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Lot's of people ask me lots of questions. Most of the answers to their questions can be found somewhere within my website but for some strange reason, a lot of folks seem unwilling to look for the answers to those questions. So I tried to come up with a way to cut down on the frequency of questions that are already answered somewhere within my website. I decided a F.A.Q. might be the simplest way. If you'd like to submit a question for me to answer, then look to the bottom of this page. You'll find a little link at the bottom which will open up a small window with a form in it that you can fill out to ask your question. Before you use that form PLEASE make sure that your question isn't already answered here (or elsewhere in my website).
I should add before I begin that I guess for a F.A.Q. to truly be a true F.A.Q. that the questions really should be something that people frequently ask. After all, F.A.Q. does stand for Frequently Asked Questions. For the most part, that'll be true for this F.A.Q. But it's also going to contain some unique questions as well as the type of stupid questions I always ask people. But F.A.A.U.Q.O.S.Q.I.A.A. is just way way too weird. It's an easy format. The question will be in bold, followed by my answer. And if that question was already answered somewhere within my website, I'll include the name of the page in parenthesis. It'll be the main section, then a colon, then the subsection. If there's another colon, then the following text is a subsection of the subsection. If there's a semi-colon that means similar info can be found in another section as well. Oh, the new questions get put at the bottom. So if you've been here and wanna see what's new, just scroll down a little bit.
Q. How old are you?
A. At the time I'm writing this, I'm 28. My birthday is October 30, 1972. You can do the math to figure out if I'm still 28 or not. (About Brandon: Who I Am)
Q. Do you live alone?
A. Nope, Corey lives here with me. You'll see him on cam sometimes. Well, at least the back of his head (he has his own computer across the room). Living with us are our various four-footed family members. All four of them. Corey and I are out-numbered 2:1. Hopefully our pets haven't watched Animal Farm.
Q. Where do you live?
A. I live in a rather large duplex. I never hear my neighbors and they never hear me (yes, I've asked them). Oh wait, you prolly mean that city and state thing. I'm located in Springfield, Missouri. The Assemblies of God Mecca and home of the Blue Vatican. It's also home to the training grounds to learn Tradition and Pompous Ceremony (AKA Central Bible College). I like Springfield quite a bit and hope to spend a good portion of the rest of my days on earth here in this town. (About Brandon: Who I Am)
Q. Who's that other guy I see sometimes on your webcam?
A. Well, that's tough to say. It could be Corey or any number of my friends who stop by and wind up playing on the computer or check their email.
Q. Why do you have a webcam?
A. I'm fascinated with being able to observe people. It's not a voyeuristic fetish or anything; I just like to observe people, especially in their natural environment. Webcams provide me that opportunity. So I'm a fan of webcams. I'm always scouting around looking for new ones that are actually clean (ie, no sex or nudity). In the early part of 1999, I began to wonder how these little webcams actually work. So my webcam was born out of the desire to figure out how to take the image from my QuickCam and put it on my webpage. That's the basic reason to why I have a webcam. I'm not an exhibitionist and I'm a little insecure about my own looks so it's not like I did it just so people can see me. I keep it online because I get to meet some pretty interesting people who come to see a new webcam. On top of that, I think my mom would be upset if I didn't have my webcam anymore. She likes to check in on me.
Q. Do you do "shows"?
A. Being familiar with the webcam world, I assume you mean do I do sex shows. Absolutely not. You will never find ANY nudity nor sexual content on my webcam or anywhere else within my website.
Q. Why don't you take any requests?
A. I don't have my webcam online so that I can be someone's virtual puppet. It's there to allow you a brief glimpse into my world. I ignore the cam. It's tucked away in a little cubby-hole on my desk so that it's out of mind. I won't wave to it or look into it and smile or turn to one side or anything else. You'll see whatever I happen to be doing. If you make any type of request, I'll just ignore it. Other webcam operators might take requests and that's great. That's their choice. But I don't take requests. If you simply insist on asking people to do something so you can see it on a webcam, then I suggest you find someone who will take requests or else find one of those little web robots.
Q. Why didn't you talk to me on AOL IM?
A. I have AOL IM set up to ask me if I want to accept a message from someone who's not on my buddy list. If you're not on my buddy list and you try to send me a message, then AOL IM pops up with that little window. The only problem is I usually don't notice that little window until quite sometime after someone tries to send me a message. So I wasn't ignoring you, I just didn't see AOL IM asking me if it was ok to accept a message from someone not on my buddy list.
Q. I sent you an email two months ago. Why haven't you answered it?
A. Because I'm lousy at replying to email quickly. Why? I don't know. Maybe I'm lazy. I think mainly it's because when I am online, I'd rather be chatting somewhere with someone live than sending email. Try AOL IM or ICQ if you really want to get in touch with me; you'll have better luck.
Q. Why can't I see anything on your cam?
A. Most likely if you can't see anything in the picture on my cam then that means there's no light on in my room. Even during the daytime it's very dark in my room unless a light is on. At night, I turn the lights off because I can't sleep with them on. I know some webcam operators leave a light on at night. I can't. I wouldn't be able to sleep. And, well, my sleep is more important to me than someone being able to see me at night. If you really want to be able to see into my room even when it's dark, then send me a check for $1,000 so I can go buy the Sony digital camcorder that I have my eye on. It has a night vision mode. If you buy me the cam, I promise to hook it up as my webcam.
Q. What's this "OatBran" thing I keep seeing pop up?
A. Well, some of my more creative friends once gave me the nickname of OatBran. The story goes a little something like this. I suppose many many people are too lazy to say a two-syllable name so a lot of my friends always called me "Bran." (note: you may NOT call me Bran without getting my permission first. Only a few select friends and my family can call me that) So they became quite creative, as teens are apt to do, and began calling me things such as "Bran Flakes," "Bran Muffin," and of course "OatBran." OatBran was the one that stuck. Some people even made very tacky and crude comments about my nickname and health food (use your imagination!). So, that's how the name OatBran was born. When I first discovered the online world, I wanted a chat name that was unique. I figured OatBran wouldn't be in too much of a high demand, so I chose that. I abandoned it as my online identity after about two years. I became tired of people, even in real life, calling me "Oat." So now I chat under Brandon. Sometimes Brandon72. I'd use Brandon for AOL IM, but it was already taken.
Q. Why is your AOL IM nick polarboi? What does that mean?
A. Well, it's not my AOL IM nick anymore. My new AOL IM nick is BrandonGCO. But here's the story on the old AOL IM nick anyhoo. I chose polarboi because PolarBoy was already taken. So I had to go with the cheesy spelling of "boi." It's inspired by a song by a band called The Choir. It's off of their Free Flying Soul cd. The song: Polar Boy. I began using it a few years back during a time in my life that the song "Polar Boy" was highly symbolic of. Though that time in my life is past and that person doesn't really exist anymore, I keep it around as a reminder of what I can easily become without spending time with God each day.
Q. Why didn't you answer my email? (or ICQ message or AOL IM or webpager message, etc. etc.)
A. Didn't I just answer this question? I think. Maybe not. Anyhoo... it's nothing personal, really. I'm not trying to maintain some untouchable attitude or anything like that. My webcam is getting more and more hits each and every day. When I began it, the page only got maybe 10 visits a day. Now it's getting five times that at least every hour (do the math). I can't keep up with everything coming in via email, ICQ and the ICQ webpager. If you've asked to be added to my ICQ list, I'll prolly authorize it. Please don't assume that just because I've let you add me to your ICQ list that I'm ready to begin chatting away for hours on end. I probably won't answer your ICQ messages. I'm not going to neglect my current friends just to answer all the "hey, cool cam" or other such messages. And as far as email, pretty much the same thing goes. I do read every single piece of email people send me. I appreciate people taking time out of their day to send me email. There's simply no way I can respond to it all though. So here's a little bit of information that might help you. If you're really insistent on getting a reply from me then make sure you're saying something interesting or something that really catches my attention. Oh, nothing dirty. And nothing flirty. I ignore both types of comments. And if your real name isn't listed in your ICQ info, I'm going to put you on ignore/invisible. I'm a first name kind of guy. Not chat names, not surnames. First names. Friendly and comfortable. Finally, AOL IM. If I do happen to notice that AOL IM is asking me if I want to accept a message from so-and-so person who's not on my buddy list, I won't always respond. If I'm already in the middle of something else then I'll read your message then close the window and move on. Unless, of course, you said something that would catch my attention. Just generalities and common pleasantries aren't gonna cut it. So there ya go, the above should help you persuade me to send a response. Please don't think I'm a jerk for what I've said concerning this. I'm actually a very nice guy (or at least that's what people keep telling me.) It's just that I get a lot of things coming in all the time and I am human. It's not possible for me to get to it all. Thanks for your understanding and patience with me!
Q. What kind of music do you like?
A. The easiest way to answer that is to point you to the Music section of my website. Not my music links, but the pages of what's in my CD changer and all the other cd's as well. (About Brandon: Music)
Q. Boxers or briefs?
A. You know what? You REALLY need to get a life if you're that interested in someone's underwear.
Q. What's the deal with "prolly?"
A. That's my own little adaptation of the word "probably." I borrowed it from a guy I used to chat with back in the day's of Prodigy chat rooms. His chat name was Rancid and eventually he became killsmile (his real name was Jayson. Thanks to Devon for helping me remember). Anyhoo, he always used the word "prolly" and I liked it and now I use it too. As a side note, I must give credit to Molly (a visitor to my website) for the most amusing response to my use of that word. She assumed it was part of a Missouri accent affliction. I got a good chuckle out of that one. I should point out, I don't really have an accent. I've lived in so many places that it all just kinda melts together after a while. Anyhoo, that's the story with "prolly."
Q. Can I have your Elmo?
A. No (and people say my answers are too long).
Q. What is your schedule for being on camera?
A. I don't have a clue. My schedule varies quite a bit and how much I'm on cam really depends on how much time I wanna waste in front of my computer. Evenings, late evenings, are usually the best time to catch me online. At night, the cam is dark because there's no light on in my room so you won't be able to see anything. During the day I try to remember to open my curtains so at least some sunlight can light up my empty room. I make no guarantees though. I'm on when I'm on and that's about the most certainty I can give you.
Q. Will you get naked?
A. Sure, if you send me enough money through PayPal. No, I'm only kidding, that was just a joke. Just to be clear, I'll say this one final time. NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let me add just a little to that while I'm on the subject: if you ask me that question, I will seriously consider just all-together banning your IP from my entire website. Get a life ok? If you want nudity, go somewhere else. But please stop asking me. And please don't send messages with financial offers. You are welcome to send me money via PayPal though. *smile*
Q. What's hanging on your walls?
A. Not a whole lot at the moment. I just moved everything into a new room and don't really have the money to decorate.
Q. Why do you have so many links to vote for your webcam?
A. Old question. I should delete it. It doesn't even apply anymore because I took those silly things away.
Q. Why does your room look so different?
A. Well, since there's only two of us in the house now, we moved the computers into the empty bedroom. The room you were used to seeing was my bedroom. Now you're looking at our "office."
Q. Why is your cam always on?
A. Um, it's not. If that image doesn't change for a while, that's a good clue it's not on.
Q. Why is it important for you for people to see what you're doing?
A. It's not important. If anyone thinks it is important to see what I'm doing then they prolly need their head examined.
Q. How many hits does your site get each day?
A. That's a really good question. The entire site gets about 200 total unique hits on average each day. More on weekends. My highest day ever was 593 total unique hits for the entire site. I don't really even worry with it anymore.
Q. How long have you had your pets?
A. I have had Teri (my dog) since January of 96 and Sabrina (my cat) since November of 97. Corey got Toby in August of 2000 and Jasmine (his cat) in July of 2001.
Q. Do you have an earring?
A. Well, either someone was just curious or they have really good eyes and saw it on my webcam. Oh geez, I hope my mom doesn't see this! She wasn't too happy the last time I got my ear pierced. Her response was to sigh, slightly roll her eyes with disgust and mutter "it's your ear." But yes, I have an earring. Three actually. One in my right ear and two in my left. Man, now I really do hope mom doesn't see this!! At the time of this writing, all three piercings are small round silver studs. After four or five weeks (or however long it takes them to heal), I will replace the right and lower left with matching silver hoops with a little silver ball on them. Above that on the left will be another small silver hoop with a black bead. I had a fourth in the cartilage of my left ear but it wouldn't ever heal properly so I took it out.
Q. Are you straight or gay?
A. Honestly, why does it matter? It shouldn't. I think it's a pretty shallow question asked by pretty shallow people. But, I'll let you figure it out or you can just make your own assumptions.
Well, here's the link to the form that I promised I'd include. When you click it, a new little window will open up. I just ask three things from you: First, please don't use the form for anything other than submitting a F.A.Q. question. If you'd like to drop me a personal note, please use email, ICQ or the guestbook. These F.A.Q. questions go into a folder in my email program that I only check once every couple of weeks. Second, please make sure that the question you're about to ask isn't already answered in my F.A.Q. or elsewhere on my website. And third, supply your real name and a valid email address. If you don't, I won't include your question here in my F.A.Q. That's not really asking too much. And don't worry, I don't sell email addresses or sign people up for strange email lists, and I won't put your name and address online anywhere. I require a real name and email address just to discourage would be pranksters and the less mature among netizens from being dumb. If I don't see a real name and an email address in the question for my F.A.Q., I'll just delete it without reading any further. When you're all done, press the send button. Once you see a confirmation message, close the little window.
Click here to submit a F.A.Q. question
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