George Lucas is on Crack.

I waited. I waited -and- waited. I didn't have time to catch Star Wars Episode III in the theatre and I waited for it to come to DVD.

It's at times like this that I wonder: What did Star Wars ever do to Gerge Lucas? Was he secretly jealous of Han Solo for picking up Leia? Jabba mebbe just too oozy and icky? What happened that made Lucas forget so -thoroughly- about what made Star Wars awesome?

He missed it. Completely missed the mark. Friends, telling me "oh, he hit this one on the mark", clearly out of their minds. A CG R2-D2? Why? Because you can? Let's make the Droid Army's voices completely non-threatening, no wait; let's make them totally comedic! Because years of development wouldn't have led to battle-hardedned droids anyway: droid evolution's ultimate goal will be achieved when they all behave like Curly or Moe? -sigh-

Whose idea was the flirky-sounding bird-running creature Obi-Wan rode on in the General Grevious chase?

My take is as follows:
Good-
Many things were well-tied into episodes IV - VI. Obi Wan's mysterious non-death "more powerful that you can imagine" thing with Darth Vader in IV.
Obi-Wan. I mean, he was perfectly played in my opinion. Spot on.
I never realized before that the ultimate protagonist in the series, was R2-D2. Really. I mean, padme'd be dead without him. End of story. Of course, Anakin might then have stuck to his Jedi Teahings... but who cares?

Bad-
R2 as CG with totally unbelievable physics.
R2's mysteriously disappearing thrusters (would've helped in Degoba)
C3PO... hey, he's GOLD now, who knew?
Whiny F*ck&ng Anakin goober fluff-boy pansy. What a mis-casting.
Padme... it's possible she would have been better opposite a better Anakin, but we'll never know.
Wiping the droid's memory solves why 3PO doesn't recognize Luke's Uncle when the sand-salesmen come, but kind of leaves it open to why Luke's Uncle doesn't recognize C3PO. Okay, he is a different color... but still.
Anakin kills kids. REALLY could have done without this in THIS movie. I never wanted STAR WARS to be this dark. We know ANakin is a bad guy, and kills JEDIs. The implication was more than I liked (Anakin turns on light sabre, Padwan boy starts)... but to show the kids... too much.
Far too many "wide angle, sweeping CG environment" shots for my liking. I know real sets can be expensive to build, but sometimes it's just not possible to "get into" a CG environment.
Something about the CG droids as comic relief really bothered me. Even though it's not as 'flashy' and 'current', I would have liked at least SOME of the droid shots to be models. sigh.
Ultimately, I'm annoyed because I was able, with very few 'skipped' scenes or places where I had to stand in front of the TV, to allow my 5-year old to watch episodes I and II. I will not allow him to watch episode III. It is too dark, evil, and graphic. If I can figure out a way to cut out some scenes using Adobe Premiere, maybe. But as it is no way.

So there you have it. EPISODE III tied up loose ends beautifully, but ultimately sucked.

It went sisssssssssssss...

Bummer. Got my cool weather gear on for the morning commute, loaded pack on bike, and -gribbit-, my rear tire was flat. Remove wheel (Deore Quick releases, yay), start working tire off. Fight with tire. Pull fingernails mildly (i should cut those). Swear under breath. Get son warm Grape Nuts. Work on wheel some more. Use screwdriver like they say you shouldn't to pry wire bead from rim... put honey on son's Grape Nuts. Fight with tire some more. Finally remove tire and tube. Get new tube, put in tire, put on rim in about 10 seconds.

Ponder briefly why it was so horribly easy to get it back on, as opposed to remove it (with that faraway, visionary look).

Inflate tire, load up bike, and go. =

Turns out, I should mention, that the cause of the flat was a pieve of -bone- from some unfortunate animal. Glass, sure. Steel, absolutely. But bone?

Guess our ancestors knew what to make simple tools from after all.