Movie Review, Pac-Man Crochet, and Doctor Who Excitement

Today's post comes to you in three parts. Part one: Ender's Game review.

Jason and I went to see Ender's Game on Sunday. We had both read the book in the past, though Jason admitted he only remembered the basic plot. I remembered more of the details.

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin is a teenage boy who is part of a military program to fight a war against the Formics, ant-like aliens who invaded Earth half a century ago. The Formics nearly wiped out the human race before a sound defeat that sent them back to their home planet. Ender is sent to the elite outer space Battle School to become a great military leader.

As a book-to-film translation, it works very well. The biggest change they made was to condense the story time-wise. Ender is older when he leaves for Battle School, and the entire course of events takes place over no more than a year or two. In the book, Ender is seven or eight when they ship him into space and the book takes place over four or five years. There are many reasons for making Ender older, and overall I think it makes the movie better.

I do think they could have either made the movie longer (it clocks in at just under two hours) or even broken it into two parts. The subplot between Ender's brother and sister, Peter and Valentine, is cut out entirely even though it is a significant part of the book. The other big omission, and my biggest disappointment with the film, was the most of the zero-G battles were cut out. We get to see a few scenes, and they look fantastic. I definitely would have wanted to see more, especially since they take up a good portion of the book as well.

Overall, I would give Ender's Game 4/5 stars.

Part two: My latest crochet project!

I found both of the patterns on Ravelry. The ghosts were originally a Halloween decoration in white. In addition to the color change, I eliminated the original bead eyes and the finishing mouth stitches. I attached the googly eyes with my trusty hot glue gun. Pac-Man was originally all in yellow, but I thought he would look better with a black mouth. This was a quick, easy project. The ghosts take about half an hour, and Pac-Man was probably an hour start to finish. You can find the (free!) ghost pattern here. If you're on Ravelry, you can find the (free!) Pac-Man pattern here.

Part three: OMG THE DOCTOR WHO 50TH ANNIVERSARY IS A WEEK AWAY!!!1!

The Day of the Doctor is coming, people. Next Saturday. And I am so. Flippin. Excited.

Can you tell?

Jason and I have plans to see it with the Chicago Nerd Social Club. They're having a meet-up for lunch and viewing. This is great, because we don't have cable. We don't even have an antenna--our big-screen TV is used exclusively for DVDs, video games, and Netflix. Of course, it makes no sense to get a cable subscription just for one show.

So since we're going to be out and about, in the lovely Chicago winter, I decided that I needed to knit myself a TARDIS hat. I started on it last night and I will post pics when it's all done!

All Hail Svengoolie! 21-Chicken Salute!

I just found out over the weekend that Chicago's local horror host is going national. His name is Svengoolie, and he is played by Rich Koz. Sven has been a staple of the Chicago airwaves for over 30 years. His show currently airs on WCIU, which is a local Chicago station. But that station is owned by the same guy who owns Me-TV, which became an independent national station this past December. It took a bit longer to work out how to switch Svengoolie over, probably because they needed to work out the movie rights. It sounds like some exciting stuff is coming our way.

Here are ten things you should know about Svengoolie.
1. At the beginning and ending of each show, he is pelted with rubber chickens.
2. He makes lots of jokes about Chicago suburb Berwyn (BERRRRWYNNN!) because the name sounds funny, and because of the annual Berwyn mushroom parade.
3. He does not live, nor has he lived, in Berwyn.
4. He writes all of his own material and does all of the voices in his skits.
5. He pre-dates MST3K.
6. Rich Koz is not the original Svengoolie. That was Jerry G. Bishop, from 1970 to 1973, on WFLD.
7. Koz took over as "Son of Svengoolie" from 1979 to 1986 on the same station.
8. When WCIU started in 1995, Koz was brought back. He got permission from Bishop to become Svengoolie (rather than "Son of").
9. He writes all of the lyrics for the song parodies that appear in every show. The music is arranged by Doug Scharf, also known as "Doug Graves."
10. His show goes national this Saturday, April second! Thank goodness it runs on Saturday. If it was Friday night I would be worried it was an elaborate April Fool's prank.

I have actually gotten to meet Sven no less than three times, including once when I actually got to go on the set! Our next-door neighbor is a musician and long-time friend of Doug Scharf. So Doug took my brother and me to a taping of the show. It was incredibly cool. Rich is such a nice guy, and just as funny in person as he is on-screen (and yes, I mean that as a compliment!). He was at C2E2, only two tables away from the line for Eliza Dushku. Here he is in the background:

That's him with the top hat and eye makeup.

Jason and I met him last year at Cyphan. Here he is with the two of us (and the rubber chicken we had him sign).


Congratulations again to Svengoolie! May he rule the airwaves for many years to come.