Earlier this week I joined up with Blogger Insider. My first Interviewer/Interviewee is the heretofore unknown to me (but now added to my favorites list) C. Dodd Harris IV of Ipse Dixit. Below are his questions and my answers.
My god have mercy on our souls.
- Does your girlfriend still think HoBiscuit is funny?
Yes. At least I think she does. Wait a minute and let me check.
“Honey, do you still think me calling you HoBiscuit is funny?”
*Whack*
“Oooowwww.”
Uh, no. The answer would be no.
- Is being a geek a form of cultural superiority?
Absolutely, now shut up and peel me another grape.
- Choose one: Neal Stephenson or Douglas Adams. Justify your choice.
That’s pretty tough, but I’ve got to go with Adams. Even though Neal wrote Snow Crash, which is one of the most amazing pieces of fiction I’ve ever read, it is still only one book. Nothing else he’s written has had the same kind of power and sense of ‘reality’ as his first book and I don’t know that anything he ever writes will. On the other hand, Adams wrote the Hitchhiker series and each book was better than the last. Also, Adams is dead which always raises an authors perceived worth.
- Do you still have a Flintstones pillow?
No, but sometimes I miss it.
- Have you ever considered murdering someone to get their rent-controlled apartment? If yes, please describe.
I’m a New Yorker so the answer is a resounding ‘Yes’.
Describe what? The way I would kill them? Well, I’m a hands-on type of guy, so there would be blood and lots of it. Power tools and drop cloths would be used. In order to make it look like an accident, I would use a power sander since everyone knows that power sanders cause more deaths than any other power tool costing $34.95 or less. It’s a fact. Ask Sears.
- How is Marx’s critique of Capitalism relevant to the current War in Afghanistan?
I don’t think it is. Marx wanted everyone to give up their individual prosperity for the good of the society as a whole, but this ideological view of society failed to take into account humanities ingrained vices and the individual’s free will. In society, he did not see a group of individuals, he merely saw a large mass of living things. The result of course, was that his ideas worked in theory and on paper, but never in practice. Afghanistan’s leadership however, wanted to remove free will from its citizens using fear and hate disguised as religion. They tried to create a nation of unthinking, frightened slaves who would do whatever they were told to do by those in power, without ever thinking for themselves. It is an old, old method of controlling an easily frightened, exceedingly poor, deeply religious and mostly uneducated people. The two ideologies are vastly different.
- How many children would you like to have? Any time soon?
Three kids. A boy, a girl and possibly a radioactive, mutant broccoli but don’t hold me to that last one. Two children of one gender and one of the other would also be fine with me. And no, not anytime soon.
- Made any money through CafePress?
Very little, but then again I’m only making 50¢ on each sale so I didn’t expect to get rich. I just think it would be really cool to walk down the street one day and see my face on someone’s shirt. Heh, that would rock.
- How the Hell does a freelance designer afford a surround sound system like that?
I’m a very good freelance designer and my clients are very happy to pay me handsomely for my services. No, really they are. I swear.
- Having had a chance to use it for a week now, would you recommend the Lernout and Hauspie speech recognition program to users interested in such a product?
If they have the patience and are willing to actually use it then yes, I would recommend it. However, it does take some getting used to, and training it to recognize what you say can be both time consuming and frustrating. But it’s definitely worth it.
- Do you consider yourself to be paranoid?
No. (Yes you do)
No, I don’t. (Then what’s with the tinfoil hat?)
It’s a… a fashion statement. (Hah! So why do you live in an old WWII bomb shelter?)
Uh, low rent? (Nice try. And all the canned food with the labels removed?)
I, uh, like to be surprised? (Why is there a gun-slot in your front door?)
That’s easy. I live in NY and every apartment has one. (But yours is chrome plated.)
That keeps the rays out. (Rays?)
The mind reading rays from the satellite the government keeps over New York at all times. Everyone knows that. (Uh-huh. And why would the government want to read minds?)
To find out where I am, of course. (Why?)
They want my teeth! The secret plans are written on my teeth and they want them! So do the giant, alien llamas! But they’ll never get them, never! I’m too smart for ‘em! I hid my real teeth and replaced them with marshmallows! HahahahaHAHAHahaha!
(Ah, I guess you’re not paranoid after all. You’re just plain crazy)
Llamas got my teeth! Llamas got my teeth!
- (Optional) What is your name?
I choose option ‘E’. None of the above.
You can check out Ipse Dixit for the questions I asked him and his answers. This is fun.
Yesterday on the FX BTVS rerunorama they showed the episode where Jonathan is the world’s favorite superhero. I don’t remember seeing it before; I wonder if they even ran it the first time around. The moral, anyway, was “no one likes a geek on an ego trip.”
Which was clearly erroneous.
“Llamas got my teeth” is destined for macro status.
Paranoia is just a defence mechanism. They ARE ALL OUT TO GET YOU.
But, but, Cryptonomicom!
I love Stephens, but his endings suck. His openings and middles rock, but he never seems to be able to really *finish* a story – it always seems like he ran out of time and had five minutes to come up with a last page. Cryptonomicon is better than his others in that respect.
Not my idea of fun, old bean! I’d rather eat ground glass than answer some of those questions.
So your paranoid.. but yes I am after you so be afraid, be VERY afraid *insert evil laughter here*
What? AFTER ME? GODS NO!
NOW, I’m really paranoid.
Having composed the question, I would dispute the contention that Stephenson’s later (or even earlier) books necessarily lack the power of Snow Crash. The Diamond Age is my favourite of them all, personally. Still, good answers. They were well worth the effort of composing the questions.