Disney Pixar’s Up is coming out on video on November 10. I saw this with my wife, kids and their grandma and everyone had a great time. Up! is another winner in classic Pixar fashion, with incredible graphics, a fair amount of sentimentality (the first part is a little too maudlin for me) and a lot of good humor. No, it’s not a post-modern wink at popular culture like Dreamworks films like Shrek, but there are some very very funny parts in here that will keep everyone entertained and repeating key lines for weeks afterwards.

If you’ve seen any of the ads, you’ll know this is a key shot from the movie. And it certainly stimulates the imagination. Here are a few fun facts from their publicity agency that might come in handy when your kids quiz you on why they don’t fly away when they get a balloon on their birthday, or how many balloons it would take to lift a small child.

Balloon science:

Have you ever wondered how many helium balloons it would take to lift different objects Up into the air?

• Helium has a lifting force of about 1 gram per liter.
• An average size party balloon is approximately 30cm (one foot) in diameter.
• It can hold approximately 14 liters.
• That’s 14 grams of lift power per balloon.
• Estimate and subtract the weight of the string and the latex balloon.
• Formula: 1 balloon = 10 grams of lift power.

How Many Balloons Would It Take To Lift:

Your Neighbor’s Dog?
A happy Labrador Retriever dog weighs in at about 32 kg (70 lbs). It would take approximately 3200 balloons to lift this furry friend off the ground.

A Bicycle?
The average bicycle weighs approximately 19 kilograms (or 42 lbs). You will need approximately 1,900 balloons
to turn a 2-wheeler into an air-bike.

A Sumo Wrestler?
The average weight of a Sumo wrestler is approximately 148 kg (or 326 lbs). That means it would take about 148,000 balloons to send this guy Up.

A Small House?
This figure can vary in terms of quantity of balloons given the size and scale of the house. Let’s say the house in Disney/Pixar ’s movie Up weighed about 46,000 kg (that’s 101,413 lbs). That means it takes approximately 4,600,000 balloons to send Carl’s home Up and away!

Just in time to help you maximize the few minutes left before Christmas, here are the top 16 holiday movies captured in their most famous scenes.

This is just enough of a dose of some of them to make you fondly remember your first viewing and save you from a trip to the video store. Many of them, in my opinion, are a bit too cloying for re-viewing again now. And for cynics, read today’s excellent article in the New York Times on the sad dismal life of George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life. The writer, Wendell Jamieson, opines that the world would have actually been a better more prosperous place without George, citing his felony theft, upstate New York economic trends, and the dismal conformist life that George in which George is forced to find meaning. If you’re mumbling “bah” around this time of year, this is a fun article to read.

As I mentioned in a previous post, our family enjoyed the short 22 minutes Shrek the Halls for its brevity, slapstick and adult humor, and insight on the real meaning of Christmas (as Donkey says, “It’s not Christmas until somebody cries.”).

But back to the video. You may want to send this one from Grandparents.com on to friends and family.

Merry Merry.

This is amusing, but also makes me think of other funny videos we’ve laughed at with our kids. I’ll post more.

This video is meant to be viral – watch until the end for the serious message about the disappearance of bees. Scientists now think they have figured out the mystery, but do not know how to solve it.

The link at the end takes you to a Haagen Daz site, so important message on bees with a commercial sting if you act.

A tip of the hat to MEGO.com for finding this one.