploy,"Wash your balls, sir?(not to be used once in the locker room, except by the truly desperate climber of corporate ladders).

In sum, grinning like a mongoloid whilst abasing yourself to superiors is a truer barometer pointing towards material success than is reliance on what is laughingly called merit. Remember, you can always salve your bruised ego by taking it out on your hapless subordinates.

Ming Is Miffed

Once again the Post Office has betrayed him. All week long he's been waiting for his invitation to arrive for the gala Chelsea Clinton wedding. There must be some snafu with those civil service laggards at the Post Office as they revel in their three hour breaks. There is absolutely no reason that the noble Ming shouldn't receive an invite if fast talking Eddie Mezvinsky got one.

You may remember that Fast Eddy did a nickel for scamming cash by touting his relationship with the Clintons way back when. He got out two years ago. That worked out to about $2 million a year. Eddie and Bill doubtlessly have much in common so if the fruit(that's Marc) hasn't fallen too far from the tree, there should be more headlines in the future especially since Chelsea is on the payroll of a hedge fund. We already know how they operate.

So now poor Ming has to take the bus to Rhinebeck on spec and hope he can shmooze his way past security. Won't Chelsea be surprised when Ming doesn't bring a gift. Serves her right. She'll be lucky if Ming doesn't wash his feet in the punch bowl.

Adults Are Still Nuts

When you're a little kid you never know what will set an adult off. As an example, you could be minding your own business setting fire to a pile of milk crates(they were wooden back then), when some adult would start jumping up and down threatening you with dire consequences and awful forms of retribution. They'd do that even when it wasn't their own milk crates.

Now that Ming is impersonating an adult he still fails to understand their motivations. They'd rather be lied too egregiously by someone who smiles than told an unpleasant truth by a dour Casandra. They still cannot countenance behavior not congruent with their own understanding of propriety however shaky the quicksand upon which it's built.

At least when little Ming was running around shooting off cap pistols, squirting his water pistol at anything that moved and setting off firecrackers with abandon he wasn't stupid enough to actually try to kill anyone. Now whenever some Government says it's okay, adults armed with real guns go off and blithely kill strangers who of course try to return the compliment. Then again, back then Ming wasn't a mature adult. Maybe he still really isn't.

Pulling The Trigger On Trigger

Ming must be slipping. They just sold at auction in NYC yesterday, the stuffed Trigger for $266,000. Why didn't Ming think of this first? Imagine what a stuffed Roy Rogers would have brought had Ming but acquired the original in a timely fashion. Even a nice mint condition stuffed Pat Butram or even a somewhat shopworn Gabby Hayes would have brought the big bucks for a deserving Ming.

If people want to buy back their childhood, Ming stands at the ready to accomodate them. Unless the noble Trigger was bought to make a buck in some wild west exhibit, it just highlights what dummies with more money than they need will do with it. How about $50,000 for a Mickey Mantle Topps rookie card? Mint condition, of course. Put another way, how much will you pay for a 2 5/8" x 3 3/4" piece of cardboard made in 1952? The same goes for the first Superman comic book etc. et nauseating cetra.

Ming has better things to do with his own money than indulge in such nonsense. Even now he's saving up just in case a Qipao worn by Anna May Wong in any of her movies should hit the market.

Mow Your Own Lawn

Better yet, do something useful and dig it up and plant tomatoes instead. That way resources can be diverted from hauling tomatoes to market from the other side of the continent. It's the height of stupidity to plant grass, fertilize it, water it and then pay to have an illegal alien mow it, all the while complaining about our porous borders.

The Federal Government is certainly doing something. They are suing Arizona, complaining that all the illegal aliens Arizona will turn over for processing under their new law will clog the system. Besides doing their jobs would impinge on the constitutional right of said federal employees charged with stemming illegal immigration from downloading porn. How can they even find time to calculate the size of their pensions and health benefits to assure themselves that their sinecures still make those of the private sector pale in comparison?.

Ming plans to learn to speak Spanish. How hard could it be to learn if all those unskilled illegal aliens can speak it?

Some People Have Too Much Money

Strange thing for capitalist oinker Ming to say but it's true. Some clod just paid $45,000 for Marilyn Monroe's chest Xrays when everyone knows they're not worth a penny more than $30,000.

As the years pass, fewer contemporaries of Ms. Monroe will be alive to care and eventually the value of such outre memorabilia will plummet. Who today would pay anything for the skeleton upon which Theda Bara used to pose? Theda who? See. That's Ming's point. Theda Bara was the original vamp and now you neither know nor care.

Eventually, those Xrays will be lost to the world as so many other things are that were once thought precious. Granduncle Phineas will croak and uncaring relatives going through his dross will send them to the dumpster unaware as to what they are or not caring even if they do know. Either that or they will be flogged in some obscure yard sale for pennies.

On the other hand, anything from the estate of Anna May Wong is worth millions but that's just Ming talking.

~#^%*!!# Mayans

Just when Ming has DNDN, VHC and a few other such goodies all lined up in a row to see him through those golden years, the lousy Mayans decide that on December 21, 2012 that's the end of the World as we know it as the Sun's magnetic field reverses. The Olmecs have a lot to answer for too but that's another story.

Should their calculations be off a tad, Ming has decided the prudent thing to do is buy one banana at a time and cancel all subscriptions. The only thing left now is to figure out how to make the stray shekel off this tragedy.

Buying on the installment plan and maxing out those credit cards come readily to mind, but doing something that carries a minimum ten year sentence would also seem to have merit. So much to do. So little time.

Ming's Guide For Illegal Aliens Whose Status Is In Doubt

What with the new law in Arizona, it's only a matter of time before other states also initiate legislation allowing authorities to question immigration status. Therefore it is incumbent on all illegal aliens of whatever nationality to be able to effectively impersonate native born Americans when subject to questioning.

Become conversant with the latest idiomatic expressions in use. When stopped immediately say, "twenty-three skidoo, small change".

Engage your interlocutor in small talk to gain his confidence. Allude to the national pastime by asking if he thinks Babe Ruth will win today's featured race at Aqueduct by hitting one out of the park.

Show him you belong to the in crowd by speculating whether Francis X. Bushman is likely or not to make a movie with Theda Bara anytime soon.

Allow him to understand you are really an American by making inquiries based upon personal care products Americans are likely to share knowledge of. Ask when was the last time he used a deodorant. Tell him he looks like he needs Viagra.

Lastly, always be sure to wear a baseball cap as does any red blooded American, preferably one that says Los Yankees.

Ming's Guide To The Perplexed

It's finally come to this. You've run out of graduate degrees to pursue to stave off that hateful day that you have to actually begin earning a living. Some of you actually hope to succeed in a world that you'll be surprised to find doesn't care if you do or not. Worse yet, there are uncounted other wannabes out there willing to cheerfully, if not metaphorically, slit your dainty throat as you all scramble to knock each other off the corporate ladder.

Fear not. The one good thing you've managed to achieve in life is that you read Ming's blog. Ming will take you under his unwashed wing and cut through all the dross about ability, knowledge, hard work and all the other twaddle that counts for naught in order for you to succeed.

All you need do is inform all your actions with this one insight. Everyone, no matter how crusty their exterior, wants to be loved. Show your superordinates that you virtually worship them. That you think them wise, insightful and worthy of emulation.

Alright, that does usually take some acting given the run of the mill nincompoop that you'll be dealing with, but remember, we all act every day in every way anyway.

The saving grace, even should you not have mastered the Stanislavsky method is that people love it despite knowing it's blatant flattery. So take your cynical little sell out into that cold cruel world and spread the shmaltz with a heavy hand. Ming has spoken.

Ming Solves Oil Spill Fiasco

Once again, it seems that only Ming has the answer to yet another world problem. Plugging the gushing oil leak is child's play if you have the mind of Ming.

All one need do is find a few thousand Americans on a high fiber diet. Position their posteriors over the hole and arm them with two ply toilet tissue. The stray paper towel would also be in order. This always works at Ming's house and should thoroughly plug the well in a trice.

All solid citizen Ming asks in recognition is a statue of himself striking a heroic pose to be situated on the North Lawn of the White House. Perhaps in honor of his achievement, said statue could more appropriately depict a grinning Ming crouched over while artfully wiping his derriere with some recent piece of legislation. You can bet that's what the stalwarts at British Petroleum are doing right about now.

Ming Ejected From Nike Headquarters

Advertising mogul, Ming T. Merciless wanted to pitch Nike's business to help them leverage the latest fiasco with their star endorsement, Tiger Woods.

His "no can lose" advertising slogan, "People that can't make the cut, wear Nikes" featuring Tiger Woods grinning like a mongoloid(no audio since the poor slob can't enunciate too well which is why he never says much in any of his endorsements).

Surprisingly, the ingrates showed Ming the door as they carried him kicking and screaming off the premises. Lucky Ming's P.F. Keds still fit after all these years but they don't smell so good. Maybe Ming should just fish some sneakers off those telephone cables that teenagers throw each others sneakers over. He certainly won't be buying any Nikes anytime soon.

Peasant

Yes you. Everyone that has a job or thinks they deserve one also thinks they are in the middle class. Balderdash says Ming. You are wallowing in wishful thinking. In reality you are the working poor and getting poorer by the day.

Inflation over the last generation makes your inflated salary worth no more than your grandfather's wage from wielding a pick and shovel when he washed ashore after fleeing some foreign sink hole. The tax brackets that now apply were meant for the rich in the preinflation era. Now they ensnare you, making the widow's mite that is laughably called your compensation "package" worth even less, net of taxes, than you thought.

Education is the answer say all the pundits. Horse pucky says Ming. College will saddle you(or your parents) with debt. Then the position for which your training qualifies you will be exported to wherever people work for less. Besides, B students work for C students and A students, lacking people skills are forced to teach at the institutions from which they graduate.

What to do? Ming, as always, has the answer. Pretend you are an unwashed immigrant. Having no credentials they are forced to do something useful and are usually paid in cash. Barbers, taxi drivers, restaurateurs etc. They then fiddle their taxes, keeping all their hard earned money and in ten years own mansions, late model cars and have no debt while you are forced to buy suits so you can sit under the fluorescents shuffling someone else's paper all day.

Maybe Ming should just blame the above peroration on that bad burrito now wending it's way through his system that peristalsis seems unwilling to push along, or maybe not.

Ming Solves Greek Debt Problem

Yes, Ming hasn't posted to his blog recently because he's been going hammer and tongs with the Greek authorities negotiating a foolproof solution to their debt problem that won't cost them a penny.

Instead of dancing in the aisles and breaking plates in paroxysms of unbridled joy, these clods seem not to fully appreciate the opportunity Ming is trying to bestow on them.

All they need do is reduce the Parthenon into pieces small enough to fit into blister packs suitable for sale at supermarket checkout counters. These impulse sales of instant history evoking the Athens of Pericles is a sure winner and will erase those debts quicker than you can say hoopa. All Ming asks in return is the franchise rights to all giro souvlaki stands in the good old U.S.A.

Ming already knows that some crybabies will whine about despoiling Western Civilization's heritage. To that Ming gives the well reasoned response of PHOOEY. The pollution from auto emissions alone, in Athens is going to reduce the Parthenon to rubble in about ten more minutes anyway. Why not turn the quick buck before that happens? Besides, if this turns out to be a real winner, there's plenty of rubble in the Bronx that is available so that no history buff need be disappointed.

The Sap Runs In The Spring

That means you. It's Spring and one of the places you are likely to run is to NYC. Hence, the kindhearted Ming offers the following admonitions to benighted tourists.

1) Don't stand at the edge of subway platforms. Perforce, potential pushers proliferate on platforms.

2) Don't ever stare anyone in the eye. A true native New Yorker will quickly punch your ticket with a song on their lips.

3) If attacked just act crazy. No one wants to deal with crazy people although achieving the requisite level of craziness to stand out from all the competition in NYC will not be easy. Practice in front of a mirror in the privacy of your own home before coming here.

4) Always trip on a registered pothole before attempting to sue the City. Under the NYC Pothole Law only irregularities in the street that have been reported but not repaired can result in the City being deemed negligent. This is the lawsuit capital of America and if NYC has any hopes of avoiding bankruptcy this law had to be enacted.

5) If a particularly shifty-eyed, impecunious, badly dressed and poorly groomed lout accosts you for spare change, before shoving him aside, be sure and ask if his name is Ming. He'll give you a good deal on "I Love New York" tschotskes.

It Just Gets Better And Better

First they send Ming a letter telling him they are going to send him a letter. Then the Census Bureau Letter arrives. Now they are sending Ming a letter telling him that they sent him the letter that they promised to send him in their first letter.

They even ask if he responded although they probably haven't noticed they have questions that can't truthfully be answered until April 1st.

Maybe Ming should send them a letter telling them he will respond to their letter. Then, after he does respond, he can send them a letter asking if they received his response and maybe even then send a letter asking why they haven't responded to Ming's second letter.

And you want the Government to oversee your health care? You better like receiving letters.

Ming Gets Racist Hate Mail

Yes, the Census Bureau has sent Ming the letter they threatened to send in their previous letter. They demand to know Ming's race, origin and every other thing they excoriate anyone else for asking who's not in the Government.

Why ask such things since in America, everyone is equal anyway unless they plan to make some more equal than others. Maybe they do this already. Witness the mortgage debacle. They already told Banks who they better lend to or else with the predictable results.

Maybe Ming should fill out the parts that are not in English. Maybe Ming should tell them he is a native american and they should just give him back his country or at least let him open up another casino.

All their meddling is divisive, counterproductive and as an aside, a big waste of time. Illegal aliens won't answer, can't answer or won't even get the form. Solid citizen Ming will answer and keep paying taxes so the glorious government can have the money to keep sending him more forms.

Maybe this is the answer to the unemployment problem. Government hires everyone to send each other forms to fill out. Everyone gets a paycheck and has money to spend. Only question left is where does Ming go to pick up his Noble Prize in Economics?

Your Government In Action

Ming received a letter today from the Census Bureau alerting him to expect a letter from the Census Bureau and to not throw it away. Unless they expect Ming to loiter around the mailbox in anticipation, why not just send the next letter, form, booklet or whatever and tell him therein to not throw it away?

Now New York State wants to tax soda to both raise revenue and cut down on soda consumption to promote good health. These are mutually exclusive goals. More revenue requires more soda to be consumed. Better health means less gargling with soda and perforce less revenue.

Two years or so ago, New York State increased the convoluted instruction booklet and forms for individual income tax preparation to the degree it became telephone directory size. Now it's too expensive to send, so they create the equivalent of an Easter Egg hunt, telling you to go to the library to get the forms and instructions. How many people just now forget all about it and how does this serve to enhance their attempt to garner more taxes by not only making the filing more complicated but making the logistics more onerous as well?

One out of every seven people in this country work for the Government in one of it's many manifestations. Some are so loath to disengage from the Government mammary that they become double dippers. Twenty years in one pigeon hole and then twenty years in another. Two pensions to reward their sterling efforts.

Maybe this post should instead be entitled "Your Government Inaction"

Your Chance To Attain Immortality

Don't go through your shabby existence collecting mere trifles. Man of the year awards, golfing trophies, honorable mentions. All such dross is ephemeral and soon forgotten after Sharon poles you across the river Styx. Latch onto something that will ensure posterity hasn't forgotten your wretched stay in this veil of tears.

Sign up now and for a nominal sum, Ming will name a pothole in the Bronx after you. Rest assured, a Bronx pothole is immortal. They are never filled. In fact, they grow larger with each passing year.

What more could you ever want than to have your name on the lips of every passing motorist whose alignment goes awry as they hurdle your very own pothole. "Damn that Harvey Slobnick pothole. That's the second time this week that Slobnick got me" or some such other epithet as your very own pothole is encountered.

Let it be written into the record that all those saps who get a star named after them will be livid with envy in the great hereafter as you proudly look down from whatever cloud you've been assigned to patrol and turn to them pointing with pride as your very own pothole causes yet another hub cab to disengage from some poor schemiel's car. You still count for something in the great scheme of things.

Be advised Ming takes only cash for this invaluable service. No checks. No Paypal and definitely no IOUs. After all, being counted amongst the immortals should cost something. Everything else does.

What's A Luge?

This recent accident at the Winter Olympics leads a befuddled Ming to wonder where they come up with these "sporting" events. Ming has never even known a luger although he's seen many people cough up a lunger.

Why aren't these events geared to what people really do? Where is the turnstile jumping competition? How about the downslope pocket picking event? Isn't there a freestyle insult hurling or have they already conceded the trophy by default to NYC?

An intermural short changing competition by each country's leading supermarket checkout clerks would garner much interest as would the subway seat grabbing finals or the marathon taxi hailing event .

The whole Olympic idea is flawed. Ming has never hurled a javelin but he has hurled many an insult. Let's give Ming something he can relate to.

Free Enterprise Suffers Another Blow

Apparently big business can't stand a little competition. That's why entrepreneur Ming and his twenty blankets were bounced off that plane yesterday.

It appears that a certain unnamed airline will now charge $8 for the use of a blanket on domestic flights. The clever Ming planned to undercut them by $3, charging a mere $5 and even tucking you in, gratis.

Naturally, the lullaby singing you to sleep is extra as is telling you a bedtime story. Ming even promises not to go through your pockets once you arrive in the land of nod. Let's see the airlines match that offer.

Screw Nietzsche

This is what Ming gets for reading Friedrich Nietzsche's Die Frohliche Wissenschaft. His doctrine of eternal recurrence whereby we are all reborn over and over, doomed to relive our lives exactly as before is depressing.

After all, just think that each time you turn on the T.V. it's just like seeing a summer rerun every time.

Not to mention having to kill time standing on the same line in the supermarket while the cretin in front of you pays by laboriously writing a check time after time throughout eternity.

Ming refuses to even consider going to the Motor Vehicle Bureau more than once, let alone in every lifetime. Maybe Ming should just confine himself to reading comic books and watching porno. Although one always has to be sure and see porno from the start, otherwise it's nearly impossible to follow the plot.

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Stretching Ming's Credulity Until It Snaps

Science must really think that Ming is a real sucker and will swallow anything just because it's scientific. Now they try to convince him that DNA evidence shows that George Stephanopoulos and Hillary Clinton are cousins.

They might as well say that Pu Yi, last emperor of the Qing Dynasty was related to Marilyn Monroe. Although now that Ming thinks about it, both did get screwed royally so they did have that in common.

Science is always toying with Ming's mind to the degree that he can't eat anything without feeling guilty about it. They feed some mouse the human equivalent of a 55 gallon drum of butter. The mouse barfs it up and they tell you that clearly, butter's not good for you.

Next, as improbable as it may now seem, they'll tell Ming that eating a few pounds of chocolate covered herring for breakfast is somehow deleterious to his weight and well being. Balderdash!!! It even tastes better with Boscoe.

No Good Deed Remains Unpunished

You can bet your bottom zlotnick that this is the last time Ming tries to help out. In an attempt to get in out of the rain, Ming attended a book signing at one of those chains of bookstores that unlike real bookstores, all have the same books no matter which one you go to.

Still, Ming saw there was a lot of work to do, so he graciously pitched in. Then pandemonium broke out. Even though he was signing the right names to the proper books, Ernest Hemingway in Of Time And The River, William Faulkner in Absalom, Absalom and Joseph Conrad in Victory, they somehow took umbrage and bounced poor Ming out on his keister.

Ming has learned his lesson. From now on, when in a bookstore, he'll sign the books using his real name just like the person at the table with the long line does.

Who Knew It Was This Simple?

Here in NYC they are closing several public schools because results are not up to par. What an epiphany for Ming. It's the building's fault. Maybe the water fountains don't work. If we put the same students and the same teachers in another building, clearly, the results must improve.

To close a building because of what goes on there and to expect a different result because of it could only work if you are referring to the United Nations building, and then only if you seal it up with all the "diplomats" inside. Admittedly the escort industry(a polite euphemism) would also suffer a huge setback but Ming is sure their customer base would come again.

Increase In Terrorist Threat Level

They tell everyone to be vigilant. Ming is still laughing at the local authorities in NYC from back when they admonished the populace when riding the subways to report anyone that looked suspicious.

Have any of these "authorities" ever ridden the subway? Everyone looks suspicious. If they don't look suspicious, that's suspicious.

Not too long ago, Ming was riding in the first car, up front. Some guy was standing there looking out at the tracks comming up, talking to himself. Note. That is not suspicious. That is normal in the subway. What was suspicious was that he was interrogating himself all they way from lower Manhattan to the North Bronx.

What did she say to you? What did you say back? Then what happened? Did you tell her what she could do? etc. etc. ad infinitum, ad nauseum. It was so distracting, Ming could hardly hear himself talk to himself.

The Mafia Needs A Few Good Men

Given the current economic climate, why waste time and money getting an education only to find jobs don't exist or that they will be outsourced overseas? Join an organization that has proven it's staying power in every economic environment. It's easy. No education required. In fact educated applicants are looked upon with suspicion. Pick up an application in almost any candy store in the Bronx and Brooklyn today.

For those too cheap to buy the cram course, Ming graciously provides several of the most asked questions you are likely to see on your application.

Wazza you name?

Wazza you cousins names?

You can showa da respect?

Uzza likka da money?

Howza you bocce ball game?

Multiple choice; You getta caught. Do you
a)Ratta out uzza paisanos
b)Takka da beating and keepa you mouth shut
c)Writta da book after conviction

Note that the successful applicant will be required to hang around candy stores all day randomly grabbing their crotch and shouting "hey chickee, chickee" to all passing females under the age of 70. Murdering your best friend when told to will also be requisite. Willingness to hold car doors for the Don is a plus. Small matters when considering the Mafia has an excellent dental plan, three weeks vacation and is off most holidays. Good luck to all applicants.