Greetings to one and all from SANDY, UTAH, the new permanent residence of Mr. Aaron Christensen, world-renown surgeon and evil print journalist. This is the special Thanksgiving edition of the "Signs of the Times" and I'm really feeling it right now. Here's the deal - I wrote an article for the Snow College newspaper last week that essentially exposed the student government as communists and some little punk has the nerve to write in to the paper and tell them that I hate charity and I should go make fun of little starving kids. Uh... I don't think so. Seriously, if you want to read the article and the hater-ade let me know and I'll let you. But if you don't, that's ok. I know I'm right and I don't need sympathy. I could see this coming a mile away. They'll probably expell me from school for this. Dang. Topics to be discussed today: Birthdays gone by, coming "home," "the talk," liquidation sales and things of that nature, the pseudo-Madden Bowl, porcupine quills, and Thanksgiving dinner. On we go!
First and foremost, I would like to publicly thank those who went out of their way to say happy birthday to me last Wednesday. I believe I may have set a new record for "wall" posts on Facebook for a single day. It wasn't a "normal" birthday, by any means - it was my first birthday completely away from home, other than the mission, so it was kind of strange to be doing homework at night instead of opening presents or something, but that's all right. I ate like a manly man on the 19th. In the afternoon, one of my friends took me to the Malt Shop, where I ate a hamburger and a shake, then less than two hours later I was invited to dinner with another friend, where I had a lovely BBQ chicken pizza. I had a few minutes to spare in between dinner and my study group, so I went back to my apartment. I was greeted by my roommates, who had made me a birthday cake. Generous of them, I know. After having a piece, I had to go to a group meeting for my communications class. They had also made me a cake using the same frosting, but a different batter. As we finished, I needed to go say hello to yet another friend, so I headed to her apartment and was treated to yet another cake - with the same frosting! It's a good thing that rainbow chip is the greatest frosting ever to be conceived by the human mind. All in all, it was a pretty good day. I think I had enough cake to last me a month... But then on Tuesday night, my family threw me a small, belated party. We had rainbow chip cake and it was delicious. Thanks again to everyone who took some time to wish me a happy birthday.
So my family moves like two or three weeks ago, right? Anyway, I haven't been home for about a month, so I came home this weekend to a new house. I'm a nostalgic freak, so I decided to drive past my old house... just to... make sure it was still there, I guess... Well, they have already put up a fence, so it doesn't even look like it did when I lived there. That was sad. It puts closure on the whole ordeal, though. I don't live there anymore. I get it. I'm sorry.
The new house is pretty nice. The strange thing, as I'm sure you can all imagine, is that I don't know my way around. Luckily, I guessed right today when I was looking for a fork, so I only had to open one drawer. Lots of stuff is different here, though. I am "rocking the air mattress," as Jordan Harward would say, being as I don't have a room or a bed (I hope my parents don't feel bad when they read this - I've had worse, believe me - so the air mattress isn't bad). The other crazy thing is that my family has upgraded to some crazy thing I guess they call "DirecTV" and the thing seriously has 1,000 channels. No exaggeration. I woke up on Wednesday morning and everybody was gone, so I thought I'd sit down and watch a little TV or something. I soon realized that there is a new remote control. It was face-down on the couch, so when I flipped it over and saw the corresponding 1,000 buttons, I was fearful... very fearful. To make a long story short (too late), I sat down and flipped through all the channels one by one since I didn't know how to use the remote properly. There is a much easier way to do it, apparently, but I didn't know at the time. One by one went the channels. Many of them were locked or were for ordering pay-per-views. We also have a surprising amount of Spanish channels. That could make for some exciting weekends! I miss those telenovelas. Eventually, I settled on "The Herd" with Colin Cowherd, which is a talk radio sports show on ESPN-U. I listened to the show on the radio a lot over the summer and I liked it. I didn't agree with a lot of it, but I liked it. I now realize why Colin Cowherd is a radio talk show host and not a television personality. He's a strange, geeky-looking man. Like Mr. Hate Mail Boy, you can get mad at me all you want, but it's true!
My dad eventually sat me down and we had "the talk." I never thought I'd have "the talk" with my dad, but it's true - my dad had to teach me how to use a remote control. I'm man enough to admit it. What are you going to do?I think all this "going out of business" talk is garbage. A hoax. A ploy. Not real. Call it what you will - I don't believe in it. I got some moolah for my b-day and I thought I'd go out and spend it. After contemplating over whether or not to buy Rock Band 2 or Guitar Hero: World Tour for about four hours, I decided I'd get some smaller-scale stuff like board games and clothes. I remembered a commercial I saw over the weekend announcing that Mervyn's was going out of sale and that all their clothes were half-off. That sounds weird. Strike that. All their clothes were going for a discounted price. Ahem. I decided to go over and see what exactly that meant. Some of the stuff was pretty cheap - $9.50, $15.00, etc. However, most of their more attractive items were still going for twenty-five or thirty bucks - and that was at 50-60% off! No wonder they're going out of business! Nobody can afford the stuff they're trying to sell! I think they're not really going out of business - they're faking it. They raise their regular prices by 50% and then they say they're selling it for half off! People think they're getting a good deal, but they're really only buying it for the actual price! I also went to another store that was in the viscinity that also claimed to be going out of business. I went in for probably less than five minutes and walked out without having bought anything. Why? Simply because they weren't selling anything worth buying. I wouldn't buy anything in there even if they weren't going out of business. I don't get it, people. Why don't you just sell good stuff for cheap prices? I know this is another subject like the gas prices and stuff and I'm probably wrong, but I'm just saying that in a perfect world, that's how things would be.
Thanksgiving is here once again and that can only mean a few things: food, family, and Madden Bowl. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Madden Bowl, my brother Austin and I started this Thanksgiving tradition back in 1996, I believe. Every year, we have played a game (or series of games) of the Madden football video game series on Thanksgiving Day. In 1996, back when neither of us knew what we were doing, I claimed the victory, but every year from 1997 to 2005, Austin has been triumphant. Give credit where credit is due - I beat Austin one year and he somehow talked me into going best-of-three. Needless to say, he beat me two games in a row after that. The Madden Bowl has been suspended for two more years until Austin comes home. Today I will play Cody in Madden and we'll see what he's got. Unfortunately for the young one, I'm a little bit more experienced and I'm afraid that, unless Austin mails in some sort of absentee ballot, I will arise triumphant from the ashes left from the virtual gridiron battle.
**QUESTION TIME!!**
Q. "Dear Grasshopper,
How many porcupine quills does the average porcupine have?"
- Dudley Do-Right of Her Majesty's Royal Mounted Police
A. That's a good question, Dudley. I do know that their quills are approximately 75 milimeters long and two milimeters wide. But if I had to guess, I'd say that they have as many quills as a porcupine can quill (if a porcupine can quill quills). Um... next question?
Q. "Dear Aaron,
Did they have mashed potatoes and gravy at the original Thanksgiving dinner?"
- Just Curious,
The Junior Mounties
A. I can tell you this - they apparently (oh yeah - SALUTE!!) didn't have tossed salad. Because according to M. Night Shamalan or however you spell his name, tossed salad didn't exist back then.
If I have said anything that you find offensive in this (or any) Issue, let me know in Question format by emailing me at tarheelglory19@yahoo.com.
The Shoutout of the Week this week goes to Benjamin Franklin - eat your heart out, Benji. Turkeys rule.
The Fantasy Football Superstar of the Week goes to Terrell Owens of the A-Town Assassins. Normally, the Superstar of the Week goes to a quarterback or a running back, but this week, T.O. stepped it up, making amends for his last three or four subpar performances, recording 213 receiving yards, 1 TD, and 31 Fantasy Points. 'Atta boy, T.O. 'Atta boy. Would you like some popcorn?
I suppose I should say something about Thanksgiving so people don't really think I'm as big of a jerk as Mr. Hate Mail Boy. So, here goes: I'm thankful to be alive.
Juuuuuust joshing around, peeps. Come on. I really am grateful for my amazing family, for the Church, and for all of my good friends. I am grateful to have been blessed with a great childhood and the many blessings that I currently enjoy. I'd continue, but the tears are flowing and obscuring my vision. Sniff.
Welp, that's about it for this week. If you'll excuse me, I've got some turkey to eat and some football to watch. Remember, Loyal Subscribers - when it comes to Thanksgiving, the most important rule is safety.
Safety first!
Until next Time,
Move It! Sell It! And Leave the Door Open!
Aaron
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