Ask TOMBOT

tombot-

what movie should i do next in three frames ?

grady,

I have two ideas I like for this. I can flip a coin so I can answer your question as posed (movie, singular) but I'm going to let you know what the two options are so you can follow up and let me know if the result matters (would have to dig coin out of milk bottle somehow as any change in my pants goes into the milk bottle as soon as I get home):

a. The Long Goodbye starring Mr. Gould
b. Being There starring Mr. Sellers

Tombot, have you ever seen the hardcore Japanese war film Fires on the Plain? You'd like it.

tom,

what kind of milk bottle? my change goes into this plastic cup, but it overfloweth.

t

b. Being There starring Mr. Sellers

saw this monday night :D

Morbius,

No, but I have added it to my Netflix queue at position #299. It may be moved up later. On a side note, I have discovered that the secret of being a good Netflix subscriber who enjoys life is to just send stuff back if you aren't ready to watch it when it arrives and stop feeling guilty.

Tza,

It is an old-school glass milk bottle kinda like this guy here:
http://www.localamishfarms.com/images/half_gallon_glass_milk_bott.jpg
I also recommend these smug little dudes, $4 from IKEA:
http://www.ikea.com/PIAimages/40929_PE117254_S4.jpg

Tombot, is there a protocol for how long one should wait after starting a new job before applying for another one?

Pasho,

I don't think there is really a protocol, no. There are probably a few rules of thumb. I would assume that it varies across lines of work, but I have heard from more than one respectable, trustworthy person in my business that they give things a minimum of three months. Of course, these people are not talking about trying to have 4 employers in a year (see "respectable" modifier, above) they're talking about how to get out of what they find to be unacceptable conditions.

I have also been around people who really do jump from job to job with consideration for nothing beyond the next, bigger salary offer, and they are spoken of with much disdain.

It's not so much that it's unacceptable, generally it's OK. It's just that it's one of those places that runs on chaos theory and I get the impression it all hangs from a thread from time to time. I can easily imagine turning up one Monday to find the receivers in and the locks all changed.

Over here, we gotsome weird company that's kind of semi attached to the Post Office who are recommended as a good employer, I fancy trying to get in there - we're in with a chance of getting set up in a slightly bigger place with no mortgage in 2009, consequently I want to shift to part time employment from here on ASAP, and the lot linked to - I'm told - employ part-time electricians.

I figured 3-6 months before applying for work there.

well shit if you're talking about a "lifestyle change" then who cares how long you worked at a job before you applied somewhere else. "Hey I know I just started but I won the lottery yesterday and I've decided now my family's taken care of I'm going to go back to teaching."

I have a two-part question

i) Do you hate California?

ii) I am in Long Beach until Jan 8. I have to be in Pasadena for January 12 and 13. I fly home from San Francisco on January 15. Where should I go the weekend of Jan 9-11? Is San Diego worth the trip? And what should I not miss on the way up to SF on 13/14/15?

it's gonna take you 3 days to drive from long beach to san francisco?

TJ for hookers, tequila and getting shot, surely?

TOMBOT, will the contents of a 5'x5'x10' storage locker fit into a Dodge Caravan?

caek,

i) no

ii) I don't know what you do in socal that weekend really. I am partial to the Monterey Bay Area + awesome aquarium there etc.

jaxon,

I don't know what you're talking about, I'm not driving from long beach to sf, start "ask caek" maybe

Ed,

http://www.google.com/search?q=dodge+caravan+cubic

No.

Tom - a) based on whatever you professionally know, do you agree w/ anything i said on the latest "why are we in iraq" discussion; also do u think i killed that thread?

b) what is your opinion of the 2000 movie "Boiler Room"

and

c) is Vin Diesel really gay?

a) of course you killed that thread, wasn't your first post on it "this question is totally moot let me hijack it into an area where I can showcase a volume of expertise that is going to scare everybody else away" - but I will read more into what you said there when I get a chance bcz I really appreciated your contributions re: mumbai. I have not been paying as much attention to iraq in a couple years becase * depressing ** CAN WE GO HOME NOW

b) It is also in my queue, I've seen bits of it and am interested in seeing more; can't go rong with a good sting movie about mediocre scam artists getting theirs.

c) No. I think he's just a huuuuuuuuge dork. Like he probably collected Yu-Gi-Oh cards for a while and I bet his ipod is 70% film soundtracks (not good ones).

a) Haha -no! I said the more important question rather than "why" is "what now, re: the tenuous unity of the country & Iran's influence on the Shia," but then went back into the "why," with the PNAC...and reached a conclusion I myself had not thought out in my mind before: that Ford admin holdovers like Cheney & Rummy that became PNAC/Carlyle group heads probably had designs on Iraq as far back as 1979, after Iran was lost as the US vassal in that area - also bcoz the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan happened that year. Is that reasonable, or speculative/conspirational ?

b) I am working on researching pre & post revolution American involvement in Iran, and wanted to know if due to the Iraq War, in your opinion, I'll have any easier time in digging up CIA documents from this time - for now (this decade), finally, the truth of the 1953 coup has finally become more public.

I will actually be coming to Washington DC to continue to my research in this, it's a serious thing. Do you think I can email you about it?

The character of Riddick is based on Vin Diesel's D&D character fwiw

>if due to the Iraq War,

this isn't clear at all, sorry. but i can explain (later)

Vic, I can tell you that pretty much all declassification dates for US Govt materials are set 30 years from the record - so if you want stuff up through 1979 and into the 80s, your best years for research are still ahead of you. I work in a very different sphere than I used to and don't really engage much with these topics any more, but I'll post any additional thoughts I have to that thread.

it's gonna take you 3 days to drive from long beach to san francisco?

― (jaxon) ( .) ( .) (jaxon), Thursday, December 11, 2008 7:19 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

vacation, yah.

Tom,

do you have any tips for getting started with work. I feel like I have been printing stuff of and sharpening my pencils in preparation for diving into some work all week, and now it's Friday p.m.

buy a propelling pencil

caek,

I have a really hard time with that.
Usually the best thing to get me to do work is a little passive peer pressure - I fired up Ableton this week for the first time in ages because one of my friends just finished up a two-disc concept album he's been recording in his basement for over a year and a half, so I felt like a chump. Most days when I come into the office I generally wind up getting things done because I see others doing so. Perhaps this is why people get out of the house and go to coffee shops, to be around other studious losers so they can be guilted into doing some work themselves.

Good tip. Obvious, but good to hear someone else say it. So I went to the library today and kicked my computer's ass.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f325/caek/NGC_1381-bigbest.jpg

IN YOUR FACE

dear tomboto,

im watching Independence day and it got me to wondering what movies have the best scenes of cities getting destroyed. you seemed like the guy to ask.

thx
j

not a city but a buddhist dude's monastery:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/2012/

wowo thats pretty awzom love this shit imna rewatch cloverfield

wonder where all that water came from

terminator's nuke drop definitely left an imprint on me

independence day is totally bogus btw

deep impact is pretty crucial here i think

independence day is totally rad icey

aside from the destruction of the white house the annihilation related special effects are pretty poor

Dear Tombot,

What kind of pizza are you going to get tonight?

Love,

a better q is what kind of pizza am *I* going to get tonight?

Tombot,

Out of the main cast members on the hit U.S. television program Friends, who do you think is most intelligent in real life? Least?

im not tombot but

a) lisa kudrow

b) courtney cox

Fun fact: Lisa Kudrow briefly dated Conan O'Brien

thanks, we know

caek are u astronomer?

y also v drunk

y also v drunk

― caek, Sunday, December 14, 2008 3:34 AM (14 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

no kidding. feel awful today.

(sorry, this is not a question)

hay tom just watching eagle over here and wondering which in yr opinion movie most accurately portrays yr line of work thx j

eagle eye

Chief O'Hallorhan: You know we were pretty lucky tonight, body count's less then 200. You know, one of these days, you're gonna kill ten-thousand in one of these firetraps, and I'm gonna keep eating smoke and carrying out bodies until someone asks us how to build them.

Doug Roberts: Ok, I'm asking.

Chief O'Hallorhan: You know where to reach me.

weird that's like my job too

is your job also like live free or die hard because that's every day for me

only the part where he wrestles the plane

the plane = montreal's dining scene