Interview With a Hermit
Thu, Jan 15, 2009 - 2:15pm EST

Eh? Wonderin' what in the world the little header means? Well, I figure this is something like what an interview conducted between myself and myself would be like, so beware the mayhem, and on with the Q'n'A!

Oh. Please note. My previous Q'n'A was severely outdated, and I was working on getting it up-to-speed for awhile, but .. meh. Anyway, so that I have a nice, generic, true Q'n'A, this is a shortish session, with few questions, few answers. Enjoy? Learn? ~shrug~ Up to you.

Who are you?

Why not just ask me, "What do I want?" and, "Where am I going?" ...okay, wow, congratulate me, I've already derailed this interview, and it's only the first question! Step past my Babylon 5 reference if you would. I'm Brandon W. Horton, otherwise known as Bob, the Parody Knave, the guy with the funky smily. $:^ J My full nickname these days is ParodyKnaveBob. However, Bob or even PKB works just fine. I'll likely answer to other derivatives, too, such as PK Bob or the Knave.

What do you want?

Ha ha. Next question, please.

Where are you going?

Okay! Okay! I give up! Leave me alone!

Sorry! Maybe. Well.. Nevermind. Not sorry.

Not surprising.

What's with the symbol thingy $:^%@~*#?

Meet my smily. $:^ J It looks just like me, as you'd know if you've ever seen me in person, in photograph, or at the very least in five-color avatars strewn about a certain cybercave. Its official nomenclature is the BobSmily. Its official syntax is $ hair, : eyes, ^ nose,   space, J twisted-li'l-grin .. In 1996, at an online community that is alive and kicking to this day(!), I developed over the course of a month or three $B^#J and for years modified it to go with every one of my constant offline facial changes, but cross-platform ASCII limited me, and a couple other governmental factors weighed in (seriously), so I standardized. I went without glasses for awhile (and now find it easier to emote without having to pull my glasses to the top of my head for things, B:^ . for example, and thus for abstract shorthand just leave them off in text, although I've gone back to wearing glasses mostly), and my muzzle often goes shaven-or-similar, thus $:^ J it is. Ah, simplicity. Note, however, I still play around with different facial expressions:   $:^ ]   $:^ [   $|^ `   $X^ 8   $}^ }   $8^ D   $E^ I   $¦^ o...   ) -- and they're pretty much always my literal facial expression at that given time. (Much like when I type lol or ~ChucklingOL~, that's what I'm literally doing at that given time.) An exception is $:^ P which is just shorthand for silliness, acting goofy; tone of voice can be difficult to convey through text, so that one's kind of reserved for "changing my voice" in place of the absent ability to physically speak-and-be-heard.

Overall, I am who I am. I am online who I am offline. Really I've nothing to hide.

What is your ultimate World View?

Wowee, that was a deep one all of a sudden. Not too many people enjoy reading five-hundred-page diatribes of confusing rambles, otherwise known as philosphy books, so I'll try to make this as short as I can. My ultimate World View is that a single, eternal, infinitely powerful/loving/just, entity exists, consisting of three distinct, unified persons; and is the conceptualizer, designer, producer, and initializer of the Space-Time Continuum, including every realm in it (such as the physical universe), all its governing laws (quantum physics, passage of time, thermodynamics, mathematical constructs, everything), and all its substance including lifeforms; and (at some point "after" time was created, and thus the past tense "gave",) gave opportunity and ability to some lifeforms to communicate with this creator entity; then informed these lifeforms that this creator entity calls himself a himself, is named "I Am," and exists the way He does; and set -- from His own good pleasure -- rules for us to follow for our own good well-being, including punishment for disobedience, and a system of redemption for those who no longer want to be disobedient. His communicated rules were given in completed form by way of completed book; we simply call this book the Book: the completion took place during the reign of the Roman Empire, after the transitory end of ancient Greece, (with people still speaking their native languages,) and thus all over planet Earth this book is still chiefly referred to by some variant of the Koine Greek word for book, biblos. The Bible affirms and confirms (via internal and external evidences) that I Am is a god, but not merely/only a god, rather the God, who wants us to love Him as a divine Father, Brother, Husband, Shepherd, Mediator, Instructor, etc. and gives various incentives for us to do so, but nonetheless allows us the freedom of choice to love ourselves more, pleasing ourselves with created material of the universe, rules and redemption plans we create, and other things that should either simply not exist, or merely be conduits to aid us in loving Him. Lovingly obey Him, creator of our very existence; or willfully or neglectfully rebel against Him; our choice, and our reward in the end. I hope I answered such an open-ended question well enough.

Maybe. Does this mean you're one of those religious freaks?

Well...actually...Yes...and No... See, I've been added to the Lord's body, and I try to abide by His Will & Testament and worship Him as He has asked and all, but I'm not one of "those people" with the so-called healing and snake-handling and money-grubbing and jumping around hollerin' with the supposed Holy Ghost and illogically proclaiming "we all really believe the same thing, so we should tolerate the 'other Christian faiths' and just do what we like," (if we all truly believe the same thing, why would we need to tolerate each other's other beliefs? hm?)...

That's ridiculous. Everyone believes many different things about God's Designer Father, God's Annointed Word, and God's Holy Spirit, hence all the unauthorized denominations with each different group's various buildings sitting right across the street from one another. ("We're so unified, we're gonna spend a million dollars to keep you out of our assemblies!") And as for money-grubbing, the Levites were told in the old times to take and give tithes (10% of everything you owned) like, what, every three years? The Old Testament got fulfilled a long time ago and was replaced with the New, and the church of Christ was told about giving quite differently, so if you know people who are still tithing and begging anybody-and-everybody for money (as opposed to the saints freely giving for the sake of spreading gospel and charity), please try to set them straight, thanks. I've got lots more rants about religious corruption and hypocrisy, if you'd like to talk to me 'bout it sometime. $:^ )

What interests you?

Lots. Advancing God's kingdom with His Word. The female human, of course. $E^ b (Hey, God designed me with that interest, what can I say!) "Art," but that's a broad category; under it, I classify music, literature, videogames, visual 2D and 3D art, animation, motion picture, traditional martial artform, just lots of stuff. Science: biology, physics, geology, quantum mechanics, mathematics; note that just because something interests me doesn't mean I'm well-versed in it! $:^ ] Philosophy. Language (including machine language). But then I also enjoy croquet or volleyball or whatever. I can enjoy just about anything if I'm in good company, although a lot of activities I usually wind up enjoying alone. I especially love parody and wordplay. I laugh a lot, for various reasons; something can be gravely serious and still cause me to laugh.

Thanks for your time.

Sure. And thanks for yours. (Lol.)

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theUndiscovered
Brandon W. Horton
ParodyKnaveBob $:^ J