I ran into an old reference to a letter I had sent into the Mystery Science Theater show look for Jeff Conrad.
Revelations - This episode takes place somewhere between Episodes III and IV. It is a well-constructed film, a huge variety of sets, including palaces, a nightclub scene (see Lucas, they have music!), holograms, space battles in fast 3-D. There is also the scene where the Senators find out about the transfer of powers to the Moffs, and references to the Emperor's Hand, one of the better ideas introduced by Timothy Zahn's novels. Cool ship interiors, exteriors.
I have been listening this year to a style of music called electroclash. It's usually a closer electronic, modulated sound than techno or trance. The voices sound like they've passed through an old school vocoder.
Artists I think playing in this realm include Ladytron, Crystal Method, and now Looper. I tried out a CD from Half.com and it's really pretty good. You would recognize their first track, Mondo 77 right away if you heard it. That is because it is featured in an IBM commercial I think. You recognize the simple, distorted (high res) synth from the beginning. It really makes for a happy, feel good dance track.
I gave a talk at last week's Toastmasters and found out later that the Toastmaster that day knew and was related to the owner of the Penn Cycle in Woodbury. That was the store that I had compared to the wooden house in the three little pigs. I don't feel bad, they gave no service that day. I did play up the fact that I grew up hanging out at the Penn Cycle in Bloomington.