the original version to popular fairytales

i found this really good article on fairy tales. all credit goes to the orginal author so have a good read like i did.

written by stacy - orginal post here.

You might have noticed from an earlier post that I’m a bit of a Disney buff. This is kind of out of character for me, to be honest, because I’m not a huge fan of happily ever after. I like movie endings that are unexpected. After doing a little research, though, I realized that maybe fairy tales and I are a perfect match: those Disney endings where the prince and the princess end up blissfully married don’t really happen in the original stories. To make sure kids go home happy, not horrified, Disney usually has to alter the endings. Read on for the original endings to a couple of Disney classics (and some more obscure tales).

1. Cinderella

Don’t break out your violins for this gal just yet. All that cruelty poor Cinderella endured at the hands of her overbearing stepmother might have been well deserved. In the oldest versions of the story, the slightly more sinister Cinderella actually kills her first stepmother so her father will marry the housekeeper instead. Guess she wasn’t banking on the housekeeper’s six daughters moving in or that never-ending chore list.

2. Sleeping Beauty

In the original version of the tale, it’s not the kiss of a handsome prince that wakes Sleeping Beauty, but the nudging of her newborn twins. That’s right. While unconscious, the princess is impregnated by a monarch and wakes up to find out she’s a mom twice over. Then, in true Ricki Lake form, Sleeping Beauty’s “baby’s daddy” triumphantly returns and promises to send for her and the kids later, conveniently forgetting to mention that he’s married. When the trio is eventually brought to the palace, his wife tries to kill them all, but is thwarted by the king. In the end, Sleeping Beauty gets to marry the guy who violated her, and they all live happily ever after.

3. Snow White

At the end of the original German version penned by the brothers Grimm, the wicked queen is fatally punished for trying to kill Snow White. It’s the method she is punished by that is so strange - she is made to dance wearing a pair of red-hot iron shoes until she falls over dead.

4. The Little Mermaid

You’re likely familiar with the Disney version of the Little Mermaid story, in which Ariel and her sassy crab friend, Sebastian, overcome the wicked sea witch, and Ariel swims off to marry the man of her dreams. In Hans Christian Andersen’s original tale, however, the title character can only come on land to be with the handsome prince if she drinks a potion that makes it feel like she is walking on knives at all times. She does, and you would expect her selfless act to end with the two of them getting married. Nope. The prince marries a different woman, and the Little Mermaid throws herself into the sea, where her body dissolves into seam foam.

Now here are four more fairy tales you might not be familiar with, but you might have trouble forgetting.

1. The King Who Wished to Marry His Daughter
What It’s Like: Cinderella, with an incestuous twist

The King’s wife dies and he swears he will never marry again unless he finds a woman who fits perfectly into his dead Queen’s clothes. Guess what? His daughter does! So he insists on marrying her. Ew. Understandably, she has a problem with this and tries to figure out how to avoid wedding dear old dad. She says she won’t marry him until she gets a trunk that locks from outside and inside and can travel over land and sea. He gets it, but she says she has to make sure the chest works. To prove it, he locks her inside and floats her in the sea. Her plan works: she just keeps floating until she reaches another shore. So she escapes marrying her dad, but ends up working as a scullery maid in another land? from here you can follow the Cinderella story. She meets a prince, leaves her shoe behind, he goes around trying to see who it belongs to. The End.

2. The Lost Childen
What It’s Like: Hansel & Gretel meets Saw 2

This French fairy tale starts out just like Hansel & Gretel. A brother and sister get lost in the woods and find themselves trapped in cages, getting plumped up to be eaten. Only it’s not a wicked witch, it’s the Devil and his wife. The Devil makes a sawhorse for the little boy to bleed to death on (seriously!) and then goes for a walk, telling the girl to get her brother situated on the sawhorse before he returned. The siblings pretend to be confused and ask the Devil’s wife to demonstrate how the boy should lay on the sawhorse; when she shows them they tie her to it and slit her throat. They steal all of the Devil’s money and escape in his carriage. He chases after them once he discovers what they’ve done, but he dies in the process. Yikes.

3. The Juniper Tree
What It’s Like: Every stepchild’s worst nightmare

Cannibalism, murder, decapitation? freakiness abounds left and right in this weird Grimm story. A widower gets remarried, but the second wife loathes the son he had with his first wife because she wants her daughter to inherit the family riches. So she offers the little boy an apple from inside a chest. When he leans over to get it, she slams the lid down on him and chops his head off. Note: if you’re trying to convince your child to eat more fruits and veggies, do not tell them this story. Well, the woman doesn’t want anyone to know that she killed the boy, so she puts his head back on and wraps a handkerchief around his neck to hide the fact that it’s no longer attached. Her daughter ends up knocking his head off and getting blamed for his death. To hide what happened, they chop up the body and make him into pudding, which they feed to his poor father. Eventually the boy is reincarnated as a bird and he drops a stone on his stepmother’s head, which kills her and brings him back to life.

4. Penta of the Chopped-off Hands
What It’s Like: Um?you tell us

These old fairy tales sure do enjoy a healthy dose of incest. In this Italian tale, the king’s wife dies and he falls in love with Penta? his sister. She tries to make him fall out of love with her by chopping off her hands. The king is pretty upset by this; he has her locked in a chest and thrown out to sea. A fisherman tries to save her, but Penta is so beautiful that his jealous wife has her thrown back out to sea. Luckily, Penta is rescued by a king (who isn’t her brother). They get married and have a baby, but the baby is born while the king is away at sea. Penta tries to send the king the good news of the baby, but the jealous fisherman’s wife intercepts the message and changes it to say that Penta gave birth to a puppy. A puppy?! The evil wife then constructs another fake message, this time from the king to his servants, and says that Penta and her baby should be burned alive. OK, long story short: the king figures out what the jealous wife is up to and has her burned. Penta and the king live happily ever after. I can’t really figure out what the moral of this tale is. Chopping hands off? Giving birth to a dog? I just don’t get it. Help me out here, people.

10 technology predictions that was dead wrong

many apologies for the 2 months disappearance. so, let's get to it. one of my most favourite topics of all - technology. i love technology and i love how we're advancing at an exponential rate. it's a good time to be alive and enjoy the wonderful things we human beings have created.

it's amazing to me how people could live without the things we have now. i know that there are some new technology that we think that are useless and you'd think no one would ever use it. which brings me to the main topic. the people of the past... they had the same feeling. and even some of the brilliant minds were so confident with their thought on the technology of the past. but they were so wrong. so dead wrong. so read on.

1

let's start with something recent. the computer has been an important part of our lives. it consumes us and i personally have never gone a day without turning on my computer. but in 1977, Ken Olson (chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp) said, "there's no reason anyone would want a computer in their homes." so dead wrong.

2

“To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth - all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances.” — Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, in 1926. he was proven very wrong 5 years later.

3

“There will never be a bigger plane built.” — A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people. thank goodness he was wrong.. imagine being cramped in with 9 other people. it'll be fun though if you were flying with your large family. a plane to yourselves. ':)

4

“The cinema is little more than a fad. It’s canned drama. What audiences really want to see is flesh and blood on the stage.” -– Charlie Chaplin, actor, producer, director, and studio founder, 1916. ironic that he even said that since cinema made him famous.

5

“The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty - a fad.” — The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer, Horace Rackham, not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903. one word - haha!

6

“How, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I pray you, excuse me, I have not the time to listen to such nonsense.” — Napoleon Bonaparte, when told of Robert Fulton’s steamboat, 1800s. hmmm maybe if he'd listen to the guy, he'd won the war.

7

“[Television] won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” — Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946. a foolish foolish man.

8

“Dear Mr. President: The canal system of this country is being threatened by a new form of transportation known as ‘railroads’ … As you may well know, Mr. President, ‘railroad’ carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by ‘engines’ which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed.” — Martin Van Buren, Governor of New York, 1830(?). so freakin' funny...

9

“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” — A memo at Western Union, 1878 (or 1876). someone give him a Nokia.

10
and finally to the most recent one.. one of the richest man in the world today who was so bold to even predict this. but most funny of all it was about what he does best. why make it since i think it'll hurt himself?

“We will never make a 32 bit operating system.” — Bill Gates

thanks for the 64 bit operating system Mr. Gates. you really scared us there for a second.

so people, don't judge a new technology so hastily. it might come handy one day.
hope you had a good laugh everyone!

till next time.

people prefer internet over sex

Intel came up with a novel way to show how important the Internet and computing have become in the lives of Americans. In conjunction with Harris Interactive, the company conducted a survey of adults in the United States under the prosaic-enough banner “Internet Reliance in Today’s Economy.” But the first “key finding” from the study is a little more attention-grabbing. According to the study, 46 percent of women and 30 percent of men would opt to forgo sex for two weeks instead of giving up access to their precious Internet for the same period. More broadly, those surveyed said access to the Internet ranked highest among the discretionary spending items they could not live without. Cable television, dining out, shopping for clothes and gym memberships followed in declining importance.

Along similar lines, 61 percent of the women surveyed said they would rather go without TV for two weeks than lose access to the Internet for one week. Using the data as a means of pitching products fueled by Intel chips, the company said: “The survey revealed that 65 percent of adults feel they cannot live without Internet access, and even more — 71 percent — responded that it is important or very important to have Internet-enabled devices, such as laptops, netbooks and mobile Internet devices that can provide them with real-time updates on important issues including the state of the economy.” Harris Interactive polled 2,119 adults on Intel’s behalf.

source: NY Times

maybe i should stop blogging

after a couple of months being away from the blogasphere, i am back! but just to say hello. not really a worthy post to read. no random stuff on my mind to share. i guess, i'll share what i've been up to.

• been studying (not really) for my re-sit exam which, by the looks of it will be in January hopefully.
• went to a Peterpan (the indonesian band) in London in September. they were awesome by the way and we were in front row!
• with a lot of free time on my hands, i've been going around the attractions in london.
• going to visit ali tomorrow in kent for their raya celebration with the malaysians. that should be awesome.
• went on a few shopping sessions, which i hardly do.
  

i can't think of anything else at the moment.. other than i'm having the time of my life here! ':) if i do go back to brunei in january, that'll make it a whole year being away! just a random thought that i just realised. cool. can't say i really miss home other than my family.

anyway, i might come back with something to share. but don't hold your breath people. the thing about being in london is that there's always something to do or see. social life up, online geekiness down down down.

laters

be back in a giff!

on a break from blogging indefinitely.

reasons:

• need to re-sit and exam
• internet connection not easily available

sorry!