The Best of Beethoven

At dinner this evening, Rocky’s daughter reminded her father that he’s been promising to buy her a CD with all nine Beethoven  symphonies — for months. Rocky’s a terrible procrastinator. Especially when it comes to spending money.

Admittedly, some kids want iPads. And some kids want  new cars. And other kids want a shopping trip to Abercombrie & Fitch.  Rocky’s daughter wants the complete symphonic works of Beethoven, which is both  financially much less demanding and slightly amusing.

But — it’s not so simple. There are actually more Beethoven recordings than Baskin & Robbins’ ice cream  flavors…

There’s Von Karajan — with his iconic 1963 recording with the Berlin Philharmonic (digitally remastered so only one’s hair dresser knows for sure that it’s actually analog. )

And there’s Leonard Bernstein. With his “idiosyncratic” 1960′s recording with the New York Philharmonic.

And there’s John Eliot Gardiner with a 2010 recording by the Orchestre Revoltionnaire et Romantique.  (but that sounds FRENCH. Ugh!)

And the list goes on and on and on and on….Amazon has dozens of choices … Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, London Symphony, etc etc etc.

 

[Disclosure: Rocky picked  the Von Karajan Deutsche Grammaphon recording, and purchased it from a vendor who undercut Amazon's price! P.S. Rocky's daughter has no relation to Linus.]

Pringles Potato Chips & Investing

Rocky made a serendipitous discovery involving Pringles Potato Chips, music and the markets:

Rocky’s laptop computer occasionally loses WiFi reception at critical moments. Yesterday, Rocky was listening to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody on Youtube, when the streaming audio got stuck at the word, “scaramouch.” SCARAMOUCH, SCARAMOUCH, SCARAMOUCH. Over and over and over, just like an old stuck record player. At first it was funny. But hitting the cancel key didn’t stop the ghastly word. SCARAMOUCH, SCARAMOUCH, SCARAMOUCH. Alt-Cntrl-Delete didn’t work either. . SCARAMOUCH, SCARAMOUCH. The WiFi connection had dropped, and left Freddie Mercury’s voice in an infinite loop. Even worse, the S&P-500 was dropping like a stone, and Rocky couldn’t trade.

SCARAMOUCH, SCARAMOUCH. Holding the power-off button didn’t even make Freddie flinch! The dropping markets, the frozen computer, the noise, and SCARAMOUCH — were too much for Rocky to bear.

Rocky picked up an empty can of BBQ Pringles Potato Chips and hurled it at high velocity across the room towards the router. It bounced twice, and remarkably landed upright in front of the router’s antenna.

“Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightning…Gallileo, Galileo….” The song resumed. (Even the S&P-500 caught a bid, and started updating in real time again.)

Rocky wondered, “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?” because when he removed the Pringles can, his WiFi signal stregnth dropped. When he placed the can near the router, the signal strength increased.

Rocky described the phenomenon to his good friend, the Computer Guru. Guru knew about the Pringles Principle, and pointed Rocky to a webpage that describes a “parabolic antenna booster constructed out of a Pringles can” in exquisite detail. Click here for a description of the Pringles Antenna.

Geeks should click here for a more technical discussion..

Better music, barbeque, and markets … can all be found in a trusty can of Pringles BBQ flavor potato chips. With thanks to Ralph Waldo Emerson and Proctor & Gamble.