January 2008 Archives

LEGO Brick Timeline: 50 Years of Building Frenzy and Curiosities

I was such a Lego freak when I was a kid. They were my first nerd love before computers and code and a real blast looking at the packaging of the space sets here. My brother and I didn’t just build the sets and play around with them. Oh no — we used to “hack” the pieces make much larger and meaner creations with a totally different scale. The names of the ships and weaponry where named after ships in an early Japanese anime cartoon called Star Blazers that was in syndication after school. Star Blazers was originally called Space Battleship Yamato before it was dubbed and watered down for the states. Our ship was The Andromeda and at one point was over three feet long and 18 inches wide and high. I had a picture of it that I wish I could still find.

Those were the days — and look where it’s brought me. I’m certain that a big large part of my ability to work with abstract concepts, develop mental models of logic and break a larger complex system into small parts as I do when coding goes back to what I started to develop as a boy then. It’s amazing what some plastics blocks and molded pieces along with the motivation to have the biggest and baddest Lego space battleship on the block can be turned in to.

I’ve written about commercial music every so often on this blog over the past 5 years. I’ve got a small list of recent sightings I thought I’d publish in addition to a commercial music mystery solved.

Herbie Hancock - Rockit

Talk about blast from the past. This track was a hit when I was in grade school. The commercial that is currently using it for Visa and features all these old school breakdancers locking and popping all over some stylized shop that fits the music theme.

Microsoft is using a pair of tracks I’ve been listening to in their Zune commercials.

The Shins - Sleeping Lessons

This Zune commercial features a hipster male who is “tripping” through some psychedelic dream.

Rogue Wave - Lake Michigan

This Zune commercial begin with a female at a a rather French looking covered sidewalk cafe where its pouring rain just beyond her table. A similar trippy dream sequence ensues to this track.

Postal Service - Such Great Heights

UPS is running a series of “whiteboard” commercial that features a male actor explain some innovative service the company offers while illustrating his point on — whiteboard! The airy synth droplets and mechanized drum you hear in the background are from the open of this track.

The New Pornographers - The Bleeding Hearts Show

This track is being used for some time in commercials for the University of Phoenix that shows flashes of people in different walks of life working towards a better life. At least that is the impression I get. The clip used from this track supports that notion well. I can’t help to raise an eyebrow to a virtual university though. This is a great track though an interest thing to be associated with. The blogs have spoken.

In other commercial music news, I solved the mystery of a track I heard in a commercial years ago. I can’t recall the car other then it was a luxury sedan in black where the camera pans over slowly from different angle. It was a jazzy rhythmic piece with a bit of sax and a female voice saying “how do I look?” sampled in. Some time after I saw that commercial, I was sitting in Bard’o in Manhattan’s West Village when I heard what sounded like that track. I asked the DJ and she told me it was the theme from The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. Thing was that album that. What I found out recently was that Dmitri from Paris featured it on SacreBleu in a track called “Une Very Stylish Fille.” (It was this track that I had heard in the commercial which explains why what I heard in the cocktail bar didn’t quite seem the same.) Further, the actual The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. theme was featured on a few somewhat obscure compilations that have been released including one called Expresso Expresso by a favorite of mine — The Karminsky Experience. (That disc is also out of print and a bit hard to find. I’m still trying to find a reasonably priced one or a sugar daddy to buy it for me.)

Oh and that female voice Dimitri from Paris used? That would be Audrey Hepburn from a movie called Breakfast at Tiffany’s. (argh!) I should have picked up on that sooner.