Damn, did I miss the lunar eclipse?

ongoing right now

http://www.businessinsider.com/penumbral-lunar-eclipse-october-2013-2013-10

Cats respect no keyboard or person. But hey they can be killer when hitting the right keys in LoL.

I worked til 940 and I'm back at work at 4:30am. I have no friday night sadly :(

At least your wife isn't around.

It had already ended more than 3 hours before dirge posted the link above.

Laser pointer...cat/keyboard problem solved. Hours of drunken fun for you, dirge.

I have a midterm to write--Chaucer's alright, but damn you, Piers Plowman...I'm sure in your own right you're OK, but next to Chaucer you're a HUGE bore, and all the other topics were way juicier, why'd I have to get saddled with you?--and a TON of articles to write for crap pay...so no Friday night either.

On the bright side, I can watch the Ducks (leading 1-0 on a Selanne goal, woo!) and Dodgers (dead, losing 9-0 to the Cardinals...wanted them to lose in the World Series, but whatever) so at least there's that.

Firepit, lumber scraps, cigar and scotch. Doesn't get much better when the wife's away. She manages to harsh my evening when I try that with her around though.

Maybe you should move on to Piers Anthony <winces at impending tirade...>

Actually, I loved the Incarnations of Immortality. It was a great series. But only two weeks till Ender's Game hits the theater!

Actually, I like Piers Anthony. I liked the "Adept" series where the guy crosses between worlds of magic and science. I just can't imagine obi having anything but disdain for Anthony...you know, because he just write stories to amuse, as opposed to pretending to have deep meaning, blah blah blah.

I'm a little worried about "Ender's Game". Loved the book, and I fear they won't capture it right....hope I'm wrong. Already in the advertising I see stuff that is clearly not in the book, and that disappoints...

But it is typical for any movie like that.. sadly. Even the Golden Compass was slightly different then the book, but it's been the best that I can remember in movies in the last decade.

The movie is supposedly blending in Ender's Shadow and possibly Ender in Exile as well. It is most definitely more than just the first book so I suspect we are seeing some of the extra stuff.

But as long as they don't have Ender realizing until after the final destruction of the Formics that he wasn't just playing a game, I can probably handle some variation if it is within reason and sticks to the feel of Orson Scott Card's writing.

And despite some variances (like Arwen, not Glorfindel, carrying Frodo to Rivendell and the Elves, not Rangers, at Helm's Deep and no Tom Bombadil anywhere to be found), the Lord of the Rings trilogy *felt* true to the books. In fact, my only lament was that the hobbits didn't get to take on Saruman in the Shire and he fell and died from the tower instead of escaping to go extract vengeance on the hobbits' loved ones.

@Draug Which books were you reading? There were a lot of liberties taken with the LotR story in the movies.

Yes, there were but the only truly egregious one was removing the scouring of the shire. Every other one was done to either eliminate characters incidental to the plot or to make it more accessible to the non-Tolkien literate viewer.

Now the Hobbit is an entirely different matter. PJ has totally screwed it up making a character who was dead throughout the entire series be the antagonist instead of his son and making him be the antagonist for the entire series, not just at the very end.

Sorry Draug but they messed up the Battle of Helms Deep so very badly.

@Draug - Well I was tryingto not reveal the spoiler -- but the impression I get from the trailers is that Ender is away he is fighting the battle. So this is either a misdirection in the trailers and Ender does not know, in which case it is *still* bad because as a reader *I* didn't know either...so going in to the movie knowing there is a pending space battle ruins it in a sense - the story is the story of a boy struggling in school....right until the end...but by the movie trailer, you know it will be a movie about space battles. So I hate the trailers.

@CF - But it was there, nonetheless. I can live with modifications as long as they "feel" right. Movies are made for the masses, not the diehard fan geeks like you and me.

@krells - See above... And think about this. The trailer is meant to pull in am audience. Audiences today don't want to be surprised, or at least that is what marketing departments think at the studios. So if you don't want a movie or TV show ruined, don't watch commercials. But regardless, you did already know, having read the book. So the marketing folks sell it by showing off the incredible effects. If they didn't and no one but the fan geeks came, the movie wouldn't get made or it wouldn't live up to expectations. So we accept the "spoilers" that don't really spoil anything for those of us in the know.

As far as how it is presented, one of the trailers show Mazor and Hyrem talking and arguing about whether they should tell Ender or not. That's why I have high hopes that it will come as a shock to Ender when he finds out after the fact and not have him going into the final battle knowing it is for real.