VinceLocher.com

The first battle sequence is quite good. It was massive on scale and executed quite well. The whole Count Dooku lightsaber battle was extremely weak. It was just too short and not done well at all I think, especially considering what a great actor Christopher Lee is.

Let me say it now, Ian McDirmand was fantastic in the film. Palpatine is one of my favorite characters in Star Wars and to see him amass power and scheme and plot against everyone was truly awesome!

Padme and Anakin love scenes were the same as always (meaning painful to watch).

The duels in the movie are also awesome. Yoda versus Palps, Mace and Palps, and then of course Obi Wan and Vader.

Oh and Grevious...the point?

Finally....NOOOOOOOO!!!!!! (Should have been Arghhhhh!)

Overall, I was pleased, but some of the dialog could of course been better.

Good job Lucas. It's about time.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am pumped beyond reason over this new Star Wars flick. It looks fantastic, and fans have been giving great reviews of it. Everyone wants to see how Anakin turns to the darkside. I want to see that, but that will just be the icing on the cake for me. My real excitement for this flick will not be on Anakin, but rather Palpintine. I always enjoyed watching how he plotted and schemed his way to power. He truly represents evil and is such a fun character to watch develop. I can’t wait to see him go nutz in this episode.

There have been allusions that people have drawn from this movie about real life events; however I personally believe this is pure nonsense. And if this was Lucas’ intent, then he is an idiot. It’s just a movie and I can assure you that the Bush administration has no intention of becoming an “empire”. Liberals are panicking and don’t have a clue how to handle the situation that they are in. The problem, of course, is that their party is self-destructing. It is almost to the point, in my opinion, that they will not be able to recover (oh darn).

Anyway, I’ll definitely post my comments/reviews on both flicks after I see them. Have a good weekend everyone!

The last hotel we stayed at during this trip was quite nice. It was more of a hotel than our previous ones. Meaning it had a restaurant and was visually appealing as well. What was really nice about it is that it had a club lounge for elite members (which I am one!). So after a long day, we were able to go up to the lounge and get a nice snack and enjoy a drink or two.

Now comes the best part of the trip. While getting ready to leave today, I logged onto the Internet and Delta.com to check the flight status and see how packed the flight was going to be. Luckily it was on time; however the flight was pretty much full. Then I noticed something.

I had signed into my Skymiles account to see what my mileage was and was pleasantly surprised. A few weeks ago, I got an American Express Delta Skymiles Gold Credit Card. I got it mainly because it gave me a 15,000 mile bonus. I thought that it would take longer for the miles to post to my account, but there they were and there were also miles for using the card as well, which really surprised me. However, that wasn’t the best part. I also happen to notice that I had achieved Silver Medallion Status! I was shocked. I knew I would get it, because I had signed up for a special promotional offer to receive it after booking and taking a flight out of Richmond. What’s strange is that this should have been my St. Louis trip (though I’m not complaining).

Now what is the big deal with Silver Medallion Status? Well it allows you to upgrade to first class for free if there are available seats! So I checked to see if there were any first class seats available and sure enough there were a few, but I couldn’t upgrade until I got to the airport. So when I checked in, using the self-check-in, there wasn’t an option. I’m starting to think I won’t be able to get an upgrade after all. Well, I get to the gate and go up to speak to one of the Delta agents. I ask her if there is a possibility of receiving an upgrade. I hand her my ticket and she says that there isn’t a way to do it with the class I booked. Uh oh! “Wait, what about for a Silver Medallion Member?” I enquire. I then hand her my Gold Skymiles Amex Card. Sure enough she said no problem. She then reprinted my boarding pass and I now had a first class ticket!!!

We’re about halfway through our flight right now and I’m so happy I was able to get this upgrade. There is no one sitting next to me and I have so much room. Of course, there is also the fact I can get pretty much anything I want whenever I want. This also includes free drinks (The good kind)!

I know that the coach class on this flight is totally packed, because the stewardess had to take someone out of coach and give him first class to be able to accommodate everyone. It’s truly too bad for my associates who didn’t get the luxury I did. I’m pretty sure they’ll hate me once we get off the flight in Atlanta, but oh well. I was really hoping to rub it in when they passed me on the way back to coach, but the plane has coach going right and first class going left, so I didn’t get to screw them in that regard. What can I say, I'm an evil Republican!

1. President Bush has nominated several minorities to the bench. This is TERRIBLE news for the Democrats. This is because the Democrats want to be perceived as the party of inclusion rather than what they truly are which is a party of exclusion. They hate it when minorities are conservative, especially African Americans. If you talk about a bunch of racist bigots, look no further than the NAACP. These people are the worst of the worst, calling Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, both the first African American male and female Secretary of State, nothing more than Uncle Toms.

2. President Bush has nominated CONSERVATIVES to the bench. This frightens them more than anything else. They hate Conservatives. They hate them with a passion. Why? Well because the facts always back up the Conservative argument and dispel the Liberal myth. This is because Conservatism is based upon facts not emotions. Now that Conservatives have outlets like the Internet, Talk Radio, and Fox News, the Liberal stranglehold on the people is no longer an issue. Conservatives are able to get their message out and the people of the US are ready and willing to accept it. The only source of power the Liberal Left has left in this country is with the courts. If they can’t get their way through Congress (which seems to be going more and more Republican each year), then they’ll get some kook Liberal judge to overturn it, citing that the law is not fair (or something to that extent).

So what is the “nuclear option”? Well first of all there is nothing illegal or even wrong about it. It’s perfectly constitutional, and that’s my preferred term to use, “constitutional option”. Basically what this would do would be to allow a straight up or down vote for President Bush’s judicial nominations. That’s it! Essentially with the ending of the filibusters, the judicial nominees would get a straight majority vote rule and at this point every single on of the nominations has got well over the 51 votes needed for confirmation, which is why the Democrats, led by Harry Reid (aka Dingy Harry) are threatening to shut down the Senate entirely if Republicans do this.

My advice to Reid: “SHUT DOWN THE SENATE, I DARE YOU!” Clearly Sen. Reid hasn’t learned what happens to people who obstruct legislation or in this case judicial nominations. He really should talk to his former colleague, Tom Daschle, who was recently elected out of office for doing the exact same thing! Republicans now have a 55 to 45 majority in the Senate. With five more votes we would have the ability to break filibusters on ANYTHING. That means anything President Bush wanted, he would get.

So I’m crossing my fingers for a Senate shut down, but I’m not totally convinced Reid will go through with it. He probably has this nagging feeling that if he does it, it’ll be him giving that concession speech next time around.