Perlman is like the Samantha in Sex in the city?

this morning, I woke up and put a Mozart CD in and started listening. Requiem soon became way too serious for Sunday morning. I know it would take me closer to God, but it's just not feeling like one of those Sunday mornings.

So I turned to a newly acquired Oistrakh playing various violin sonatas (disc 52 of this series).

A discussion with YiChun over skype ensued. Oistrakh's Back sonata really is cold, and less emotional than we both liked. I didn't really see the point of Reger's piece, and even less so for Ysaye. The Wieniawski was just ok and was played by with David & Igor. Kinda special since this is when Igor was still young.

Then came the Prokofiev sonata for 2 violins. Man, talk about cold. It was cold. Shortly after the music started, I had the picture of a worn out artist, pacing an empty street in the middle of winter. Cold, and just beaten by the world. When allegro started, he was telling the story of the love of his life - how his girl friend broke his heart. A 2 second smile quickly faded as he recounted the time they had spent together when he realizes that he is without a home, without success, without money, and worst of all, without his love.

I just couldn't take these three russians (David, Igor Oistrakh, and Prokofiev) drowning me more on this Sunday morning - it's cold, cloudy with no sun as is. I just had to switch to something a little more upbeat.

Mozart Requiuem too serious, Oistrakh playing Prokofiev too depressing, I turned to.........
Perlman's Greatest hits. Yeah, I know. It starts with Carmen Fantasy. Wow, I don't even want to imagine what it would sound like of Oistrakh was playing that. (Let's just leave the debate of Perlman's music for another day)

I said to YiChun: "Compared to Oistrakh, Perlman is like the Samantha in Sex in the city."

Arrau & Francois

Been listening to the collection of Arrau's last recordings (in Switzerland). Dad told me if I liked his Debussy's girl with flexen hair, I should listen to Francois.

I did and must admit that Francois plays Debussy with a very different style, a much more active one. The music is still absolutely amazing. They do have different take on the music. Not just with girl with flexen hair. I have to admit that I didn't quite recognize Francois playing Berceuse héroïque. It was just so different from Arrau. Arrau puts less "effort" into the music and yet leaves a more profound impression on me.

Interesting........

Kogan & Oistrakh playing Kachaturian is next. But I am going to wait for the weekend for that. it's just tooooo heavy for a week night.

apple mail & SMIME

Thawte announced a while back that they were cutting off the free personal cert and at least, they are replacing it with a free VeriSign class 1. I wonder if VRSN ever made that $500M acquisition worth their while. NetSol?

Anyway, I never tried to make Apple Mail send out smime mail b4 so I thought I would give it a try. I have to say, I am not really impressed how complex Apple has made it. I guess I have come to expect Apple to make things easy.

Getting the cert into keychain wasn't hard. But.....

1. Double Click on your cert and bring it up in keychain.
2. click on the little triangle next to "Trust" to expand it.
3. In "Secure Mail" select "always trust"
4. Restart Mail.

Now you should see the little check box to the right of the screen.

playing with iPhoto 09's face recognition

Interesting results.

It asks me to confirm 4 pictures of Maria B. In the 4, two of them are actually Maria, and two of them are Jorge. (I am not sure what that says about Jorge or vice versa)

It asks me to confirm 5 pictures of Janeth. OUt of the 5, two were Janeth, and two of Katya. I think the 5th was a bit blurry.

It also mistook my wife as Sandra F on one occasion.

TGIF!

This week wasn't too tough, but I found myself just feeling sooo couped up inside. I just couldn't wait to get off work. After I finished that presentation, I really felt like getting some fresh air, not the kind of "fresh air" in the bar. So I decided to so something I have never done in Switzerland (actually I don't really find myself doing it in the states, but I was driving a Honda).

I went driving around like a redneck, just for the sake of driving. And no, I didn't have a 6 pack next to me. And no, I did obay the speed limit (loosely).

Man how cool was that! Went over to Lutry, got on the highway and just let it rip. I was going 130 well before I was out of steam in 4th. It just feels soooo good. I love that car!

Now off to dinner for some tapas!