Signs of the Times, Issue No. 88 - 01/12/10

Up-chucking, Mr. Hammerstein??

Greetings to one and all from the border of Draper, Utah, in this late nite edition of "Signs of the Times"... and yes - the rumors are true. I was sick, sick, sick yesterday. Didn't do a whole lot... laid on the couch for twelve hours in between pukes. And yeah, yeah. I know I offended all my readers with some swine flu comments a couple weeks ago and now they think those comments have come to bite me right in the rear. Well, it's not swine flu... coulda been food poisoning. Not fun. That's for sure... But we're not talking about that anymore. Topics that will be discussed are as follows: The non-singles ward, a serious case of the blues, more anonymity, my future in writing, the first day back, and becoming a fan of not becoming a fan. On we go!

So for those of you who are unfamiliar with the LDS Church, each congregation is called a "ward." There are also congregations for members to attend once they graduate high school and until they get married. These are called "singles wards." I currently attend a singles ward in Sandy. I've never had a problem going to a singles ward. It's better for me than a family ward because there aren't any crying babies, no old people that give ten-minute-long prayers, just people roughly my age. As I saw in the pew on Sunday morning, though, I couldn't help but look around and notice that, in this ward of so-called "singles," there were an awful lot of couples there. That's just not very comforting for me, you know? If I'm going to church to find single ladies, the absolute last thing I want to see is a couple cuddling during the Sacrament. I don't want to see people kissing in the halls in between classes. And what's more - all the girls that aren't in a relationship all say the same thing - "I'm not looking for anything serious right now." Everybody together, now - BOOOOOO!! If you're in a serious relationship, why don't you just hike up your skirts and propose, all ready, especially if you're 27 years old. It's time to commit, people. And if you don't want guys in the singles ward checking you out, go home to the family ward. Really, if I hear one more girl tell me she's "not looking for something serious," I'll do something drastic. It's a first date, people. I'm not going to ask you to marry me. Actually, depending on how the date goes, you never know, right? But I just don't understand why girls don't even want to go on a single date with me anymore. Boo Box for you, you anti-daters.

Seriously, who wants to watch this? Nobody does.

While we're still talking about my dating frustrations, I'll be honest and say that I had been trying to get a date to go see this "Avatar" movie for about two weeks. Obviously, a couple girls that read this will undoubtedly say, "You didn't ask me!", but hey, people, I didn't ask every single girl in the world, right? It sufficeth to say, however, that I had gone to great lengths, searching high and low in Salt Lake and Utah Counties, but to no avail. Finally, Scott Aylett and I decided to just go out and see it by ourselves. It was nice - I didn't have to pay for him and he didn't have to pay for me. I won't let these stubborn girls ruin my fun. The movie was good. Not the best movie I've ever seen, but it was pretty good. Super, super long. Lots of military talk, so probably not one you want your little kids hearing. Actually, the profanity was laughable at some points. The story revolves around an alien planet which houses a huge wealth of very valuable metal. Naturally, the humans invade the planet in an attempt to drive the alien beings from their home, thus clearing the area of its inhabitants, giving the humans free access to the precious resource. Predictably, the Navi aliens don't just roll over and a giant war ensues. The plot was all right, but it's the graphics - the entirely computer-generated environment - that are absolutely stunning. "Avatar" is a visual masterpiece, regardless of how many anti-war political agendas it subjects you to during those three hours. There were a couple scenes that bothered us. One of which featured one of the Avatars (robot-like aliens that are controlled mentally, almost telepathically, by human soldiers) falling in love with one of the Navi. In the scene, the Avatar "chooses" his Navi counterpart in a mating ritual (mostly implied). That's P.M.U.!! As Scott and I have wondered so many times, if a paraplegic human can hook it up with a giant blue chick, why can't we even get a first date with another human? Geez! The other thing that super creeped me out was that the Navi and Avatars can telepathically control indigenous creatures like enormous birds or horses by forming "the bond" with them - linking a tentacle-like extension from their ponytails with a similar extension on the creature. Wasn't that condemned in the Old Testament? Weird.

At least they didn't form "the bond" on camera.

The Scubatron ratings machine tells me that the blog site received a lot of hits this week. How do I know this, you ask? An anonymous comment left on the blog site said, "there are more people that read this than you think." I responded, "I hate anonymous comments. Haha. If you read this Newsletter, I want to know who you are, dang it!" And then what happened? Another anonymous comment! Oh, it really steams my carrots when that happens. We'll get to the other comment in just a minute. I just wanted to vent about all these blog commenters. I guess posting anonymously is better than choosing some weird fake name like that "Montana" character from a month or two ago. That was strange. Never heard from him or her again. Mysterious, isn't it?

**QUESTION TIME!!**

Q. "Have you ever thought about becoming a writer? A columnist? You would be absolutely incredible."

- Anonymous

A. First of all, um, thank you. With school starting up again, of course I need to keep a career path in mind and, to be honest, the writer path has crossed my mind a lot. It would be a lot of fun to be a radio DJ for the rest of my life, but my worry is that, in order to make a lot of money doing that, you've got to be really good. It would be fun to do, but it would probably just end up being a side job or a hobby. The way things are looking with my major has me headed toward the way of print journalism - but I'm not necessarily sure I'd like to end up in newspaper because I can foresee newspapers going under with the continuing emergence of Internet news. I think that would be fun, writing for a website or online news source and, obviously, I'm not into the hard news, so much, like politics and talking about stuff going on in third-world countries. I'd rather be some sort of a columnist or a sports writer, but we'll see how it goes. Good Question.

Q. "Dear Aaron,

Today is your first day of school, if we're not mistaken. What are some adventures we can look forward to hearing about now that Comm and Gender and your internship are over?"

Just Curious,

- The Junior Mounties

A. I've got a Feeling that this semester will be a Good one. It was nice to get back on TRAX today. I haven't ridden that thing in over a month, so it's been a while since I've played "Male, Female, or Both?" at the Gallivan Plaza. As I sat at the Plaza waiting for the University train, I took a seat next to some crazy guy who immediately asked me how I was doing. I said I was doing well. He started talking forever and telling me all this crazy stuff. "This world is crazy, isn't it?" "Yeah..." "They say it's going to end in 2012. Do you believe that?" "No." "You know, they sent me to jail once. Can you imagine them sending a guy like me to jail?" "That's unfortunate." "I'm guessing you've never been to jail?" "No, not yet." "That's good." He was holding a DVD called "Families of France" that looked like it had been checked out of a library. Another interesting thing that happened today was when I was sitting in Foundations of Business and the professor walked into the room. One of the first things he said was, "You're not all terrorists, are you?" Perhaps one of the more interesting classes I'm taking this semester is Swing Dance, baby. Here's my reasoning - I needed an easy class that I knew I could pass. I figured it would be an easy way to meet girls. Mormon girls. What says "stake dance" better than kids who think they can swing dance? Am I right, people? And finally, if Donny Osmond can do it, so can I. The class is full of short Asian chicks and is taught by my ex-girlfriend's sister. Good Times, for sure. It will be like "Dancing with the A-Towns" out there. We'll see how this semester goes, but I do believe that there will be plenty to laugh about. (SALUTE!)

Your guess is as Good as mine...

Quick update for you Peeps out there - Filming for "The Big Ticket 2," the long-awaited sequel to the smash hit documentary about pro wrestling is underway. If you are interested in being interviewed for TBT2, please contact me. Also, for those of you who think the polls on the blog site are worthless and not worth your Time, last week's poll about Snuggies will come in handy in the near future when Amy and I set out on "The Great Snuggie Adventures." Stay tuned...

As promised (sort of), here is another lovely Two-Minute Instant Message for you all to enjoy. Apparently I'm not the only one who is getting super annoyed by everyone becoming "fans" of everything on Facebook. It's Time to bash. I will be in Red. My sister, Amy, will be in green. Let us proceed.

Well hello there, Amy. How are you doin' tuh-night?

I'm doin' Good.

Where's Cody? I thought he was going to do this with us...

He's doing homework.

As it should be... Anyway, we've had many a conversation about how annoying Facebook is getting nowadays, right?

Right.

Perhaps the most annoying thing of all is how people can become "fans" of pretty much everything - from oxygen to...

Sleeping. Laughing. There's like everything.

Truly. Let's take a gander at some of the ridiculous fan pages we can find on Facebook... "Oreo." Seems normal enough, right?

"Converse." "Bubble Wrap."

Sure, sure, but these ones are boring. There are way crazier ones out there. Let's investigate. How about... "You're like 12, I don't want to hear about how drunk you got last night." True, but, I mean, do you honestly need to become a "fan" of that?

That's a weird one. "Saying 'It's ok' but secretly knowing it's killing you inside." "Not dropping your cell phone in water."

I'm a fan of that one, too. "I can't believe I used to like you..... what was I thinking??" ZING!! "I love running up and down hotel hallways." Good for you. "I thought you were hot... till I clicked 'More Images.'" Dang. People are mean.

"Who is shawty? Apparently she has a lot of rapper boyfriends." What?

"Deleting everything you've typed cause you saw the other person was typing." "Carrying a gun!" Haha! The person whose page we're looking at definitely isn't old enough for that... Come on, Amy, Time's ticking.

Hey now! Oh, I hate this one - it's like "I'm the girl, you're the boy, you text me first or we don't talk" or whatever.

Here's one of the lamest ones I've seen in the last couple days, "If a guy responds to your text message while playing XBox, he loves you." Wow, ladies. Get a life. And finally, probably my favorite one, "Laying in bed at night and thinking about EVERYTHING"... So, Amy, what's the lesson we learned tonight?

Don't join dumb Facebook fan pages.

And why not?

Because people will think you're dumb.

Yeah. Thanks for joining me. Any final words? Too bad. Time's up.

Are you really #1? And if so, do we really care?

The Shoutout of the Week goes to Chandra Young. I'm not aware of whether or not Chandra actually even knows the Newsletter exists, but I believe she is worthy of a Shoutout because of a note she posted on Facebook the other day. She wrote a note about 27 of her friends and associates that she admired and I just so happened to be one of them, even though we barely know each other. Here is what she said: "Aaron Christensen - I don't know you very well, but you've actually influenced me a lot. From what I know about you, you're absolutely hilarious, insanely outgoing and charismatic, and you have such a unique, down-to-earth perspective. I just wanted to thank you for being such an awesome person. Your friends are lucky to have you!" Um... wow. Thank you!

Precious.

Well, on that note, I think that's about it for this week. It's nice to know that not everybody hates me. There are some Good girls out there somewhere... I apparently just haven't met some of them yet. If you'll excuse me, I've got some cleaning to do.

Until next Time,

MOVE IT! Sell It! And Leave the Door Open!

Aaron