Just heard the first commercial to use music from Moby’s new album 18 (as opposed to his completely licensed album Play): an Intel commercial using “We Are All Made of Stars.” To begin with, using Moby’s song for a commercial promoting burning mix CDs is pretty cool. However, they revised the chorus: Instead of “People they come together/People they fall apart/No one can stop us now/Cause we are all made of stars,” they substitute “We are all made of stars” for “People they fall apart.”

Why the substitution? I think it makes it a weaker song. Is it to avoid any mention at all of negative things, fearing that we weak consumers will freak out? It’s very sad, I think, that advertising agencies think so little of us. After all, Windows 95 was sold with a song whose chorus featured the line “You make a grown man cry,” and people bought it in droves. (Granted, they cut the song before the line. But at least they didn’t alter the parts that they played.)

Later: Just heard the commercial again, and damned if they didn’t play the song unaltered. So much for punditry.

Mario Batali will be at the Festa Italiana Seattle this weekend. I will be there to make sure Lisa doesn’t throw herself at him :). Too bad I’m bad at bocce.

Available for pre-order October 1: the Imperial Star Destroyer, the largest Lego set ever made. Something like 3100 bricks, over three feet long. Words are inadequate.

Pointed to by Scott Rosenberg: the Julie/Julia project. Julie Powell is cooking her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking: “365 days. 536 recipes. One girl and a crappy outer borough kitchen.” A series of priceless quotations, including my favorite:

“How in God’s name do people do multicourse meals? This is French Cooking for the servantless American cook, remember?!” (menu: Potage Veloute aux Champignons, Coquelets sur Canapes, Pommes de Terre a L’Huile, Crème Plombieres Pralinee)

Somebody give that woman a job at Gourmet. This is more entertaining reading than that magazine has been for a long time.