Lots of news to report. I saw AOTC last night and overall, I liked it. It met my expectations, exceeded them in a few places, and disappointed me in others. I think I was way too excited for it, despite all the advance reviews I read. My impressions of it echoed what most of the reviewers had said, and that's taught me that for Episode III I will have to avoid the advance reviews. That goes for the reviewers' opinions, which definitely end up influencing mine, as well as for spoilers, which were all over the reviews I read. I'm looking forward to seeing it again on Sunday afternoon. Now that I know the story, I'll be in a better position to evaluate the actors' performances and see what I missed in the special effects.

Yesterday at work, while counting the hours until I could leave and go wait in line for AOTC, I lost one of my contact lenses at my desk. I wear the hard lenses. Yes, I'm a dinosaur, or at least I was. I was rubbing my eyes, as I usually did since they were always drying out from the lenses, and the right lens slipped off my iris. It was still in my eye, but one of my co-workers came over to ask me a question, and while I was talking to him it must have fallen out. I looked for it for about an hour, but it just disappeared. Gone forever. I was reminded of the time my father lost one of his contacts in his car, and never found it. So I called my optometrist to get a replacement and he had an appointment available later that day for a fitting. When I got there, once again he asked me why I still wore the RGP lenses, and I asked him what was involved in switching. The next thing I know, I'm wearing a pair of soft contacts and wondering what I was ever thinking in wearing the hard lenses. So instead of waiting until next week to wear my contacts again, I walked out of there wearing a new pair of soft lenses and $220 lighter for having ordered a year's supply of soft contacts. I can't believe the difference with these lenses. My eyes don't itch, the lenses don't move around on my irises like the hard ones did, and there's no "halo" around my field of vision where the lens borders were. Just an amazing change. I wish I'd done this years ago.