Pixie Dust For Dummies

So, finally, the other night I finally got to sit down and watch Tangled even though we have had it for our daughter since it was released. It was always on the DVD player in the back of the car and since I am driving, well you know the problem with that.

Anyway, I was wondering, was the hair on her head the only hair that had the magical property to heal and restore? I mean, ah hem, there is hair elsewhere on her body. Has she ever cut that? I would find it odd if she had ever cut arm air. Other hair not so much though.

And if other hair on her body was not magical, then why? What principle made only the hair on her head so special?

The other day I was playing a game of Living Dead in Halo: Reach.

I was last man standing against 11 Zombies. Zombies are all the other players who have already been infected. I am backed into a narrow passage. There are only two ways in. I pick one to defend and in come charging at least seven of the zombies. My shotgun is loaded and ready.

Boom! One zombie down.

Click, click – boom! Two zombies down (double kill)

Click, click – boom! Three zombies down (triple kill)

Click, click – boom! Four zombies down

Fifth man in nails me. Blam! I’m dead.

As I am sitting there, as the camera pans out with the game over, one of the zombies starts doing the leg hump maneuver to imply that he “f’ed” me up. Really though? It took seven of you bum-rushing me to kill me and I took out four of you and you f’ed me up?

Boy, you da man!

Pathetic 13 yr olds.

So, in the movie The Land Before Time, how is it that the dinosaur characters all speak fluent modern English? English as a language has not been around that long and certainly wasn’t around millions of years ago when these creatures roamed the Earth. Shouldn’t they be speaking dinosaur? Then give us the subtitles?

If Tinker Bell had a sister whose talent was cooking really good Mexican food would her name be Taco Bell?

Can God create a mountain so large that He himself cannot move it? The answer is yes. He is all powerful after all. However, being all powerful, the instant the immovable mountain is created God grants himself the power to move it.

George Lucas’ mega franchise of “Star Wars” has always suffered from some serious story problems despite being a great series.  One of the biggest problems however that has plagued the series has been simply one of consistency.  Contradictions and oddities abound when everything is watched as one long saga.

Once again, the lack of consistency bug has struck and it was during Friday night’s airing of the new episode of the Clone War titled “The Citadel”.

In “The Citadel” Anakin Skywalker (who as we all know later becomes Darth Vader) along with Obi-Wan Kenobi and a series of clone troopers are preparing to breach the defenses of an impenetrable Separatist prison to rescue one of their own.  In order to evade detection from the life-form scanners the prison employs, they reprogram some droid troops to pilot the ship and freeze themselves in Carbonite without much of a second thought …

… ok … now consider the exchange between Darth Vader and Lando Calrissian in “The Empire Strikes Back” where they are preparing to put Luke Skywalker into Carbonite so that he can be transported to the Emperor.

Lando: “Lord Vader, we only use this facility for carbon freezing. If you put him in there it might kill him.”
Darth Vader: “I do not want the Emperor’s prize damaged. We will test it on Captain Solo.”

But why?  Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker already knows that carbon freezing works since he personally went through it during the Clone Wars.  Further he and everyone that was frozen at that time survived just fine!  The correct response would have been for Vader to tell Lando that he is well aware that carbon freezing is survivable having gone through it himself!

Gee whiz!  Couldn’t they have come up with some other way of breaching the prison’s defenses that did not make other parts of the story seem just plain odd?

It is possible, I suppose, that Pixie Dust does not carte blanche grant the gift of flight.  Rather that it much be “activated” by a fairy to achieve such a feat.   I previously talked about the bizarre properties of Pixie Dust and also explored why some materials seem unaffected by its flight granting properties.  But in addition to the theory that some types of materials are immune to Pixie Dust’s magic, the theory that Pixie Dust requires activation to grant flight also is possible.

Pixie Dust Activation Theory does need to be explored because if it is more plausible than the concept of anti-Pixie Dust materials then it could easily supplant it as a major theorem or even completely shatter it as a possibility all together.  So another possible explanation for the lack of flight characteristics of certain objects in contact with Pixie Dust other than being made of anti-Pixie Dust materials, such as the fairy’s bag, could certainly be the need for “activation” of the dust itself.  This is a plausible explanation as well since Pixie Dust comes from a tree which itself does not rip up from its own roots and soar into the sky despite being filled to the brim with this magical material.

Example of activation:

Here is a good example of my reason for pondering the “activation” issue.  The mouse at the end of Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure (who is coated in Blue Pixie Dust when this dust poofs into existence and which also grants the power of flight based on evidence in that movie) does not fly even though it is coated in the dust.  But only when another fairy sprinkles additional dust on the mouse can it then fly.

However again the major question to answer here is if activation is required then why doesn’t “activated” Pixie Dust which falls on the ground while being sprinkled cause the dirt or other loose debris it falls on to also fly?  And exactly how, if activation is the mechanism by which Pixie Dust operates to grant the power of flight, does the fairy activate it?  Does the oil of the fairy’s hands act as a catalyst?  Or perhaps maybe there is a rubbing motion that creates the power?

There is also evidence that activation is clearly not required for flight.  In Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure, Tinker Bell accidentally spills dust on the poofy cotton like flowers that she eventually uses for her “balloon” to find the lost treasure.  We can clearly see from that scene that she makes no attempt to activate the dust and it causes the plant matter to begin to fly off into the air.

Right now, the process of activation is unknown and it is possible, I suppose, that there is a combination of both an activation requirement and anti-Pixie Dust materials and the need for a unified theorem.

My daughter has taken an interest in the Secret of Nimh, a movie from back in my childhood. While she was watching it, and this is the first time I have seen the movie in years, I was reminded of a line I always found a little humorous for its double entendre.

The scene is where Jeremy, the crow, flies back to the house to tell the children that the rats are coming to move the house. Jeremy is tied up and the kids are querying him about the whereabouts of their mother. (more…)

Dora the Explorer spends a lot of time searching for things and helping people.  But is she doing more than just helping them for unselfish reasons?  I have become interested in investigating what Dora’s true motives are after watching the episode Dora’s Mixed Up Seasons with my daughter.

In this episode Dora, so we are lead to believe, is just going around in this episode helping misplaced characters return home to their appropriate seasons.  First she helps a snowman on the beach return home to winter.  Then she helps a flower return home to spring.  The flower is in a pot so do not ask me how the hapless flower managed to get on top of a mountain!  Then she helps a pumpkin (named uncreatively “Jack”) return home to Autumn.  And finally she helps a sand crab return home to the beach and summer. (more…)

My daughter has started to take a real interest in the cartoon called Kipper the Dog. Kipper, it seems to me, is awfully … well I guess the right term for it would be mellow. And it is not just Kipper who is “mellow” but all of his friends too. They really don’t seem to get all that excited talking in long, measured accents at all times no mater what the situation. Now, being the proud owner of two dogs myself (an Australian Sheppard named Cisco and a Golden/Chesapeake Bay Retriever named Sampson) I can say that I have never seen a dog as evened out as Kipper in my life. And we see a lot of dogs each time we take these two little whirlwinds to the park believe me you! (more…)