Prince Simian 7

 

Chapter 7 – Brother Skull-Necklace

Near the border with India, there was a river that was so wide, it took a whole day to cross by boat. The river ran from side to side so long that the land across was not visible. That’s why many thought that they were looking at an ocean. Simply put, it was a huge river. The river was always calm, and the flow of water was never visible. Any floating object appeared stationary. But, what was strange was the fact that there were no people anywhere on this river. Usually, you see a boat or two, carrying passengers across in addition to casual fisherman or two. But, this river was dead quite and almost spooky.

When the party got to the riverbank, it was getting dark rapidly. Looking around, there were no boats, except an old, rotting row boat that was half below water, and nothing else to cross this river on. While looking at the situation and seeking a solution, Prince Simian looked around and found a warning sign prominently displayed at the dock. The sign read “DO NOT ATTEMP TO CROSS, MAN EATING CREATURE” “Hmmm, a man eating creature, hey?” thought Prince Simian. “Lookie-lookeee here S’Nim, it says, you are on the menu tonight!” screamed Prince Simian, teasing S’Nim. “What? Me? On the Menu?” Perked up S’Nim started to shake and tremble. “Yeah, it says that tonight’s menu has Human as a main course!” added Prince Simian. Feeling a little bit teased, S’Nim turned to read the posting. “Dekki, you rotten ape! Stop playing with me!” But, S’Nim’s face turned gray anyway. It did say that there was a man eating creature in water and he was the only ‘man’ in the group. However, there was no other way but to cross. Porky chimed in. “Well, hope he is Kosher, he might let me pass, Oink oink.” This resulted in an explosive laughter from the Prince. When he regained his composure, Prince Simian shot back at Porky. “You seem to forget that your face might be spared, but your body will definitely be eaten.”, pointing to Porky’s human body form. Now, they are stuck. They must cross the river before the night-fall; there might be dangerous creatures everywhere. And, turning back was out of the question. This left with one choice; to cross one way or another.

Prince Simian and Porky worked hard to bring back the boat into life. The broken bottom was patched and the water pumped out. The boat was floating and sustaining all the weight of a donkey, S’Nim, Porky and the Prince. Very carefully, Porky started to row. It was very hard to move the boat due to its weight, but after a short while, the progress was noticeable. With Prince Simian scanning water for any sign of trouble, S’Nim felt a little better. Soon, the boat was sliding across the river rapidly. And this went on for a while.

Suddenly, the boat hit something, jerking everyone on the boat. It felt like a large rock. The boat was stuck. It was in the middle of nowhere and was not budging. The riverbank was barely visible and the destination still invisible. “Lookie lookie!” said Prince Simian pointing to an object circling the boat, making waves. It was too dark to see clearly, but the object was visible under the moon light. Soon, the object rose out of the water, and it was …

A short and skinny creature with a dark long hair, and bony face with a necklace made of small skulls. Water still dripping from his cloth, he was swinging two large swords in hand. “He, he, he, he, I was getting antsy, if you know what I mean. I thought I would go hungry tonight. But, what do we have here? A French dish of horse meat, a Chinese dish of monkey brain, a Korean barbecue pork ribs and my favorite, human flesh.” This sounded like an interesting dish, Porky thought. For a while, the whole party couldn’t take their eyes off of this heinous creature. It was just too bizarre. A skull necklace? In this day and age? Rather than being intimidated, they were all puzzled. Of course, this was not the intended effect of the creature. The creature sensed some type of ridicule from this group. That made the creature more angry. Finally, Prince Simian took the beam out of his ear, and it grew big quickly. Without a word, Porky took his pitch fork out, pointing at the creature. Donkey was fascinated by this floating thing. And, S’Nim’s head was stuck deep into the boat, shaking from fear, reciting his chant and wanting to be somewhere else, hoping this to be a dream.

Prince Simian attacked the creature with his wooden beam, which has a round metal ball at each end, swinging toward the creature. The creature easily blocked it with his left sword. His right sword attacked the Prince, but Prince Simian was already upside down above the creature’s head. Porky summoned his cloud and was coming hard at the creature. The creature jumped into the river, disappearing in a flash. Porky was floating above the water looking for a sign, but it was Prince Simian who followed the creature into the water.

Under the water, the creature took a form of a strange sea weed like shape. His hair was floating in all directions, and the eyeballs were glowing in bright red color. It was a surreal scene. Prince Simian was right in front of the creature and soon, a large splash indicated that a pig had fallen into the river. It took no time for Porky to start his attacks. But, unlike above the water, all their movements were only half the speed. This frustrated Porky to no end. Porky attacked and attacked, but the creature avoided getting forked every single time. After a while, Porky ran out of air and had to return to surface. Prince Simian was watching all the movements and was calculating. “What can trap this creature?” But, there was no apparent answer. Then, the Prince got an idea. The stick grows really fast. Maybe he can use that against the creature. So, Prince Simian started to attack using his beam. Prince Simian aimed one end at the creature and let the beam grow rapidly, hoping that the creature would get hit. The beam grew rapidly, but the creature was faster. The beam passed the creature’s stomach by less than an inch. Prince Simian shrank the beam and, this time, lunged forward at the creature. Prince Simian had incredible strength; his swing temporarily cut the water in half, breaking a large bedrock in half, but missing the creature altogether. “Hmm, I cannot fight him here. I have to get above the water.” thought Prince Simian. So, Prince Simian flew out of the river and landed on the boat.

S’Nim was still in his favorite position; ostrich position. Porky was panting heavily. Prince Simian thought for a moment, and remembered something. “A-ha, let’s see if he has any brains.” said Prince Simian. Turning to Porky, Prince Simian gave an instruction; “Porky, I need you to fly in your cloud and dip your fork in the water every time you go near the water. Fly in any formation but make sure you touch the same place.” Porky asked back; “Why do I have to go flying around? I want to smash this creature’s head in half!” “You, just do it!” shot back Prince Simian. Prince Simian summoned his clouds and flew high above the water. Way up in mid air, Prince Simian was carefully watching Porky flying around and dipping his pitch fork in water. After a long time of this annoying behavior by Porky, Prince Simian saw something and began flying toward the water. With his beam stick pointing, Prince Simian dashed down the sky in incredible speed. It was when Prince Simian’s stick almost touched the water that the creature’s head poked out of the water to see what the dipping was all about. Immediately following his head poking out, a loud crack of a hard wooden beam cracking creature’s skull, filled the air. The creature made a screeching noise, and his body popped out of the water. As the creature flew in mid air, Prince Simian grabbed his beam and started to rotate like a chopper blade. When the creature saw the approaching blade, he made a squealing noise and fled toward the solid ground. Porky shot out of the river and the chase was on. The creature was making a long – hops on the surface of the river, and both Prince Simian and Porky were chasing close behind him. When the creature landed on the riverbank, Prince Simian began attacking from behind. With no time to spare, the creature flipped over to avoid getting pummeled. Landing on his feet, the creature threw his swords away and yelled “Stop! Stop, I give up!”. The wooden stick from Prince Simian was an inch away from the creature’s neck, when it stopped. “So, you give up?” asked Prince Simian. “Yes, yes, I give up, please spear my life.” pleaded the creature.

Sensing the danger was over, S’Nim yelled from the boat “Is it over yet?” Prince Simian answered “Yes, it is over.” Porky had to fly out to bring the boat back. But, when the boat docked, S’Nim walked toward the creature and started questioning him. “Why are you eating human flesh? Or any flesh for that matter? Don’t you know it is wrong to kill a living object?” The creature answered “S’Nim, please spear my life. I dread having to eat human flesh. But, I was cursed to eat human flesh. You see, I was one of the King’s Generals. But, when I failed to protect his son, the King’s sorcerer cast a spell – a curse on my body. I was cursed to collect skulls of people I eat and wear them on my neck. I was to live like this till I eat a monk. When I eat a monk flesh, I was to turn back to my original form. I was just doing this to break the curse.” This sent chills on S’Nim’s back. “What would happen if you don’t eat human flesh?” the creature answered “I never could turn back.” “So, that’s why you kept eating human flesh?” “Yes”

Porky chimed in, “Why don’t we finish him off?” Prince Simian added “For all the human lives you have taken, you must pay with your life.” So the verdict was death. But, S’Nim was busy chanting and not listening. When S’Nim stopped chanting, his decision was made. Slowly, S’Nim walked toward the creature and began ripping skulls out of his necklace. S’Nim said “You must now serve gracious Buddha and save lives equal to the amount you have destroyed”. With a simple blessing, S’Nim changed the creature’s look. Now his hair is neatly tied. His skulls gone. His bare body is now clad in simple monk garment. The transformation was bright and beautiful. The Prince and Porky were simply stunned by S’Nim’s act. But, they respected S’Nim’s decision and let the creature be the third member of this brotherhood. He was given a name. He was to be called “Bones”.

Moishes Moving should Go Out of Business

I can understand that sometimes there are situations when other people should yield for the benefit of a single person. Like, yesterday on 85^th street and Park ave., I was behind many cars waiting for lights to change. I see the green light and yet, nothing happens. The next green light did nothing. This went on for five green lights. Finally, after many honking and screaming by cabbies, I was able to pass by the culprit; an old invalid lady being discharged.

Today, I saw an exactly the opposite of what happened yesterday. On 88^th street and West End Ave., a large truck was double parked, blocking the traffic. Honking and yelling did not produce any result. The truck was one of Ryder rental trucks. People got out of their cars to investigate and look for a driver. After, what felt like an hour, someone showed up. The driver that showed up was wearing a “Moishes Movers” red shirt.” OK. We are moving”, we all thought. “He will move the truck”. But, what he did was moving the truck about 500 yards, blocking the traffic in different location! Even though there was an empty fire hydrant about ten feet away, the driver parked the truck right in front of a door where they were carrying out the boxes. This meant, we all had to wait till they finished loading the truck! Can you imagine the attitude of this driver? There was no single ounce of decency in him. He simply did not care about all the traffic he was blocking. This can only come from a culture of the company he worked for. If his boss cared for the image of his company, or the society in general, this kind of behavior would never get tolerated. However, this was happening. There was another guy with the red shirt and his attitude was the same. They simply did not care for the people. As long as his company was making money, they did not care for the rest. This is very typical of an extreme religious group of people. As long as they are ok, rest of the world can go to hell.

When I called to complain, the dispatcher insisted on two letter marking from the truck. I explained that it was a Ryder rental truck. Well, he claimed, that it was not them, then. So, I guess this must have went on a few times before. Guys wearing their t shirt and moving people are not their employees? And they never use Ryder Truck? Matter of fact, I have seen many times people with Moishes T shirt carrying out boxes of stuff from Ryder trucks.

I am following the story to see what happens .

Prince Simian 6

Chapter 6 – Porky Groom

It was almost dark when the party arrived at the entrance of a village. Prince Simian insisted on passing this way, claiming to save almost a half day’s walk. The road into the village was narrow and traitorous, full of sharp rocks and slippery roads. Since the town was at the base of a large mountain that must be passed, they tried to make before the nightfall for their safety. The village was rather large and dense with houses, but was empty of any human inhabitant. Ghostlike feeling ran across all three travelers’ spines. More chill crept up on the scary S’Nim’s bony spine. Immediately, shaking in his seat, S’Nim began his prayer chant. It became a habit of S’Nims to pray, whenever he gets scared. But, Prince Simian was dying to find a place to rest, since, he may no longer fly in his cloud, his feet were burning with sharp pains from walking. Besides, Prince Simian never got scared, of anything, ever. “S’Nim, look over there, there is a light coming from that house!” said Prince Simian, pointing to a rather large establishment in the middle of a main street. Since, it was quickly getting dark, any source of light sounded better and safe to S’Nim. “Let’s go and ask if we can obtain lodging for the night.” Said S’Nim. Knowing full well, they never refuse a request from a traveling monk, the party started to pay attention to how hungry they were. Slowly, they walked toward the house.

The place was big, and two stories in height. From the sound of it, there were many people inside creating loud noises. Prince Simian stopped in front of main doorway, and turned to look at S’Nim for an approval. S’Nim nodded. Prince Simian opened the door and light and noise poured out into the street. It was a dining hall filled with people all talking and eating. When they realized that someone was at the front door, one young servant came forward and asked; “What are you looking for?” The servant’s head was bowed down, not noticing that he was talking to an ape. But, Prince Simian answered. “We are on our way to India to bring stone tablet back home, can we find some food and place to rest for tonight?” The servant nodded and said. “I will ask my master. He is busy with the wedding, but I’m sure he will save a spot for your party.” The servant went back and the hall was loud with noise again. After a few minutes, the servant returned. However, there was an expression of concern on his face. “Well, my master is concerned for your safety tonight. So, he is asking if you can stay at the next house tonight.” answered the young servant. “Safety?” shouted Prince Simian. This was all he needed. Prince Simian was dying from the boredom in the past few days. He was stuck walking this stupid monk and his scrawny donkey, he needed some excitement in his life! But, the scream made the servant look up and realize that it was a talking monkey! “The, the, there is an ape here!” cried the servant. While the servant was trying to make some sense out of the situation, Prince Simian said “Before I get mad and show you a trick or two, I need an answer.” The servant replied “Well, I know I shouldn’t say this, but tonight, master’s daughter is getting married.”

Puzzled and confused, Prince Simian demanded to meet the owner of the place. It just did not make any sense. The owner’s daughter was getting married and yet, he is worried for our safety? What is this? A wedding of bandits? S’Nim followed the Prince into the hall, missing all the juicy details, starts to recite a chant. “Don’t mind him.” said Prince Simian “But, he is the monk I’m traveling with.” Soon, a well dressed man of his seventies came forward with another servant behind him. “Oh, S’Nim, let the mercy of Buddha rein on all life.” Said the old man. “Let his JaBi bear fruit in your family.” Answered S’Nim. This was a standard greeting for monks. This simply means that Buddha’s mercy and grace will result in harmonious family. But, somehow, when the old man heard the blessing, he broke into tears. Uncontrollable and continuous, his crying became a wailing after a while. Since no one interrupts anyone wailing like that, ever, everyone waited, until his eyes went dry. “What is troubling you?” asked S’Nim. The old man took his sweet time thinking, and then the old man answered “Tonight, my daughter is getting married.” “Best wishes.” Said S’Nim. “But, it is not of our choice, the groom is a pig that flew in last week, and beat every single male in town with his pitch fork. He started to eat our food. But, later he demanded a bride and my daughter was chosen to be his bride.” explained the old man. “What do you mean he demanded a bride?” S’Nim asked. “He came out of nowhere, one day, and demanded food from us. We felt sorry for the creature since he had a pig head and a human body. He came back next day and demanded more food. After a month, we did not have any food to share. So, when we refused, he began beating up my servants. Villagers got together and tried to fight him off, but we ended up getting hurt. You see, he has this large pitch fork and he uses it to frighten us. He uses some kind of sorcery and we are no match for his kind. His power is far greater than ours. It was a few days ago that he saw my daughter in the dining hall, he’s been demanding a wedding ever since. He claims to love my daughter, but I cannot let this creature take away my daughter. The villagers all got together, and decided that giving my daughter away would be the only way to drive out this creature for good. I am an old man. She is my only daughter. Without her, I cannot live any longer.” said the old man, crying again. S’Nim dropped his head and exhaled loudly. It was as if S’Nim’s own daughter was being taken away by this monster. Quietly listening Prince Simian chimed in. “I think I can save your daughter.”

The room was dark. It was a large room with a full sized dining table in the middle of a floor. There were plenty of food on the table. A small candle flickering in the wind, was all the light this room had. There was a bride sitting with her head turned towards the wall, crying and sobbing. The room was quite except the sobbing noise, and it felt eerie waiting for something horrible to appear. The bride was in her wedding cloths, and her head was dropped so her face was not visible. It was about midnight, when, out of nowhere, a figure with a pig ear and nose appeared outside the window. On the window casted a shadow from the moonlight, a large creature of a human stature, and a piggy head. Standing there, one can make out the pitch fork that he was carrying everywhere. It was a large weapon. A long and large wooden handle stick was about ten feet in length, and the sharp fork portion was about two feet, and looked menacing. The wind was blowing on the creature and his cloth flapped like fleeing chicken wings. Forcefully, the creature opened the window, and walked right in. Two of his lower teeth were sticking out in the front of his snout. He was huffing and making loud breathing noises. “Oh, my sweet, I am sorry for making you wait. I had to take care of my cave for tonight.” Explained the creature. Slowly, the pig walked toward the bride. The bride was still sobbing and did not look back at the groom. But, being a pig, the smell of food was just too tempting to ignore. So, he sat and started to eat, like a pig. Within minutes, all the plates were empty. Satisfied with his belly, the creature turned his attention to the bride. “Oh, my darling, why won’t you pour me a drink?” said the creature. He stuck out his empty cup, and was waiting for her to fill it. But, instead of a drink, a loud laughter came from the bride. “What is so funny?” asked the creature. “It is you, that makes me laugh!” came a reply. It was split of a second, when Prince Simian emerged out of the bridal cloth, and lunged forward at the pig. “Well, your face will be funnier when I’m done with you.” Said the Prince Simian as he took out the beam out of his ear. The beam grew to a size of a large wooden beam big enough to hurt someone seriously. But, the pork avoided getting hit by jumping back out of his seat. Immediately, there was a pitch fork on his hands. “Ha, ha, ha, you greedy pig, today is your funeral day.” Claimed Prince Simian. “A monkey?” questioned the creature. “I am fighting a monkey?” asked himself this time. “Well, I heard good things about monkey brain being tasty, I’ll finally get to try out tonight.” Said the creature referring to well known brain dish of live monkey. The creature swung his pitch fork at the Prince, and Prince Simian blocked it with his wooden beam. Soon, Prince Simian’s stick went for creature’s heart, and was blocked by the pitch fork. This went on for a while. Attack and block, attack and block. After a while, both stopped attacking. Prince Simian opened his mouth first. “Not, bad, for a pig, that is.” The creature replied “Ha, so you learned a few tricks, did you? But, that won’t be enough to save your brain from being eaten.” Prince Simian was getting tired of bantering; “Stop wasting my time and take this.” screamed Prince Simian as he flew toward the creature with the spinning beam over his head like a chopper blades. The creature jumped back and narrowly avoided terrible blows. Realizing that this could be a lot harder than he thought, the creature called his dark cloud from the sky. When the cloud flew passing the creature, the creature jumped in. Within the eye blink, the creature was in air, flying away from the house. Prince Simian called for his clouds, and his two small clouds came carrying the Prince chasing after the creature.

The pig creature jumped out of his cloud, landing on the small opening in front of a cave. Immediately, the creature went inside the cave. Soon after, Prince Simian landed and went after the creature. The cave was dark and moist. Full of dripping water and ponds, the inside was rather large and warm. There was a large fire burning in the middle, and there were items belonging to the creature scattered through-out the cave. Cautiously, Prince Simian looked around. There was no creature nearby. ‘He must be hiding’ thought Prince Simian. Cautiously, Prince Simian waited for any sign of movement; there were none. Instead, what he felt was air moving around him. “Behind” thought Prince Simian. Prince Simian swung his wooden beam, wide and fast. “Puck” – “Owwwwwch!” the sound of his beam smashing against Porky’s head was loud. Sqealing like a pig, Porky landed on his back. With no time to waste, Prince Simian landed another blow to Porky’s fat belly. “Ouuuf!” screamed Porky. Losing his grap on the pitch fork, Porkey curbed into a ball, covering his face with his arms. Crouching and shaking, Porky screamed. “Stop, stop, No more. I Give up.” Not to fall into his trap, Prince Simian dragged the pig out of the cave. It was dark without any light, but the moon was bright enough to see the outlines. Smiling, Prince Simian was full of satisfaction. Matter of fact, he was trying to figure out how to finish him off. With Porky crying and begging for mercy, the scene had become quite noisy. Many people, including S’Nim came up to see what was going on. They all surrounded the pig on the ground, and were screaming about how they would kill the creature. S’Nim stepped forward and began dictating. “You all have witnessed the result of bad behavior tonight. The pig behaved badly and this is his end result; on the ground, begging for his life. We all wish to believe that our lucky streaks will last forever, but, like they say in Africatown, what goes around, comes around.” People were confused as to what it is that S’Nim was trying to say. But none dared to interrupt. “For the mercy of Buddha, I will give you ,Porky, a choice. Will you help us in bringing back the tablets, or you must vanish from this area, forever.” Porky began crying even louder. When his eyes ran out of tears, his mouth began moving: “I don’t have any place to go to. I was turned into this creature for being so greedy. Please, take me with you. I will do anything to be with you.” Prince Simian chimed in “Well, if we must let you live, remember, I own your life. So, from this moment on, I am your elder brother. You must address me as Brother Simian. And you must follow my directions, however ridiculous they may be. ” “Dekki! You smarty ape, You are not to abuse your position.” Said S’Nim. S’Nim was well aware that Prince Simian was going to use Porky as his personal slave. Now, the villagers were angry at S’Nim. “Why are you letting this creature live?” “We want revenge.” “I’ll chop his head, if you don’t want to.”However, S’Nim wasn’t about to hand this pig over to the angry mob, yet. “You will do no such act!” screamed S’Nim. “Don’t you know it is forbidden to kill any life?” said S’Nim. S’Nim was furious at this point. But, he regained his composure and began explaining to the crowd. “If all his actions amount to wanting to eat and marry a girl, I have to say, it is not enough to punish him. But, I may be able to rehabilitate him by teaching him all the mercy of Buddha I can teach. However, if you insist, I can let him go. And once we leave this town, what will stop him?” Still not satisfied that this pig is alive, villagers began discussing amongst themselves. After a while, they agreed to have S’Nim crack at it.

The restaurant was filled with people, all happy and drunk. They were celebrating the end of nightmare. To cement the bond, Prince Simian and Porky both performed the ceremony of brotherhood. And with that, they became brothers.

$800 Ticket for a cup of coffee?

This actually happened. Last week, my sister’s friend who owns a nail painting store (??) was visited by an inspector. Not finding anything of real infractions, she noticed one of customers drinking Starbucks coffee. Immediately, she began writing a summons for $800! When everyone protested, an explanation was given: Open containers of drinks are not allowed due to presence of chemical material in the store. Well, the customer pointed to a small slit on the top, saying this is not an open cup. Too bad, the ticket was already written, can’t unwrite it. The owner gets a $800 ticket.

I know NYC needs revenue, but this is getting outrageous. Yesterday, I was given a $110 ticket for having earphones in my ears. I was supposed to have only one earphone on. OK, why are we putting up with Bloomberg and his cronies? He changed the rules so that he may run third time as a mayor. But, why are we taking all these abuses? Like battered women, we let them get away with it. Why?

Have you noticed that they changed the Brownies to look like police man? This confuses many drivers into thinking that it is a police officer who is writing a ticket. It is not! If they are wrong, you must protest. Most of time, they do not care, but you must start taking pictures and record conversations. I am trying to set up a web site to have people upload videos and recordings of abuses. This has to be revealed. We are living in 1940 Germany like state. Fuhrer Bloomberg is giving the marching order and all the cronies are writing tickets like a mad ravenous bunch they are.

Prince Simian 5

Chapter 5 – Buddha’s Gift

As expected, Prince Simian was nothing but a gigantic headache on S’Nim. Not only did he not listen to S’Nim, Prince Simian’s erratic behavior resulted in many human getting hurt. None so serious enough to invoke a retribution from anyone, but each act was worse than the last, S’Nim was lost without any means to deal with the situation. Sometimes, Prince Simian would fly out under guise of finding suitable lodging for the night, and would return three days later, huffing and puffing, all out of breadth, only to see hundreds of humans chasing after him with sharp objects. Things they were shouting at the Prince Simian, were just too horrible for S’Nim to hear, in the end, they all end up running and hiding somewhere until it was safe to continue. Three weeks of repeated chase put S’Nim over the top. “This is it! I can’t go on like this!” declared S’Nim. But, S’Nim knew there was nothing for him to do. Kicking him out of the group would be playing into Simian’s trap. That is why Prince Simian was getting worse, and expected to be dropped like third period history class. Out of desperation, S’Nim starts transmitting SOS to captain Buddha, I mean, praying his chants.

After a while, whole world disappears and S’Nim is sitting on something resembling a cloud. It was white and airy, but they drifted left and right, according to some unknown wind, just like a boat on a windy lake. When S’Nim opened his eyes, a large smiling face of Buddha floated in front of S’Nim. S’Nim immediately bows his head, almost touching the white cloud which was the ground. Softly, out of Buddha’s mouth came a question. “What is troubling you?” For a moment, S’Nim didn’t understand the question, since he wasn’t sure who the giant face belonged to. But, hearing the voice ended his doubt. “Mercy, Buddha, it is the monkey that is troubling me. I am afraid I cannot be any service to you if my assistant harms any living object.” Answered S’Nim. “It’s that bad?” asked Buddha. S’Nim thought for a second if he should answer, but kept his mouth shut. “Then, I will give you a gold headband. This was made specially, so that no magic can release the band. And, your prayer will wither tighten or loosen the headband.” Said the Buddha. S’Nim gave a moment’s thought, and asked “But, I have no way to put on the monkey.” Smiling still, the Buddha had answers for any questions. “Just hide it from the Prince. He will seek it out and his curiosity will put it on.” And with that, the image of smiling Buddha disappeared. In his place was the shining golden headband, made from thick gold wire, it had very attractive curl at each end. S’Nim picked it up carefully from the ground. And it went into S’Nim’s backpack.

After a long, long time of absence, the Prince Simian flew back and was laughing. “Ha-ha-ha, S’Nim, you won’t believe what I did today.” S’Nim ignored. Prince Simian changed his face and screamed “I said, I did something funny today!” But, S’Nim still ignored. Sensing something different, Prince Simian began probing things around his environment. He was getting cautious. All of sudden, he notices something shiny peeking out of S’Nim’s backpack. “What is that?” asked Prince Simian. Playing his game, S’Nim, immediately picks up his backpack and hides the shiny thing from being shown. “It’s none of your business.” Said S’nim. “Ah-so, there is something in there! Let me see it!” demanded Prince Simian. Clutching to his backpack, S’Nim refused. “It has nothing to do with you!” Prince Simian was not exploding with curiosity. He cannot resist finding out what S’Nim was hiding. It was shiny and golden. GOLD! Yes, S’Nim was hiding GOLD from him. This thought put Prince over the top. Immediately, Prince Simian lunged forward and snatched the backpack out of S’Nim’s hand. “Give me my bag!” screamed S’Nim. But, the monkey’s hand was already in the bag, fishing for the object. Smiling, Prince Simian slowly took out the headband. “My, my, what have we here? A gold headband? Why , my dear monk, would you burden yourself with such an obscene object?” said Prince Simian. Studying carefully, the monkey was being mesmerized by its beauty. It was a sheer brilliance that S’Nim said what he said. “What ever you do, do not put it on your head.” And that was all it took to have the monkey put it on. Slowly, Prince Simian placed the headband on his head. Adjusting a little, since it was a perfect fit, Prince was smiling ear to ear.

After a while, Prince Simian was getting tired of this headband thing. He tried to take it off. But it was not coming off. He tried both hands; it still won’t come off. Panicking, Prince Simian start to twist his headband, but it won’t budge. Seeing this futile attempt, S’Nim started his prayer chant. “Namu ami ta bul. Guan saum bo sal.” A screeching sound of Prince Simian’s scream of pain pierced S’Nim’s ears. “Awwww, waaaaa. It’s squeezing my head!” Prince Simian was on the floor, rolling and kicking. After a few minutes, S’Nim began his release prayer chant. “Namu ami ta bul. Guan saum bo sal.” Magically, the headband stopped its painful squeeze. Coming to his senses, Prince Simian realized for the first time, that S’Nim was controlling its behavior. A fire went off in his heart. Prince Simian took out the beam from his ear and lunged toward S’Nim. The beam stick became a large weapon and was flying directly at S’Nim’s heart. S’Nim closed his eyes and started his chant again. “Namu Ami Tabul Guan Sam Bo Sal.” In mid flight, Prince Simian started to scream, turning over his body and ultimately falling on the ground. Both of his paws are on his headband, trying desperately to pull the band our of his head. The futile attempt was nothing more than his way of dealing with events; violence. It never occurred to him that S’Nim ’s mercy might stop this pain! It was at this moment that S’Nim opened his mouth. “Are you willing to behave?” “Yes, yes, yes, just stop this crush.” Screamed Prince Simian. Smiling, S’Nim began his prayer chant, and the effect was immediate. Getting up and dusting himself off, Prince Simian realized that, like his 500 years of incarceration, this was a big, fat, elephant eared, ear-to-ear-grinned Buddha’s ploy. With his face to the ground, Prince Simian kept quite. This is how he accepted unpleasant things; kept quiet about it. S’Nim consoled the batted down Prince. “Simian, Buddha’s mercy will release you from that band on your head. All you have to do is keep your promise and assist me in bringing back few tablets.” Hearing this did not have any effect on the monkey. But, what he was thinking was that if there is no S’Nim, there is no one to recite that stupid chant! He was calculating how he can free himself from this bondage. The thought was very sinister. And, Buddha was seeing right through him. “Let’s go.” Said S’Nim. With that, the party continued toward setting sun on the horizon.

Oracle + SUN = Sore Uncle IBM

In corporate IT, perception matters more than reality. When I was running a clustered SQL 2003 on Dual Xeon ( 4 CPU ) machines, actual throughput and transaction rate of Powerbuilder front app. Far surpassed Oracle 8 running on Sparc Solaris 8 with four CPUs. Now, this was an easy test to perform and prove, but the actual result did not matter. CIO heard good things about the Oracle on SUN, so I had to go with it. Just to show you how much this ignorance cost us, I had to pay Oracle license per CPU. Clustered, so failover CPU had to be paid in advance. My Disaster recovery site needed another clustered solution, so all of sudden, I had to pay four times my full licensing fee! Compared to this, SQL server did not count my failover clustered server. My DR site would never come up unless my main site is down, so I paid very little fee for loading it there. At the end of the day, Oracle solution was ten times the cost of SQL solution, but there was no reasoning it with my CIO.

This is typical of IBM’s way of doing things. They lease things. I remember my company paying thousands of dollars each month for leasing obsolete VSE running on old mainframe. We were running CICS so we had to pay! And I think this is why both Oracle and IBM jumped on SUN’s fire sale. It is not about JAVA! It is not about MySQL! It is the hardware business client list! These are fortune 500 companies that will in effect, lease out any solution if they can get them to use it.

JAVA is important. Write once, run everywhere sounded intoxicating at first. But, with success of AIR, Flash and Silverlight, JAVA is getting less relevant every day. Unless there is a unified OS + JAVA Sandbox platform, it is nothing more than an interpreted platform. It’s life span is questionable. Maybe mobile OS will be their last chance.

MySQL is run by most LAMP – Linux/Apache/MySQL/Php – shops. When I was building out a spam filtering solution, I kept my database in MySQL. It is fast and lightweight. However, it is only recently with version 5 that we began seeing features like triggers and transactions. When it comes to rock solid features like remote procedures and replications, no one will risk his career on MySQL database. It will always be poor-man’s oracle, like in stereo , Hafler system was called poor man’s McIntosh. This is not a revenue generating venture. Service side might bring a few dollars, but, this is nothing more than a bait and switch product that Oracle will use to sell their Oracle database.

To both IBM and Oracle, the idea of SUN SPARC turn key is absurd. Oracle and IBM, both have been selling Oracle 8, 9, 10 on intel and DB2 on x86 for years. With 64 bit OS and i7 CPU, Sparc will never catch up on performance. Besides, development cost of Sparc CPU is prohibitive. SUN saw the writing, and they went x86 for that reason. Therefore, the future is on X86 – 64bit.

What about the Solaris? Open Solaris? Well, the Solaris on Sparc is usable. Solaris on x86 was stillborn. With the new convoluted management system on Solaris 10, Solaris is destined to go open source. Matter of fact, they have! They dropped CDE and went GNOME! OpenSolaris is already out! So, what does SUN have that is worth anything?

Well, believe it or not, their storage is HUGE! Their SAN capable storage is the cream that everyone is after. This is where Oracle can come in and dominate. Oracle can give an enterprise storage solution that does SAN and iSCSI! Throw in a small i7 server running Windows 2010 and Oracle 11 database, you have a system that you can lease. And you can call it a cloud computing and lease out the space to enterprises!

And this is why IBM is sour. They saw an opportunity to become an enterprise storage solution provider. IBM selling their own storage solution never went anywhere. On the mainframe side, Shark storage was over priced, under performing system that was nothing but a stack of SCSI drives. Mainframe – System 36 running VM can carve out Linux slices and it was nice, but leasing it for thousands of dollars every month for a mere terabyte of data storage was too much. Besides, ESCON was useless. It was slower than 10BaseT. 3-4 Meg was all I got! This is why IBM wanted SUN storage.

Was it worth all that Billions of dollars? Only time will tell. I think it is a combination of its client list and its hardware business. Together as a whole, I can see myself paying 9 billion dollars.

New York City Parking Ticket Injustice

It happened again! I received a ticket via mail $115 plus $10 fine for parking on bicycle lane. I went on line to look at the ticket. It was issued to my plate number. It said I was on 116th street bike lane! First of all, I was never on 116th street! Second, the ticket has a wrong color and car type for my vehicle!

I weno online hearing and listed my objections. A few days later, I received a judgement from Bradlee Biller claiming that the defense of wrong color was not enough!. Now, I just wanted to make sure this guy knew how to read. I said that i wasn’t there, and this was made by mistake to my plate! Obviously the person wrote a wrong plate number! But, again, I was denied of my hearing.

I am going to pay my fine and go all the way to supreme court if I have to. This is a total injustice! How can you issue a ticket to someone who wasn’t even there? 

I went online to see the hearing on the web procedure of NYC finance dept. web site. Most reasoning for hearing by web, according to the site, was 

D efective Ticket A ticket is defective when a required element under the law is missing or misdescribed. Defective tickets may be dismissed even if you do not have another defense to a charged violation. Upon requesting a hearing, Finance will review recently issued summonses for these defects and dismiss them automatically. 

I am going to see how far this goes. I am keepding all my materials for Newspaper submission.

Prince Simian 4

Chapter 4 – The Quest

Time has passed. It’s been exactly 500 years, since the incident involving some clever monkey has happened. And, the story can only be found in fairy tales of old, old story tellers. The story has become one of those ‘Believe it or Not’ type of urban legends by now. We all know the story to be true, but 500 years, either changed the story all together, or people refuse to believe it wholesale. Whatever the case may be, the story became a faint memory in most people, except, in one, the Prince Simian. Prince Simian was counting days, hours and minutes, for the past 500 years, so that he may be freed. Every day and every hour has been a pure hell on earth. He tried to use his magic, but was useless. He tried to use his power to break out of the mold, but it was far too strong. It took almost one hundred years of angry shouts and tears, but in the end, acceptance was the only thing to do. Today, as usual, he is doing what he does best; waiting, and waiting, and waiting… However, this is his 500^th year of imprisonment. This means any day can he his last day. Prince Simian hasn’t been sleeping for past three months now. He did not want to miss his only chance of being freed!

Far down south of Ko-Ryo kingdom, now known as Korea, there was a temple that was built new. This temple was built by the king, as a part of gift to his third wife, Min Hae. The temple was built using only the best timber, and only the hardest wood. And soon, became envy of all other temples in kingdom. This temple was big but not huge, very quite, really beautiful and tranquil – serene. This temple had everything a temple can have except, the scriptures of Buddha. Original words of Buddha were carved in stone tablets so that the temple that possess it may print them out in book forms. There are handful of temples in known world with a complete set of the scripture tablets. Each tablet had to be hand carved. And each stone tablet must be carried by hand, back to the temple that received it. Not to mention the amount of tablets that must be created and carried back. You see, this is why so few temples possess a complete volume. It takes over fifty years of carrying back and forth to complete the task. But, most well known temples had, at least a few tablets, to show their practitioners, that they are in process of completing this monumental task. The fact that this temple had no scripture tablet, not a single one, was a sore point among everyone involved. This was a shame , and this is a quest that has to see its completion, no matter what.

Among many monks living in the temple, there was a specially timid monk of about thirty years of age. By and large, most monks are timid creatures. Their aversion against any type of violence molds them certain ways. But, one monk was far beyond others in his fear; his name was S’Nim. ‘S’Nim’ was sort of his name because all monks are called S’Nim by practitioners. But, since he himself used that, S’Nim became his name. No one knows what his birth name is. He himself knows of no other name. He was tall and skinny. It was funny to watch him get scared out of everything. He was constantly living in fear; accidents, animals, diseases, bad luck, you name it. It was pure accident that he was chosen as a monk to travel to India, to receive and bring back a copy of the first two pages of Buddha’s scripture tablets. This normally would be an honor, but to S’Nim, this is a nightmare. Ever since he was told of his task, he has been daydreaming about all kinds of ways he could die, including monsters and demons that are sure to devour him alive. He even named some of these creatures. S’Nim knew there was no way out. He must prepare to sacrifice his life for his faith. S’Nim felt that this was unfair. But, in the end, acceptance of this honor convinced that this was a good thing. So he took the task and left the temple on a skinny donkey, to India.

S’Nim was passing a long and hot desert. It was full of sand and big mounds of rocks. As far as eyes can see, the desert continued. Occasionally, rising out of horizon was large rocks in many shapes and sizes. Each mound was as high as S’Nim’s temple was. Rocks were falling from them, and S’Nim nearly lost his life from falling rocks. Each path was clearly marked by worn out signs on hard surfaces. Many times, S’Nim tried to deviate from the path to avoid getting hit by falling rocks, but the path was there for a good reason; it takes three times longer to go around. Trapped in this worn out path, S’Nim pressed on. Sun was high above his bald head, and was beating down on both S’Nim and his donkey. They have travelled, without rest, all morning. The place they were passing was filled with strange shaped mounds of rocks. Some resembled animals; some resembled fruits. It was one of those rocks that made the noise that stopped S’Nim. It was a faint sound that wind carried. In and out of his ears, S’Nim was having hard time locating its source. S’Nim looked left, right and all the mounds in his front. But, the noise was getting louder. S’Nim was naturally scared. Scared out of his mind, he began shaking like a windy sashi branch. It sounded like a scream that wind was carrying; howling kind of scream. It made S’Nim even more scared. S’Nim immediately closed his eyes and began reciting chants. ‘Na mu ami tabul, guan saem bo sal.’ S’Nim repeated again and again.

After a while, S’Nim made out a word or two from the noise. It was a human! This made S’Nim a bit more confident. S’Nim opened his eyes and began scanning his surroundings. Again, the noise came from the front. Far away in the front, he can see a round shaped mound of rocks, and it the noise was coming from that mound. For a split second or so, S’Nim thought about going back. But, his curiosity got the best of him, and S’Nim began riding toward the source. Besides, the way back was longer than the way ahead. As he got near the source of the noise, the shape of the mound became clearer. It was a shape of a closed fist. It was oddest thing to see, in the middle of desert, a large rock the size of big temple, in a shape of fist! Not only that, there was something squiggling in the middle of the fist! It was a dark head of someone. And it was that head that was making all that noise. All of sudden, S’Nim began laughing out loud. It was just too bizarre to let it pass. All this time, the head was screaming something, but S’Nim was too stunned by this scene to hear. Coming to his senses, S’Nim realized that the head was calling out to him.

 

It was hot, hot, hot mid day sun. As usual, Prince Simian was hoping that today would be the day he is set free. He has waited 500 years for this. Sure, he tried asking every passerby if they were monks. But he knew he had to wait the full terms of his contract to go free. Every year, he would count and count, to make sure he is not skipping over any. One mistake would be truly disastrous. But, finally, this is the year that he gets to go free! So, Prince Simian began harassing everyone passing. But, he quickly learned that angering someone results in throwing rocks at his head and they hurt a lot. There was nothing he could do but beg for information. Soon, he learned to be discreet. Just make sure the person is riding on some donkey like animal. And, make sure he is a monk! So, today, out of midday thirst, he noticed a figure on horizon that resembled a person on horseback. At first, he did not believe his eyes. But, after a while, the figure on horizon was a person riding a donkey. Prince Simian began screaming. “He——e—-e—y Y—oo——–u!” “Heeee—–lp Meeeeeeeee” “Yes you ,my man, I’m talking to you!” “Hey you, the handsome one! Lookie Lookie here!”. Looked like the figure stopped for a long time. But, soon, the figure began moving toward him. Prince Simian wanted to make sure that his presence was known. So, he began screaming and screaming. Non-stop, Prince Simian screamed until the donkey was in front of him.

S’Nim’s laughter was so loud and hilarious, it made Prince Simian mad. “What are you laughing at?” asked Prince Simian fuming and biting his lips. “If I told anyone that there is a talking monkey’s head, poking out of a fist shaped rock, they would call me crazy.” answered S’Nim. True, Prince Simian pictured his head sticking out of a fist and agreed that this just sound crazy. Besides, Prince Simian heard it all before. For five hundred years, he has encountered numerous types of travelers, with varying degree of wits. But, in the end, there was nothing new to Prince Simian. He just needed to find out if this monk is the one Prince Simian was waiting for. “Are you a monk on a way to India?” asked Prince Simian, praying to anyone who would listen that this monk is the one. Suddenly, S’Nim’s face turned whiter than usual. S’Nim was terrified. S’Nim couldn’t even speak. “How.. did.. you…. Know?” Not only this monkey was stuck on a fisted rock, he is a mind reader! S’Nim’s eyes begin to pop out of his head. S’Nim couldn’t figure out what gave him the idea? S’Nim began trembling. Shaking uncontrollably, S’Nim began reciting a chant, over and over again. With his eyes closed. Quickly, S’Nim went into a trance state where he is cut off from the world. This is a method of monks to disconnect from anything worldly, including anything bodily like emotions and pains. Seeing, what was to be his salvation, disappear into a void of trance state, Prince Simian blames his luck. “Awe, this is great! I finally find the monk I’ve been looking for, for five hundred years I remind you, and he bolts into Buddha’s home.” Prince Simian yelled. Even though he was mad outside, inside, he was filled with hopes and joy like he never felt before. This was an odd happening. Prince Simian wasn’t supposed to be soft. He was supposed to be hard and tough. But, for some reason, there were tears streaming down his cheeks. “S’Nim, can you please release me?” said Prince Simian very softly. No answer. “S’Nim, please let me go, please, I was stuck here for 500 years.” Loudly pleaded Prince Simian.

Somehow, that last phrase woke S’Nim up. “500 Years? My, that’s incredible length of time to be incarcerated like that. How did you survive for so long without any food or water? Oh, that must be mercy of Buddha.” Asked and answered S’Nim, all by himself. Hearing all this dialog by S’Nim, Prince Simian started to calculate his own odds of being freed. S’Nim surely sound like trusting monk. Then again, Prince Simian cannot afford to mess up his only chance if this turns out to be the one. Sure, he can come clean and tell him everything, but bringing the big cheese into the picture would only complicate matters. So he decided to play stupid. “I have no idea. I just woke up this way, one morning. In any case, I was told that only you can release me from this prison. Can you please release me? If you do, I will do anything for you. You see, I know a trick or two and I can make your life a whole lot better. A girl? Booze? Maybe a hot boyfriend instead?” winked Prince Simian as he finished his last suggestion. “Dekki, you immoral ape, who do you think I am? I am a monk who’s mission is holy and sacred. You would never understand the devotion I have for spreading Buddha’s grace and mercy on earth.” Preached S’Nim. “Besides, I have no idea how to release you.” Said S’Nim. The only thing Prince Simian heard was that S’Nim did not know how to release Prince Simian. “No, no, no, you got to know how. I waited 500 years for you! And you are telling me that Buddha didn’t tell you how? Go ask him!” screamed Prince Simian. But, as he yelled, he realized that he was making mistakes. Oops, thought Prince Simian. But it was too late. “Why would Buddha know how to release you? Did the great Buddha imprison you?” asked S’Nim. Prince Simian was too tired to think of stories. Feeling the end of the rope, he came clean. “Yes, I was punished for causing accidents. I never meant to do any harm, but I was punished for my mistakes. There, you have the whole story.” Sensing awkwardness in the monkey, S’Nim kept listening quietly. Not wanting to pry anything out of him, S’Nim finally replies with “But, I don’t know how to release anyone.” Now, almost at an explosion point, Prince Simian tries his best to calm himself down. After about thirty seconds of counting to 100, prince Simian pleads “S’Nim, please try to do anything. You must know how to release me. Just recite your favorite chant. Your favorite song. Maybe your favorite poem? Anything please, you’re killing me here.”

The last phrase – killing me here, sent chills through S’Nim’s spine. Strictly forbidden to take any life from living things, monks are well known for their strict adherence. Even in jest, phrase like ‘You’re killing me here’ truly disturbs S’Nim. Finally, S’Nim closed his eyes and began reciting “Namu Ami Tabul, Guan Sam Bo Sal” over and over again. It is a phrase that many recite and its true meaning has been lost. People interpret it as ‘with Buddha’s mercy and grace, heavenly peace rains on earth.’ At first, this futile chant produced no result. Prince Simian began yawning loudly to let S’Nim know it’s not working. But, after about ten minutes of recitation, a faint rumble began shaking the ground. Still in the trance, S’Nim is immune to noises and continues his chant. The shaking gets ever more violent as time passes. It comes to a point where, from high up on the mound, rocks began falling down. Soon, with loud noise, there is split on the main rock that encased prince Simian. And, with an explosion, Prince Simian flew out of the rock that had imprisoned him for 500 years. “I’m Freeeeeeee!” yelled Prince Simian as he flew over the dissolving mound of rocks. Quickly, Prince Simian landed next to S’Nim, and was about to hug and kiss him. S’Nim, immediately pushed the monkey away and began chanting, giving thanks to Buddha. “Let me kiss you on your lips, no let me kiss your butt instead. Whew, S’Nim, I thought you would never figure out how to do this, I mean, you don’t exactly look sharp, you know? Man, can you imagine if you didn’t? Anyway, Thank you so, so, so much. I owe you a big one. Anyway, nice knowing you. Places to go and people to see.” With that, Prince Simian walks backward, away from S’Nim.

Slowly opening his eyes, S’Nim began his turn. “My understanding was that you would assist me in my journey.” This shocked Prince Simian. “How did he come up with that? Did I tell him?” wondered Prince Simian. But, still unsure of Buddha’s intentions and power, Prince Simian plays dumb. “Oh, shoot, Yes, you’re right. I did promise that I would help. I was supposed to help you a while. Sure, I’ll do that.” Out of his mouth came his commitment. What Prince Simian was thinking was that, soon, S’Nim will get sick and tired of Prince Simian, or ,better yet, he can bolt out if it doesn’t work out. Prince Simian smiled as the thought of S’Nim releasing Prince Simian, came to his mind. S’Nim was not sure if this monkey would agree to help, but, since he made the pledge before, there was nothing to lose by asking. “Let’s continue our journey.” tested S’Nim. Surprisingly, Prince Simian began following him! This was unexpected. However, S’Nim did not show any surprise on his face. “Whew” S’Nim exhaled quietly. Now, there was S’Nim on a donkey, and a monkey was following the group. Quietly, without any noise, the group walked toward the sunset. They walked toward India.

Prince Simian 3

Hearing all this, Simian began teasing the crowd. “What would convince all of you that I did get to the bottom?” said Simian. Knowing well in advance that he was going to blow everyone’s mind, he played a little game. “OK, If I remember correctly, I was supposed to bring back something.” The crowd began discussing the rock Simian was referring to. It had a special mark. The crowd spent a fair amount of time discussing among themselves all the details of this rock. When the crowd calmed down a bit, Simian gave a bad news; “Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the rock.” This caused unending roar of curses and shouts that, in the end, sounded like “We knew it! He is a faker” Everyone began taking among themselves about how each knew it was a joke of some kind. But, still smiling , Simian yelled “What if I told you that I learned the magic of sea goddesses?” This, unbelievable tale, started another roar of shouts and curses and laughter.”Magic? What magic? He must be kidding. No I heard there is magic. I can do magic too” everyone had to say something to Simian. Simian patiently waited till it quieted down, and said “If I can prove it to you, will you follow me and worship me as your King?” Hearing this absurd claim, one monkey came forward and said “Sure, We know you went into the waterfall, and somehow, survived. At this point, if you can show us your magic, we will make you our king.” With the crowd where Simian wanted them to be, Simian slowly walked toward the edge of waterfall and raised both arms. “Suri, suri, masuri, bring me my cloud.” chanted Simian knowing well that everyone’s eyes are on him. Simian wanted to make a full production out of his trick. Immediately, two small cloud flew toward Simian, and Simian jumped onto the cloud. Each small cloud was under each foot of Simian and was carrying him into the sky! Simian flew a big circle around the cliff and flew toward the monkeys standing and watching in awe. To make his production a little bit dramatic, Simian went and came out of the mist. When he reached the edge, he jumped and landed on his feet. Seeing all of this amazing trick, all the monkeys were frozen solid; no eyes were blinked. They didn’t know what to make of this turn of event. Everyone was racking his brain to figure out what just happened. Sure, Simian claimed his learning magic, but actually seeing this cloud trick was just too much for small monkey brain to handle. But, as if some enlightenment came to them, one by one, each knelt down in front of Simian and said “My King”. Soon, all of monkeys were on their knees with their forehead pressed against the ground. Seeing all this, Simian smiled, and claimed “I am your king. However, I am a little too young to be called a King or anything. So, I am calling myself a Prince, Prince Simian!” All of monkeys on their knees heard this and began chanting “Prince Simian, Prince Simian” And that’s how the name Prince Simian was created.

 

Chapter 2 – Trouble Begins.

Prince Simian was very happy, living his monkey life in the forest, for a long, long time. It might have been six months or six years. But, eventually, Prince Simian got bored of his monkey life, even with his newly acquired skills. There were only so many ways to impress other monkeys with flying tricks. There were only so many ways you can amuse yourself changing rabbits into snakes. Just like before the event, Prince Simian was simply bored out of his mind. After a few seasons of life as a magic practitioner, there was absolutely nothing new to do. So, what does a monkey with magic skills to do for fun?

The “Heavenly Garden” was where all the goddesses gathered to feast and play chess against each other. It was in the sky above tallest mountains, and white cloud was supporting the entire garden. Since it was above the cloud, it was hidden from mortals. And it was the happening place to be among goddesses. This made this joint extremely popular. The place was packed with goddesses throwing parties all the time. However, there was one part of the garden, forbidden for entering. In the middle was a peach tree and was forbidden. It is a special peach that bears fruit once every 100 years. Each one of peach, when eaten, adds 500 years to one’s life. So, once every 100 years, all the goddesses gather together and feast on ripe peaches. This event was the highlight of Heavenly Gate for which whole immortal world wants invitation for. But, on one sunny day, about a week before the feast, Prince Simian decided to pay a visit to the garden, more specifically the forbidden part. Prince Simian goes straight to the tree and start devouring peaches. Guards who were placed in front of the tree were just stunned by what was happening before their eyes. They simply refused to believe it was happening. But, Simian did not waste any time devouring, first all the ripe ones, and then every single one of unripe ones. As he finishes one, adding 500 to his counts. With a blink of an eye, all of peaches were eaten. When guards realized what just happened, Prince Simian was sleeping under the tree, suffering from indigestion of unripe peaches. With a feast planned next week, this caused a massive panic among goddesses. Some of old goddesses need this peach to make it to next ripening, which is 100 years away. Failure to eat one can only mean one thing; he won’t be there to enjoy next ripening. When the general of heavenly guard went to question Prince Simian, he was brutally beaten by Prince Simian. Matter of fact, in stopping Prince Simian’s brutal attack on the general, the goddess of Heaven himself was beaten and one leg broken. He is still in crutches. This was not the only thing Prince Simian did.

The Mountain Goddess Golf Club was in the middle of deep forest where no human was allowed to enter. Mountain spirits all congregate at the sacred tree of 10000 years. This sacred tree was big and powerful. All the spirits and goddesses care for this tree. This tree is a symbol of all things pure and sacred. Matter of fact, this tree is what binds all the living things in forest together. The mountain goddess herself lives on the tree. One day, Prince Simian was bored out of his mind. After the peach incident thing, he was laying low in the forest. However, it was out of boredom that Prince Simian began looking for this hot chic called “Mountain Goddess”. When Prince Simian got to the sacred tree, Mountain Goddess was out on a shopping spree. Hearing that she is not available, Prince Simian went ape. He chopped down the 10000 year tree to make a toothpick out of! When Mountain Goddess returned, Prince Simian chased her for five days, asking for a kiss. In the end, the goddess ran into a wall and broke her nose. Seeing her bruised nose, Prince Simian said “I don’t like my bia-chi with a big nose.” And left.

This and numerous other “accidents” by Prince Simian angered everyone. Humans and mortals have no recourse, but goddesses were complaining day and night to Buddha. Soon, there was a long line of goddesses in front of Buddha, all waiting to complaint about Prince Simian and ask for justice. Some are still in crutches and others are in wheelchairs. But all are injured. The result was unending line of goddesses, leading them all to Buddha, so that Buddha can do something about the monkey. Patiently, Buddha listens to each one of goddesses’ pleas. They are all looking for some justice; some way of punishing this arrogant monkey that they simply cannot handle. Sure, they all tried to do something, but his magic was way too powerful for any one of them. Even against a group of goddesses, Prince Simian was faster, stronger and more powerful. After what seems to be an eternity, Buddha says that he will talk to the monkey.

 

Chapter 3. The Bet

 

Prince Simian was doing his daily chore of scaring human farmers and fishermen out of their skin. All of sudden, out of nowhere, a huge face appears before Prince Simian. It is a face of ever-smiling Buddha. “What the … Who’re you?” asked Prince Simian. “I am Buddha.” answered Buddha. “Bu who?” asked Prince Simian. “Buddha” answered Buddha. “I heard so much about your pranks. I just wanted to talk to you to see if I can convince you to be more graceful.” Said Buddha. Hearing this, Prince Simian was calculating what his move should be next. “Well, that’s a nice trick, with a huge earlobe and all. Maybe I should play caution here just in case he is real Buddha.” Thought Prince Simian “What do you want from me? I haven’t done anything wrong. It was all accidents.” said Prince Simian. Buddha sensing that Simian was leading into accident arguments, Buddha asks “Well, I hear you are the King of all monkeys in the forest.” “True, I, happened to be the fastest, smartest, and best looking thing ever to walk the forest.” answered Prince Simian. Hearing this, Buddha wanted to squash him, but he was Buddha, so he just smiled. “OK, If you are so great, can you prove to me that you are so great?” asked Buddha. Hearing a challenge, Prince Simian answered immediately “Yes, but what do I get out of it?” “I will give you the second volume of the magic book” This almost popped Prince Simian out of his mind. “Second Volume? What do I have to do? Who do I have to kill?” “No, you just have to go to the end of the world and come back.” Said Buddha. “So, let me get this right. I just have to go to the end of this lousy world and come back and you will give me my magic book?” asked Prince Simian. “Yes” said Buddha. “However, there is a condition.” Added Buddha. “Condition?” Simian asked. “If you lose, you have to work for me.” Hearing this, Simian thought, “Hey, If I lose, I will bolt out of here and that will be that.” Prince Simian answered “Agreed.” And he added “But, If you don’t give me my book, I will make s chop-sui out of your ears.” Buddha just smiled and disappeared.

That’s how Prince Simian began his three days and three nights of flying. Using his magic clouds, one under each foot, he was flying as fast as he could. Soon, he was passing the moon, mars, other planets and milky-way, even. Matter of fact, Prince Simian had no idea of whereabouts, not to mention, how to go back. But, on his third day of travel, he saw a large wall at the end of universe. He flew and flew. As he got near the wall, the enormity of this wall became apparent. “This must be the end of universe.” He thought. It took another half day to reach the bottom of the wall. Looking up, Prince Simian cannot see the end of the wall, nor could he see the end of left, not right. Immediately, he jumped out of his clouds and landed on what appears to be a ground. Thinking for a moment for a memorable thing to do, Prince Simian began peeing on the wall. When finished, he took out a can of spray paint, and began writing “P.S. waz here, big eared baldy” Looking back at this art work, Prince Simian began laughing. “The dumb Buddha, what was he thinking?” yelled Prince Simian. As he calmed down from his happiness, Prince Simian hopped on his clouds. “Now, which way was home?” murmured Prince Simian as he flew away from the wall. All of sudden, a loud booming voice came out of nowhere “Is that all you can do?” The voice was so loud and thunderous, Prince Simian fell out of his clouds. “What, who, show yourself! Who are you?” yelled Prince Simian. Soon, up in the sky appears a huge gigantic face of Buddha, still smiling and with big ears. “I said, is that all you can do?” Realizing who it was, Prince Simian asked “Where are you?” Soon, smiling Buddha’s face began disappearing away from the wall, and into the thin air. A huge rumble of the ground followed. It was like an earthquake. Everything shook. Prince Simian was having a hard time standing up. Soon, the wall began shrinking and after a while, what was the wall became fingers of Buddha. The ground became Buddha’s hand. The spray painted graffiti was still on one of his fingers and Prince Simian, now a tiny figure, was in front of Buddha’s fingers, in his palm. Soon, Buddha’s fingers closed in and became a fist, holding Prince Simian in the middle. With his head sticking out of Buddha’s palm, Prince Simian could not move. He tried his magic spells but none worked. Soon, Prince Simian began screaming and crying. “Let me go, let me go you big fat eared baldy.” But, the grip was tight and not yielding. As Buddha’s face re emerge and speaks, dark space became a rocky mountains and deserts. Buddha’s hand became a large rock in a shape of fist, with Prince Simian’s head sticking out in the middle. A loud voice of Buddha began dictating his terms. “You, arrogant monkey, will spend next 500 years in solitude and reflect on your bad deeds. On your 500^th year, a monk on a donkey will pass here. It is your task to ask for forgiveness and be released. When released, you will help the monk on his journey to India to bring back the stone tablet of my words. You must repent and prepare for the monk.” With that, Buddha disappeared. Crying and screaming, Prince Simian asks for forgiveness but there is no one to hear him scream; he is in desert.

Beware of NYC Traffic Ticket Marathon

FYI: New York City is raising millions of dollars each day from innocent drivers, all in the name of Traffic Summons. This gestapo tactic has gone way too severe that now they don’t even let you know you were ticketed. They use a method of “observation infraction” where ,for example, you were discharging your kids in front of your apartment,  if someone sees this horrible crime, he/she/it will immidiately begin writing your plate number, color, make and type. Once they have that info, they write the ticket at their leasure . You, on the other hand, will receive a fine plus $10 late fee for something you have no idea about.

This has happened to many people including myself. Fortunately, the idiot ( and they are all idiots ) wrote the wrong make for my car, so I was off the $125 hook. Today, I was discharging  someone and saw the small idiot vehicle behind me. I immidiately pulled away. However, I was stopped by a red light signal. The idiot slowly walked towrd my car and dropped $115 double parking summons on my lap.

As a small business person, I know and hear how severe this has become. And I beleive this has to stop. This has to stop because it is wrong way to raise revenue and piss off people. I tell people about how NJ handles tickets and they all want to move. I believe people are going to move away from NYC if this continues.