Well. I recently submitted myself to the harsh, thorough, and unflinching scrutiny of an independent and unbiased interview board. All for the purpose of providing some background on myself to the followers of this site.

So who is behind ITF anyway?

My name is Tom. My staff, interns, and I are completely responsible for the content and day to day operations of ITF. We are solely supported (at this point) by generous donations from our constituents. We are looking in to getting some corporate sponsors, but that hasn’t happened yet.

What’s with the Iced Tea obsession?

I like to drink iced tea. I like it a lot. I drink tons of it. Occasionally a whole gallon in less than 24 hours. And that’s not sharing any with the ITF staff. I didn’t grow up in a location known for it’s tea-drinking (Oregon), so I’m especially blessed to have been given the gift of love for iced tea. My Dad is from Nebraska, and that’s a definite tea-drinking area. He taught my Mom to like it, so we often drank it as a family when I was but a child.

Do you have a special way you prepare iced tea, perhaps a method officially endorsed by Iced Tea Forever?

Yes, I do, right here in this previous post.

So why the blog? Didn’t you used to say that your calling was to comment on blogs, not blog yourself?

Yes. But my calling changed. I still comment a lot, but maybe not as much as I used to. I feel a new calling, a calling to offer an antidote to all the deep blogs out there. A calling to offer an alternative! So many blogs are burdened down with such deep philosophies and copious intellectuallness, staggering along beneath their own weight of pompous pontifications. I was called to offer lightweight insight especially geared towards the common man!

I bring fresh and useful brilliancy in the form of everything from recipes to music reviews to entertainment to pictures of all kinds to product reviews to random thoughts to poetical masterpieces to miscellaneous audio files to relevant commentary on the things you care about!

Why do you like to bash Indiana? Do you have genuine feelings of hostility towards the fine state (with the asinine nickname) of your residence?

No, of course not. I actually view Indiana with a benevolent fondness. It’s just fun to ridicule a little bit, there’s so much fodder! The weather, the nickname, the backwardsness, the winters, the awful drivers, Notre Dame, the potholes, the summers, non-open-faced sloppy joes, the flat landscape, the mud, the animosity towards Daylight Savings Time.

But I like Indiana, really I do.

What is the Indiana State Motto?

Welcome to Amish Country — Don’t Step in Our Exhaust!

What brought you to leave Utopia (Oregon) and brave the idiosyncrasies of Indiana?

Aha. What do you think? Most people get it in the first guess.

When are you getting married?

June 25! You’re all invited.

Where do you work?

Like you really care. Here. Otherwise referred to as the Den of Iniquity.

Do you have any health problems?

Like you REALLY care! Yes. I have a sleeping disorder and an eating disorder.

Once I begin either activity I am unable to stop.

What’s with all these so-called “Poetic Masterpieces?”

I am one of the rare males who has dug down deep and carefully connected with his emotional being. Hence, I have the ability to write emotionally moving deep poetry. Not wanting to stifle this gift, I publish the occasional poetic masterpiece on ITF for the edification and enlightenment of the readership.

Where is your tongue when you are feverishly composing a typical brilliant post?

Such as this one? Usually jammed firmly in my cheek.