I do understand that my paranoia is unnecessary. Still I'm sure most people who own a a webcam understand it. I actually don't know about other people but when I bought a webcam to talk with forum buddies from across the world, I also developed a habit of always checking if it's switched on. I even got a webcam with a plastic slider that physically covers the camera, so that I can safely keep it closed most of the time. Kinect doesn't have such a slider. I guess Microsoft itself is to blame for the paranoia. Xbox Kinect came with a "free game" that had a habit of making surprise photos of the player. I was really surprised the first time it showed me a picture of my living room and in the middle of living room I was jumping. I was wearing very casual clothes and it was a really bad picture. Ever since then I try to look nice in front of Kinect because I never know when it might start making pictures. Basically it makes me really self-concious whenever I notice that Siiri has accidentally switched on Xbox and the room or myself look messy.
This absurd paranoia wouldn't be helped one bit if the people on the TV screen in our living room were actual people who could really see my character walking around. And I really would feel uneasy about XBox Live Gold membership which would allow video conversations with my Windows Live Messenger contacts. Even if I would never use it, Siiri accidentally might.
Actually that's not what I planned to write about. There's another issue that has been on my mind. Many issues really. I have too much time to ponder dumb thoughts. Anyway... There's a fairy tale that's bugging me. Me and Erkki bought a fairy tale book titled, "Fairy Tales for Girls". The entire idea of such a book is annoyingly sexist, but it was the only fairy tale book with so many pictures and so many good classic fairy tales that we still didn't have. Apparently Three Bears is well suited for girls, as well as Little Red Riding Hood, Three Pigs and many other Siiri's favorites. There are a couple of novel fairy tales that I certainly didn't hear when I was a little girl, and a good thing that is. The novel fairy tales lack any logic, thus making them perfect for those young future women (makes sense in the twisted mind of a sexist publisher who would publish such a book in the first place). My favorite is a fairy tale called the Porcelain Pony.
Once upon a time there was a little girl living with her father. A strange lady showed up and introduced herself as her aunt who has come to take care of her. The aunt moved in but she was very mean to the girl. One night the father disappeared. The aunt made the girl work a lot and treated her badly and one day when the girl was out grocery shopping for the woman, she found a porcelain pony on a shelf in the store. The shopkeeper had never seen it before and told the girl to keep it. She took it home and hid it under her pillow. The porcelain pony turned into a real live pony at night. They suddenly found themselves outside together and the pony told the girl that he's there to help her father who is locked up in a tower several-day journey away on top of an unclimbable mountain. A cannibalistic monster is planning to eat her father in the morning. The only way to save the father would be with the help of a golden flower that grows nearby and gives the ability to fly, unfortunately no one has ever seen the flower. The girl and the pony set out to find the flower. They search the entire night with no success, but as the first rays of the sun become visible, the girl sees a golden glimmer in the snow. In the snow they find the golden flower. The pony eats it and the girl sits on the pony and together they fly to save the girl's father, so that the monster can't eat him once the sun is up. They reach the tower that has three floors. Each floor has a chest full of treasure that the girl is warned not to touch. She finds the father, gets the key off the sleeping monster, releases the father, then accidentally touches a piece of treasure and they escape the tower with the monster chasing them. Girl and the father get back on the pony and fly back home. The aunt, who is really an evil sorceress, is waiting for them and sends a big storm to bring them down. The pony kicks thunder with his hoofs, sending it toward the sorceress. The sorceress gets hit with the lightning and disappears in a flash of light. They safely land in front of their home and suddenly the pony turns into a handsome prince. He tells them that he's a prince whom the sorceress enchanted to be a white pony at night and a porcelain pony during the day. Now the sorceress is dead and the enchantment is broken. He then asks the girl to marry him. The girl says yes and they live happily ever after.
As you can see, the fairy tale has everything - a white pony that flies, golden flower, treasure, a girl saving the day, and a prince who wants to marry. Everything except logic. Where to begin. Perhaps at the point where they all plummet to their early death
Okay, but imagining that it was a 12-hours-porcelain and 12-hours-alive kind of an enchantment. Kind of rare, but lets imagine that the fairy tale didn't have a gloomy ending. The monster is supposed to eat the father in the morning. Usually in fairy tales that means dawn, but okay, that monster indeed was a heavy sleeper. The pony later said that the monster will eat the father when the sun is up. So lets say noon. So they fly several-day's journey in a few hours. If the sun comes up at 8 a.m. and they have four hours until noon, and lets say the "several" is three days journey to that tower (although it might as well be five or six or more). That means they travel 72 hours worth of distance in only 4 hours. I found in a forum that wild west mail courier Pony Express riders averaged about 120 km per day. That's 360 km in 4 hours, or 90 km per hour. WHOOOOOSSSSSHHHHH!! That is quite some speed. Especially if the girl is in her night gown.
That's just the tip of the iceberg (no pun intended). Why could the pony teleport outside and away from under the pillow? The sorceress would have never given him that ability. And if she did, why didn't they just teleport to the tower? How did the pony even know about the father and how did he manage to get to that shelf in the store just in time for the girl to find him? How did he "kick" lightning? What happened to the sorceress's smoking burnt body?
Erkki often warns me not to look for logic where there is none. Perhaps some day I will be wise enough to listen.
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