Fairy Tales and the Extremely Unquestioning People Within Them.

So lately I have been rereading the Grim's Fairy Tales. Possibly due to feeling too much like a peasant. It's kind of weird to read them now, as an adult. You start picking up on all the weird little shit that you never noticed as a kid. Like the fact that the stories will just make all sorts of statements like, “while the nix was at church, the children saw their chance and escaped.”

Like, oh of course nixs go to church. And I'm all like they do? Wait what the fuck is a nix? Then the story is all like, it was a water nix. And I'm all like, oh okay that makes -no more sense, really.

Whatever a nix is apparently they are very pious. Unless it was a satanic church. Which would probably explain why the nix didn't take the children with her. Although when you have captured two children and are making them your unwilling slaves, you might as well just go ahead and take them to the satanic church anyways. I mean your in this deep anyway right? Unless the other nixs will make fun of you. That might be bad.

Anyway I was reading along learning such important lessons as talking goats are assholes, and foxes might be smart, but they will fuck you over big time if given half a chance, when I came to this story: The Juniper Tree.

Now in the Juniper Tree a wife longs for a child 'as red as blood and white as snow' and she wishes so hard she gets pregnant and has the kid and then dies. Because midwives are for non magical births only, apparently. So her husband morns for a while and then remarries. Like you do. So stepmother and him boogie down (off screen of course) and have a girl.

Great. Good for them.

Except step wife realizes at some point that with his son in the picture, her daughter is going to get like nothing when the husband offs it. Which I have to stop here and say is a very good point, considering up to this juncture the women have been locked in towers and tarred and set upon by wild beasts for so much as thinking about, you know, perhaps not doing everything their male overlords have told them to do. I am sure inheriting your own forest shack or whatever would be miles above being stuck in a glass coffin for seven years cause you didn't want to marry the creepy magician.

Unfortunately the stepmother decides the best way to do this is to kill the guys son.

Not what I would have picked, but okay. Alright. Whatever.

She does this by telling him to get an apple out of a chest, and then cutting his head off with the lid. First off I have never heard of an apple chest and also, that had to be one bitchen lid. I mean like how heavy and sharp would that fucker have had to be? Like, making a pie in that house would be taking your life in your own hands.

Then she freaks the fuck out. Because you know, she just murdered her husbands son. Plus, I have beheaded plenty of chickens in my day, and let me assure you there would have been a lot of blood. I mean like a shit ton. I mean like if both Tim Burton and Quentin Tarantino had been directing this fairy tale amounts of blood.

Her solution?

Ha ha I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that it's gonna be fucked up. I know. What you're picturing, that's not fucked up enough. No, no it's not. More fucked up. Closer. Almost.

What she does?

If you guessed bind his neck up with a handkerchief, put the apple in his hand wait till the daughter gets home, tell her to get the apple, ignore her questions about how pale her brother is, and then tell the daughter to box his ears for not giving the apple to her so she does and then his head flies across the room and her own daughter thinks that she is the murderer you'd be right.

Yeah, it's that fucked up.

And when her girl asks WTF they are going to do now, she tells her will make him into puddings. I can think of oh about ten ways she could have handled this better. Because at this point her daughter starts to weep uncontrollably. The text is very clear on this. Weeping bitterly ain't got nothing on this. Which of course the girl child does THE ENTIRE TIME THEY ARE MAKING THE FOOD.

Picture this. Picture you have been out all day at your day job, whatever that is. Cutting trees, hunting, bringing in crops, you are tired so you head home. On your arrival you find your wife has made a shit ton of meat pudding. Like a crap ton. And your daughter is crying so hard she can't even speak. And your son in nowhere to be found.

So you're like where is my son. And your wife is all like, he is um, ah, visiting his uncle. And you're all like he left? Uh huh. Without even saying goodbye to me? And your wife is all like, have some pudding?

So you, your wife, and your daughter who is crying so hard I imagine all this conversation took place in yells over the sound of her sobbing, sit down to dinner.

Would eat you eat that fucking pudding?

I wouldn't.

And what do you think he did?

Yep.

Uh huh.

At that point I had to stop reading. Like, do you posses no analytical skills whatsoever? Like your whole house probably smells of puddings and blood, your wife (whom I picture as having an insane smile on her face) has just baked like a shit ton of fucking meat, and your daughter is crying so hard it hurts, AND your son is mysteriously missing, WTF are you thinking has just happened?

Does your wife normally do this? Just, bake a shit ton like that? In one day? With all this meat you have no idea how she afforded? Do you think that your daughter is just crying because she broke a nail?

Look, I know I have been reading through stories about talking drops of blood, glass mountains, a castle with servants who are cats, and talking magic fish who live at the bottom of wells, and girls that have gold fall out of their mouths when they speak, but this is where it all fell apart for me.

I'm not sure what that says about me, but I can tell you that if Scott ever starts making a shit ton of meat pies and I can't find any of the cats, I'm going to order a goddamned pizza. 

 

Internet Through The Phone and my PC Hates Change.

So you may recall the part of me getting a new phone was that Scott wanted to move to getting internet through the phone company like this is the future or someshit. So after we got home from the store we took the router and hooked it up and Scott was able to glory in the lighting fast (comparatively) phone router internet setup and my laptop was all like I HAVE FOUND THE PROMISE LAND LET US UPDATE EVERYTHING. However to get the internet on my cranky old desktop PC we would need to install a wireless card.

Cue ominous music.

Turns out my dads cranky old desktop PC had a wireless card in it. A card that Scott removed and out into my PC. Cause there is no way that could ever go wrong. Then he is all like, let me get the disk and then I freak out about the number of dust bunnies in my tower. They had a city. A dust bunny utopia, if you will. So about the point I am going crazy with the vacuum Scott walks back in and announces he couldn't find the disk.

And I'm all like, my dad kept floppy disks from the seventies in his desk and he doesn't have the CD to his wireless card?

An Scott's all like, no. But it's okay, because we can just download the software from the internet.

Which was about like him saying, it's okay, we'll just build another car from parts in the garage.

First off the wireless card sites was about as easy to navigate as a minotaurs maze, and kept telling my brand of wireless card didn't exist even though it totally did. Then when we did the get the right files my PC refused to allow them to be added manually. In the end I had to restart and use the found new hardware wizard to add the files by gently pointing it to the right folder before it could get all judgey with me.

Then we finally got it to the point where the drivers were installed and working only to discover that it couldn't find any networks. Well fuck.

So then we did arcane things and windows told us it was all our fault and it began to get really passive aggressive and it was like, getting kinda late so I was just like, why don't we just get a USB wireless adapter from the Wal-mart tomorrow? And Scott was all like, okay, even though we have to get in a bunch of firewood tomorrow because winter is a thing that happens around these parts.

So then the next morning we awoke and made the great pilgrimage to the cooperate demon that is Wal-mart and bought the motherfucking USB things and drove home. Then Scott was like, I am going out to get things ready for firewood getting and I was all like, cool let me just install this and I'll be right out.

And I by let me just install this I meant a four hour triathlon from hell.

First off, I put the disk in like it says and it gets going and sounds like it's having some sort of CD seizure in there but I don't want to mess with it but no knew dialog boxes are coming up and I'm getting kinda freaked out but I let it go and get a cup of tea.

Upon my return I click through a few things about how they are totally not collecting your information for nefarious purposes but hey they totally are and I don't need a newsletter or a tool bar and no you can't have my email address and then it tells me to plug in the USB and then it can't find the damn thing. So then I tired another port. Then another one. Then a few more. Then I debated the likelihood of all the USB ports on my machine being bad a once.

I decided against it.

Outside I could hear the happy sounds of Scott loading tools into the truck. I shot a hunted look at the clock and opened my laptop and started searching. After a bit of hunting around forums I found that this was a very common problem and there was only one real solution.

I was going to have to delete my third party non widows firewall.

It was the only way.

At that point I calmly walked outside and told Scott this was going to take longer then I thought. He nodded grimly and started up the truck. I was on my own now.

What followed was not just me uninstalling my firewall, guiding the program to the device, spending something like thirty minutes restarting and manually adding networks and clicking and unclicking boxes before at last, at long last I had the wireless network appear on my screen.

And it was slower then shit.

Like turtles with leg injures slow.

What followed was me using the extend cable to move the USB as close to the router as possible before I got something resembling internet. Of course this meant that every point of my failure was marked by a little Velcro square but whatever I am building a house. I looked at clock again, felt a pang and thought I'll just reinstall the firewall before going out.

Which retrospectively was a lie.

For whatever reason, the firewall refused to reinstall. I tried everything. I tried old versions. I tried new versions. I tried running a cleaner to do a clean remove and then restarted and reinstalled. I tried sacrificing my lunch to the great Computer God. I tried swearing a whole shit ton of a lot.

Finally I switched on windows shittastic firewall, went outside and helped Scott stack firewood for the rest of the afternoon. I stacked firewood like each piece had a personal vendetta against me. I stacked firewood like it was a monster dead set against my PC working.

I was kinda pissed off is what I am saying.

So then we get done and I go back inside and I try to download another firewall but the one I wanted the reviews are horrible and then I was like I'll just download Avast because that has a firewall. Only to download the damn thing and find out that there is no firewall on the free version of Avast and then I said whatever motherfucker and then I went to make Scott go hold me and decided I should probably take a shower because wood bits kept falling out of my shirt and pants pockets.

So then I got into the shower and discovered we were out of soap.

In the entire house.

So then I had to throw a towel over myself and walk into the living room dripping all over everything and Scott had to bring me the soap from the kitchen sink. And then I contemplated going to bed right then so my shitty ass day would be over and then I dropped a bowl on my own foot trying to eat ice cream and found a pimple right on the edge of my lip and then I really did just go damn bed.

Some days, man, it's all you can do.

Well, besides eat ice cream.