Author: Timpane

I just was doing some paperwork – and, long story short, while we were using just our cellphone, we overestimated our minutes.. and we have a $1500 cellphone bill that is usually $150.

Wow.. this sucks.

SO.. theres gotta be some advice from these collected brains – what can I do? WHat would you suggest.. the charges are legit. Theyre ours.. we were just moving and had a new baby and well.. here we are.

What would YOU suggest?

The trudging down my driveway to the large green coffin of a trashcan with my black bags full of the ghastly remains of partially eaten food, unused gift wrap, torn boxes.. and its all over.

I’ll admit, this was my craziest Christmas ever. Moved to VA with a newborn, shopping with said noewborn, and producing a Christmas album with the family.

Yet today was wonderful, as it always is, and ended with me being too full, back at home, Kelly and Liam in bed.. and me disposing of all the merriment.

Now comes the long haul – 364 days to go.

Oh.. BTW: Here’s a tune or two from the aforementioned album.. “GO XMAS (Go) – An Original Rap
I’ll Be home for Christmas
Visit the Official Justin Timpane Website Music, Acting, and More! www.timpane.com

The name for the final Harry Potter book has been announced.. and now the speculation can begin.

Any thoughts on the upcoming release? Predictions for plotlines, character deaths, etc? Be warned, spoilers for books 1-6 may be in this thread..

HOWEVER…

PLEASE – if you have inside info, dont let us know.. we can speculate.. but not based on real spoilers.. lets keep those in another forum. Its fun to guess.. but if you know the surprise.. don’t spoil it.

He’s a regular guy. Works at a newspaper. lives with family, newly married, typical suburban Baltimorean..

Oh, and he’s a B-Movie icon – especially in Maryland.

This guy has the kind of career i think about when I imagine leaving the quest for stardom.. he just lives his life.. and makes fun, cheap movies that struggle to make a little profit, if any – but eventually… yes, they do.

And so it is that his name is mentioned in books and articles.. and people come in droves to kiss his ass and try to get in his movies.

And he picked me, with his right hand man, Joe, to be the tough guy in an upcoming Zombie movie that never mad it off the ground. I did get to play the hero in his next movie, the upcoming Crawler, and the villain in the upcoming Dead Hunt.

But he also gave me the chance to make music for his films.. scoring them.. and it was in this that we got to know each other. We argued, sometimes bitterly about themes and context, and whether a scene should be played straight or tongue in cheek.. and we fought for our ideas.. and he tempered my inexperience into scores i am proud of.

I also learned something.. he’s not a huge horror movie fan. he loves West Side Story. He’s a guy who hits you first with his almost monotone deep voice on the telephone.. and then, laughs easily. He seems to be always on his work..

Sure.. I probably have details wrong.. but this is how I see Don.. He has a good little life. The kind I might one day really want. I admire this guy.. and I look to him as – well, not a role model – but a model for how life could one day be not what I had dreamed at 20, but just fine, and still doing what I love.

I hope you’ve read to here.. because I need to change all of this to past tense. See.. Don died today after a short but fierce bout with cancer. I’m not stunned. I knew it was coming. But I’m sad. Resolutely sad. And because I wasn’t his best friend or anything, I don’t want to give you the pain and loss story. I want to just tell you about this guy I met.. and spread a little about what he was like.

Either you liked him.. or you would have. Glad I met ya Don.

Okay.. there’s been a wrinkle. What if you had lived forever in a townhouse. What if, for 40K more you could have your first single family home with a yard.. and as an added bonus, your mother, brother, and sister lived four doors down and were offering free childcare?

What if it meant freedom to pursue things like acting, with the ability to go places at a moments notice.. but what if it meant your wife had to add 45 minutes to her commute?. What if it meant giving up a lot of your social scene, but solidifying your relationship with your siblings?

What if it meant you would need to come up with $400 more a month.. but had less chance of depreciating in a bad market.. and more chance of growing in a good market?

What if it meant you had to move further away, but could stay in the same (DC) market? What if it solved a dilemma you posted about, just days ago?

What would YOU do?

Mongtomery county, MD. – Could be anywhere in the DC area. Tell ya what.. it has everything you’d want. Good schools, a million retaurants, shops, movie theatres, malls, access to Washington and Baltimore – a thriving music and theatre scene in DC – its a nice place to live.

But is it worth it? Of late, I have looked around my home.. which costs upward of 300k, and noted.. its a townhouse.. and I cant see us ever really getting out of the townhouse market. We would just upgrade townhouses and neighborhoods.

Of late, I’ve wondered.. could I deal with less on-camera work, maybe just write and make movies for a few years, and get out of this area? My buddy Steve is in Nebraska – and I make fun of him.. its Nebraska – BUT – his house is three times as large as mine for half the price. He has disposable income.. and time to spare.

I start to feel like I dont quite know why I’m here anymore. There’s more work.. but its commercials and industrials.. and thats not why I wanted to act. Ive started to wonder if I could be happy in a smaller community.. outside another big city – Omaha, or Salt lake, or Timonium, or outside Chicago – there are small towns that cost a lot less – and i kind of want my kid to have a yard.

Hrm.

UPDATE! Wayward Sun has been deleted already by Wikipedia. I guess I didn’t make them seem important enought (Reason given was that it was an “unremarkable organization”). /end update

I have headed over to Wikipedia and created a Wayward sun article.. but it is very basic.. I did no formatting, and it needs a lot more information. The registration was easy.. just create a username and password, no more info.

Anyone can edit it.. and I thought perhaps there should be such an article.

Do the needful and read this post. I am on a crusade to make you believe in the power of this post.

Should the same people be forced by a government to carry guns if they believe in evolution – or should they use Firefly’s chinese swear words to help in tying shoes?

Furthermore, since the founding fathers were Christians, it should make sense that they would use Mutt on FreeBSD while flying model airplanes and playing the bass guitar and reading the book “Godless”.. and liking pie.

I wondered all this while watching a Star Wars trailer and.. Oh lord..

I just popped a Barnsonian Fuse.

Yup.. I know better.. never open an unsolicited attachment. yet there I was, mouse hovering over the attachment.. one click.. then.. no.

I thought it out.. and sure enough it was phony. Bet you ten to one the attachment was a virus. Glad I skipped the second click.. here’s their message.

Dear Customer,

Thank you for ordering from our internet shop. If you paid with a credit card, the charge on your statement will be from name of our shop.

This email is to confirm the receipt of your order. Please do not reply as this email was sent from our automated confirmation system.

Date : 08 Oct 2006 – 12:40 Order ID : ######## (removed)

Payment by Credit card

Product : Quantity : Price WJM-PSP – Sony VAIO SZ370 C2D T7200 : 1 : 2,449.99

Subtotal : 2,449.99 Shipping : 32.88 TOTAL : 2,482.87

Your Order Summary located in the attachment file ( self-extracting archive with “37679041.pdf” file ).

PDF (Portable Document Format) files are created by Adobe Acrobat software and can be viewed with Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not already have this viewer configured on a local drive, you may download it for free from Adobe’s Web site.

We will ship your order from the warehouse nearest to you that has your items in stock (NY, TN, UT & CA). We strive to ship all orders the same day, but please allow 24hrs for processing.

You will receive another email with tracking information soon.

We hope you enjoy your order! Thank you for shopping with us!

WHAT?? Yes, this is an attempt to bring this particular debate up to speed. Postings on ancient threads are hard to follow –

SO.. here’s the deal. Some dude went bonkers and killed a bunch of Amish kids. He used guns. So society is asking.. “Are guns really worth having, as a right?”

It is true, to paraphrase Eddie Izzard – “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. But the guns help.” – We do have more guns and also more per capita gun homicides than most first-world countries. It is a problem.

On the other hand.. we are guaranteed the right to bear arms. People like to hunt. People like the security they feel knowing they have a gun in case someone breaks in. (Of course, there are statistics that suggest that if you have a gun in the house, youre more likely to be killed by a gun than you are likely to stop your assailant.)

I dont know where to stand.. and I thought I would create a new fresh forum where people can recap their opinions on the subject, just so we can keep straight what everyone is thinking.