Just realized that you can put your kids on the TV stand or a stool and use the Samsung LCD TV as the perfect background for portrait photos!!
Why didn't I think of this before?
ps. if you angle it, somehow the TV surface doesn't bounce the flash.
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Trying to impress grandmas and getting carried away..
Jr. and the little one both get a "ragam quiz" every night at bedtime. They can guess ~20 ragams from either a song I hum, the aarohanam-avarohanam or phrases or swarams I hum or sing.
Sometimes just play from iPhone for the quiz(usually GNB, MS, MLV, TN Seshagopalan, Ariyakudi from the music collection or the latest Sudha Raghunathan, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Priya Sisters, Ranjani-Gayathri straight from Youtube favorites).
They guess reasonably well, considering they have been at this for two three months already.
Every now and then, they pick a favorite and listen to the whole song till they memorize it and imitate it. While San thinks this is border line blasphemy, I encourage it. After all every kid is not going to be a super singer and the whole idea is to imitate and learn and this is my way of spending some quality time with them and having some fun.
The most important thing in learning, is learning how to learn! (if that has not been copyrighted, I am doing it right now)
So, here are the little Narayanan girls, doing their version of Vinayaka. They thought this was a rehearsal and did not know that the camcorder was on.
Don't know if the paati's will be pleased, what with the little one's novel concept of "variable thAlam" where she suddenly goes into a vigorous hand slapping to give herself some more energy to sing and Jr.'s attempts to sustain notes to try and get some semblance of a steady timing.
If they do improve over the years with lots of practice and training, they might look back at this and go "god, we have come a long way".. and if their interest in music dies out after some time, they might still look at this and go "we did try, didn't we"..
Getting these two to sit next to each other and sing in unison was in itself a workout for Daddy Narayanan. If they happen to sing this in tune and tempo eventually, will post that video as well...
For now the girls are a "work in progress"!
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Double Trouble
Let us say your house is worth $x in your opinion (based on square footage muliplied by the going rate in your area)
Now you get a property tax statement from the county that says your house is worth x+300k !!! and you now owe the county a bigger tax amount.
You figure that if your house is worth that much, then you should be able to get a really nice interest rate on a loan.. afterall your risk is low considering how much your house is worth and how much money you have put in the house already!
So you start the process and to your surprise and anger, the guy who came to appraise your house values the house at x-200k. You are now scratching your head...
The banks want to keep your mortgage high by lowering house value
The county wants to keep your tax high by raising house value
This whole country is run by crooks at every level!
Maybe we should sell our house to the state of California and repay the bank loan and start renting?
If the above mentioned weren't true, I would be laughing.
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