Yesterday my dad and I went whitewater rafting at the US National Whitewater Center.  The center has class II to class IV rapids on a man-made river.  I had gone once before (a few months ago) with my team from work.  Last time everyone in our raft managed to stay in the raft for the entire trip.  This time it didn’t quite work out that way.  Of the seven passengers on the raft, five of us all fell out at once (including me and my dad)!   So we had the pleasure of floating through a good chunk of the rapids outside of the boat!  That was an experience, and I’m rather sore today.  Even with the unexpected “swim”, we had a great time, and I hope to do it again!

My wife and I recently had some friends over to play Dance Dance Revolution (DDR).  We started out playing DDR, but by the end of  the day we were playing Street Fighter II (SF2).  This got me thinking about these two games.  For many years SF2 was my all-time favorite game.  When it showed up in arcades in 1991, it quickly displaced any other games of interest for me, and I found myself spending many quarters in 2-player competitive games.   I played every version of Street Fighter in the arcades, and I purchased nearly every version for my Super NES and Sega Genesis.  Years later I purchased a Street Fighter II: Champion Edition arcade machine, which now stands in my house as a testament to my seemingly timeless devotion to SF2. 

It wasn’t until I began playing DDR that I found a new favorite game. Unlike my experience with SF2, I was a late comer to the DDR party.  I began playing in 2006, and my first DDR game was DDR: Mario Mix.  I thought I was a pretty good DDR player until I moved onto DDR: Ultramix, and I then realized that Mario Mix is an unusually easy DDR game!  Since then I’ve found that I’ve stopped playing all other video games in favor of various versions of DDR.  It is a totally different experience from traditional video games, and I’m hooked!  My wife plays too, and it is the first video game where we can compete on fairly equal footing (literally as well as figuratively, I suppose).  SF2 was never a hit with my wife, so DDR is a breakthrough!  Many of our friends had a good laugh when they first envisioned us playing DDR, but once we got them to play it themselves, many of them changed their minds.

Back in the day I was actually a pretty good SF2 player, while I’m only an average DDR player.  However that doesn’t matter, because DDR is just as much fun to me now as SF2 was back in the 90s! 

Footnote:
To be completely honest, the original version of Street Fighter II wasn’t my favorite game for long.  Street Fighter II: Champion Edition became my favorite soon after released, followed by Street Fighter II: Turbo, and so on.  This culminated in the über SF2 game: Street Fighter Alpha 3.  But in my mind, they are all just variations of SF2.

Ava and Ivy celebrated their first Halloween by dressing up as a butterfly and flower.  They greeted some trick-or-treaters that visited our house this year.

 My friend Brad started a blog here.

I don’t have an appreciation for “business casual”.  There’s “casual” – meaning I feel good, and there’s “formal” – meaning I look good, but “business casual” means I’m uncomfortable and I look mediocre.  It’s a compromise between looking good and feeling good, and in the end neither aspect is well served.

I went into Revenge of the Sith trying to avoid all spoilers.  I did however read all of the Clone Wars novels, comic books, online comic strips, and I watched the Clone Wars cartoon (Volumes I and II), so I knew everything that happened up to the moment that Sith begins.  As a side note, I though that the Clone Wars era material was some of the best EU stuff Lucasfilm has done.  After seeing the move (midnight showing, of course) I read the novel and comic book.  The novel certainly added to the depth of the story.

Good stuff
==========
The movie was absolutely the best of the prequels.  This is the story that I’ve really been waiting to see since Return of the Jedi.  Episodes I & II were just warm-ups for this movie, in my opinion.

The relationship between Anakin and Obi-Wan was much improved.  It was great to see them as “brothers” rather than master & learner.

The relationship between Anakin and Padme was much improved.  Not perfect, but much better.

Hayden makes a great Anakin, as a Jedi.  I had some concerns about his ability to be Vader after seeing AOTC, but he pulled it off.

The overall feel of the movie was so much better than I or II.  Lucas didn’t hold back on the darkness factor.

The starships made this one feel more like classic Star Wars.  I love the new Jedi Interceptors.
 

Of course the duel of Anakin and Obi-Wan was great.
 

I like the setup: Obi-Wan goes after Anakin and Yoda goes after Palpatine.  Very fitting.
 

Yoda knocking out the Imperial guards.
 

C-3PO’s memory wipe (I always suspected….)
 

Tantative IV
 

Palpatine with a lightsaber.

Order 66 – I liked the cold efficiency of the clones.
 

Mace deflecting force lightning back at Palpatine

The Millennium Falcon on Coruscant

Obi-Wan’s reference to Quinlan Vos on Boz Pity.

The music (as always)

Could have been better
====================
Yoda vs. Palpatine.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed this scene, but it could have been better.  This is a match up I’ve been waiting to see for a long time.  The movie didn’t really clearly explain why Yoda gave up when he did, although the book clears this one up, somewhat.

Order 66 – Some of the Jedi could have put up a better fight.  Also, Obi-wan is just lucky here.

General Grievous really just wasn’t all that interesting as a character.  The EU fleshes his out some, but the movie doesn’t really capture any of that.

The movie totally skipped the scenes that fit Padme into the political story.  In the book we see Padme, Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, and others discussing what to do, and essentially laying the foundation for the Rebel Alliance.  I was looking forward to seeing Mon Mothma.  These scenes also brought more tension between Anakin and Padme, since Padme is speaking out against Palpatine, and Palpatine is calling her a traitor.

What the?
==================
How the heck does Leia remember her mother?  (I know this one is being discussed like crazy on the web, and none of the proposed solutions really satisfy me).

How does Anakin learn to retain his identity in the force, the way Qui-Gon, Yoda, and Obi-Wan do?  It makes sense that Qui-Gon figures it out and passed his knowledge on to Yoda and Obi-Wan, but I don’t see how Anakin learned the skill.

So would Mace Windu really have been able to default Palpatine if it wasn’t for Anakin?  Even after reading the book and comic book I’m still not sure if Palpatine was just acting, or if he was really defeated.  Judging by the energy he displayed immediately after Anakin lopped off Mace’s hand, I’m leaning toward the theory that it was an act to get Anakin to take action.

Since I originally wrote this I've rethought this point.  I believe Mace genuinely is a better swordsman than Palpatine, and Palpatine's defeat in lightsaber combat was real.  I also believe that Palpatine was really in pain as he was getting fried by his own force lightning.  However, Palpatine clearly put on a bit of a show for Anakin's sake; playing the weak, helpless old man, when in fact he was not helpless.  If Anakin wasn't there and had not intervened, I think the fight could have gone either way.

Along the same lines, I’m a little fuzzy on Palpatine’s facial transformation.  Is it strictly that the force lightning damages him, or does the force lightning bring out his true self?  The book and an interview with Ian McDiarmed seem to indicate that this is the true face of Darth Sidious, and somehow the battle forces Palpatine to permanently adopt this appearance.

I'm not sure how I feel about Yoda and Obi-Wan's "plan" for the next 19 years.  I was hoping for a more compelling reason to explain why they basically did nothing while waiting for Luke and Leia to grow up.  The book kind of addresses this: Obi-Wan suggests that he will take Luke and being training him as a Jedi immediately, but Yoda tells him not to, and instead they should just wait on the Force to tell them when the time is right (uh, OK).  Aside from the delay on training the twins, it seems that they could have taken a more proactive role in re-engaging Vader and Palpatine.  OK, so maybe neither Yoda nor Obi-Wan could actually take out the Emperor (Yoda admits that he doesn't "have what it takes" in the book), but at least Obi-Wan could have gone after Vader again.  Vader's connection to the Force is less than it used to be, so Obi-Wan should be able to take him out.  Perhaps both Yoda and Obi-Wan don't want to risk getting killed and thus missing out on the opportunity of training the twins and ensuring the Jedi Order continues.

My dad started a blog here.

A friend recently gave me Day of Fire's self-titled CD.  The first two tracks didn't particularly impress me, but I really enjoy "Cornerstone" and "Fade Away". 

I’m a Star Wars fan.  I recently added “Anakin’s Jedi Starfighter” (a Revenge of the Sith Sneak Preview toy) to my collection.  I’m very impressed with the design of this craft.  It nicely bridges the Delta-7 Aethersprite from Attack of the Clones with the TIE Fighter from A New Hope.  Plus it just looks cool.  I’m also a fan of Anakin’s modified Delta-7 from the Clone Wars (the Azure Angel & Azure Angel II), which has some similarities to an X-wing.

I've decided to start a blog.  Why?  Not because I have a lot to share, but because I'm interested in the technology.  I’m blogging on “MSN Spaces”, and I’m thinking about using the RSS feed to mirror my blog entries on my own web site.  Blogging has become so popular, I feel like I ought to give it a shot.