Star Wars and government IT... discuss

In the May 2 issue, we did FlipSide -- the back page of the magazine -- on Star Wars sites. And in that, I noted that Star Wars doesn't have all that much to do with the government, but science-fictions movies do show off all sorts of cool technologies. Science fiction, after all, often becomes the basis for science fact. The communicators in the original "Star Trek" were amazing in the 1960s, but they are not all that much unlike our cell phones today.

So now that I have established my excuse to blog about Star Wars...

I will be among the foolish who see the newest film at a midnight showing. And this comes after months -- years -- of saying that I wouldn't see the third movie at all because the "first" and "second" -- or "fourth" and "fifth," depending on how you count -- were so bad.

I'm sure feds know that sometimes working for the government must feel like running the Empire. This is part of a post from a Darth Vader blog -- yes, you read that right -- that perhaps some of you will relate to:

The day began with a tedious set of inter-departmental meetings debriefing the operational tests we have conducted on this battle-station's systems over the past few days. Moff Jerjerrod was extremely pleased with himself, and took up an entire hour with a self-indulgent, morale-boosting lake of verbal diarrhea about surpassing our own benchmarks by honing our core competencies, or some such similar malarkey. "The operational efficiencies of this Death Star will serve as a template for all Death Stars to come!" he preened to scattered applause.

Word of the competition was spread nationwide through National Geographic World Magazine. The third-place winner was Christopher Rader, with his drawing of that fearful villain, Darth Vader. The fierce head was sculpted by Jay Hall Carpenter, carved by Patrick J. Plunkett and placed high upon the northwest tower of the Cathedral.