Signs of the Times, Issue No. 96 - 03/09/10

If I can't see you, you can't see me.

Greetings to one and all. This is Aaron and I'm coming to you live from the Cave of Shame. I'll be joined today by Shambo from "Survivor: Samoa." She lives in this cave and only comes out to talk to the chickens. Topics to be discussed today: The worst advice I've ever received, the Costa Vida curtain call, the Oscars, the solution to all our problems, The Week in Review, and why only twenty people are reading the Newsletter this week. On we go!

"Chawwwww-cletttt......"

Welcome to the Hall of Privacy. Yes, it's true. I've finally had enough of those ridiculous anonymous commenters and I've set my blog site to private. What does this mean for you? Well, you've got to have my permission to access the site. This means that only people that I know and trust will be able to read "Signs of the Times." I am also continuing the traditional email Newsletter, so it is also accessible that way. Why would I do such a thing? Why would I virtually eliminate any growth for the Newsletter? Simply because the anonymous comments had gotten to the point where I was having to delete at least two comments per week that were either extremely childish or unthinkably rude. It stopped being funny like a month ago. I'm all About getting feedback on the Newsletter, but I don't need to be degraded every single Time I voice my opinion. Nobody deserves that. Except for maybe Brett Favre. So if you're reading this right now, first of all, consider yourselves to be part on a very elite society - part of the A-Town Nation. A Loyal Subscriber.

I've also been more ruthless with my Facebook unfriendings and privacy settings. I still believe in "The Facebook Effect" - the notion that, when online, people have a tendency to say and do things that they would never dare do in person. People are losing their ability to communicate face-to-face and I find it rather disturbing. I have been receiving weekly counseling sessions on Tuesday nights after a certain person would read "Signs of the Times." I received a few pieces of Good advice from this person, so I honestly didn't mind her input. She's married and has never met me in person, but she knows some of my friends, so it's a little weird, but whatever. Last week's counseling session mainly consisted of her telling me that my blog is "generally negative" and I think that she thinks that I have severe depression. She told me that my Newsletter is lowering my self-esteem every Tuesday. My rebuttal is that, on the contrary, the Newsletter (if anything) boosts my self-esteem because it makes me Feel like I'm a lot funnier than I actually am. The counseling went on and on, but then things got worse. She insisted that I should quit my job because when girls found out that I worked at Cafe Rio, they'd say, "Well, I guess it's not going to be a diamond ring!" Um... it's Costa Vida, thank you very much. She went on to tell me that I should move out of my house and get an apartment on my own because it would force me to get a social life. Um... That's P.M.U.!! I wouldn't give my closest friend advice like that. Ever. That's just plain rude. I told her that there's a girl out there somewhere that wouldn't care what kind of ring I got her. And that was the end of the discussion. Needless to say, she won't be reading this anytime soon.

Who cares?

Speaking of Costa Vida, I've been a little "enojadito" with my amigos at the Coast. Scratch that. I'm pretty upset with my manager. Everyone else is fine. The entire company is fine. But my manager is a moron and deserves to be slapped. Perhaps you remember me whining About how he'd only schedule me one day a week for like a month back in November or Decemberish? Well, things got better. For the last two months or so, I've been working three days a week and, though my paychecks haven't been worthy of the Shane Company, they have significantly improved. Imagine my surprise as I looked at this week's schedule last Friday and saw that I was scheduled for four - count 'em: four - hours this week. The new twist, however, is that he has seemingly hired my replacement. There's a new girl on the schedule (sexist) that's working my usual Wednesday and Friday hours. That's interesting. I approached him last night while he was in his office. I told him I was surprised to only be working one day this week. "Yeah..." he said without turning around to face me. Silence. "Um... am I doing something wrong?" "A few things... but I'm really busy and don't have Time to talk to you right now." He didn't even look at me the entire Time. I went back to work. He left for the night less than ten minutes later without saying a word to me. That's not exactly fair, methinks. If I'm doing something wrong, how am I supposed to fix it if I don't even know what it is? To the best of my knowledge, I can't think of anything that I'm doing wrong. Not anything worth replacing me over, anyway. P. M. U. I think we've got a good candidate for The Boo Box, though. Are we ready? Everybody together now - BOOOOOO! Time's ticking and I won't be there much longer one way or another. Hopefully I can stick it to him somehow.

Except he's not White. And he didn't even look at me.

Apparently I had nothing else better to do than watch the Oscars on Sunday night. I don't know why I sat there and watched almost all of it because I really didn't care. I figured "Avatar" would win everything (HA!) and it's not like I've even heard of two-thirds of those movies, anyway... a bunch of R-rated documentaries... who really cares? Uh... I bet James Cameron doesn't really care that he didn't win many awards and got beaten by his ex-wife a couple times in some major categories. The money speaks for itself right Jimbo? He's got enough money to uh... I can't think of an awesome metaphor to use right now, but um... he's got a ton of money and I'm sure he couldn't care less that he didn't win a couple Oscars. He already has like 30 from "Titanic" and if I had to choose between getting a little faux-gold statue in my office and having more money than everyone else in that room, um... Just sayin'...

Not impressed.

Here are a couple observations from the Time I spent watching the Oscars. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin: Disappointment. They didn't even do their own opening segment. Lame. George Clooney: Not impressed. Taylor Lautner in the audience: Looked very awkward and uncomfortable in that tuxedo. I wish he would have just taken his shirt off. Taylor Lautner as a presenter: Not impressed. James Cameron: Generally looked pretty happy. Probably because he has tons of money. Sandra Bullock: Weirdest acceptance speech of the night. Is apparently very attracted to Meryl Streep. Weird. That big Black chick from that one show: Oprah Winfrey probably just made that girl's entire life complete. George Clooney: Still not impressed. At all. Neil Patrick Harris: Still thinks he's king of the world. Apparently hasn't ever met James Cameron.

James Cameron is the king of the world.

**QUESTION TIME!!**

Q. "Dear Aaron,

Why do people always so sound surprised when they answer the phone?"

Just Curious,

- The Junior Mounties

A. That (SALUTE!), is a Good Question. "What does this mean, 'Aaron Christensen calling'? *click* Um... Hello???"

What were you expecting when you picked up?

Q. "How many words per post do your blogs average?"
- Royal Bateman

A. The last five Issues of "Signs of the Times" have had an average of 2,228.8 words each.


Q. "Christensen,
How would you fix our troubled economy? What about health care reform?"
- Gardner

A. Thanks for asking, Uncle Gardner. As many of you know, there is a Facebook group of people who support my candidacy for President of the United States in 2012. My main objectives as potential President are to abolish taxes and lower the price of gasoline. I'd also like to have Root Beer drinking fountains installed in all elementary and middle schools in order to fulfill the empty, broken promises of so many student body presidents. The way to fix the economy, as I've learned in my Foundations of Business class, is simply to get people confident enough that they want to go spend money again. The way to get people to spend money again is to lower prices. Lower prices would make people happy. The bad economy is more of a state of mind than anything else. People won't buy houses because newscasters tell them not to buy houses, when, in all reality, the Time to buy houses is NOW! That's the secret. Lower prices. Health care reform? I think this is another example of mind-over-matter. On my mission, I had faith that I wouldn't get sick and I hardly ever did. If we can just get everyone in the world to believe that they'll never get a cold, nobody ever will... theoretically speaking... It's a work in progress, but that's the key, people. Positive thinking. Positive thinking.

Q. "Dear Aaron:
I have two Questions for you:
Q1. Has anyone ever said that you remind them of MacGyver?
Q2. I want to put off doing my homework and have the following objects on my desk: Four empty plastic cups, a screwdriver, some candy, gorilla tape, and my chapstick. How should I entertain myself?
My desk will remain exactly this dirty until such Time as you can respond to the preceding inquiry."
Your friend,
- Dallin Akagi

A1. Um... nope. Do I remind you of MacGyver, by chance?

A2. First of all, I want to apologize that you've had to keep your desk dirty and unorganized for a week. My bad. I think it depends on what kind of candy you have, but for this instance, we'll imagine that you have those amazing butterscotch discs that you can get in a huge bag for a dollar at WalMart. Put a couple of those in two of the cups. Take the other two cups and place them upside down on top of the candy cups. Now tape the cups together and you've got yourself some lovely homemade maracas. *shake shake shake* You could make an imaginary clock on your desk and use the screwdriver and chapstick as the hands. *tick tick tick* Unfortunately, you'll have to move the hands manually. At least that way, if you make the clock first, you'll know how long it took you to make the maracas.

Must be some kind of spiritual resemblance or something.

It has been a while since I've let you all know About new things I've been trying out, so here it is - The Week in Review. Since it has been a while, I'll Review two things today.

My parents took me out to lunch at this new place called Smashburger last week. I hadn't really heard of the place before, so I'm guessing that it's pretty new around these parts. Now I'm a big fan of hamburgers, so I'm a tough critic. (For example, I think In-n-Out is overrated. What??) I really liked Smashburger's hamburgers. We all had 1/3 pound burgers and we all seemed to be pretty full by the time we left. There is also a 1/2 pound option, but I'll probably save that for later. The thing that sets Smashburger apart from other burger joints is the spices they use. The barbecue sauce they put on the burger that my mom and I both got was really Good and the fries were unlike any fries I've had before (not necessarily the best fries I've ever had, but they were different and I liked it). We also tried their Haystack onion rings, which were Good. They came with a spicy fry sauce-like dipping sauce which I enjoyed. Smashburger is a little greasy, but I didn't mind. There were lots of napkins. I would give Smashburger an 8.5 out of 10 for providing me with the best hamburger I've had in a while. I would recommend it and go back for another visit sometime in the near future.

On Saturday, I saw the new "Alice in Wonderland" movie in 3D. First of all, I'm not a huge fan of 3D movies unless they're Disneyland style with huge rocks flying straight at your face. They stuff they've been doing with "Alice," "Ice Age 3," and whatever that other movie was that I saw in 3D bothers me a little bit because yeah, it's cool, but it's more like a pop-up book than anything else. The stuff that's supposed to be 3D is 3D, but the other stuff toward the sides of the screen seem blurry to me. As far as the story goes, I wasn't sure what to think because A) I'm not a Tim Burton fan and B) I, like many others, have Disney's classic version of "Alice" engrained in my memory forever. Johnny Depp looked like a creep in the previews and he's a creep in the actual show, too, but I'll admit - he was probably my favorite character. Crispin Glover didn't really look like George McFly, sadly, but if you watch really closely, he walks like he did in "Back to the Future." A lot of people are hating Helena Bonham Carter because she's Tim Burton's partner or whatever, but I thought she was actually really funny. Anne Hathaway was kind of uncomfortably funny, too. The world of Underland, as it's called now, is very strange, but, if you consider Lewis Carroll's state of mind when he wrote the story, it's supposed to be wacky. The movie was pretty Good. It was fun to watch, had some laugh-out-loud funny moments, and was two hours well-spent. I'm glad I saw it and it was actually better than I expected it to be. I'll give it 8 out of 10 and I told my mom it was worth a her Time. That's all that really matters, right?

Oh, and by the way, Alan Rickman was really boring as the Caterpillar.

Finally, it's the Shoutout of the Week. The Shoutout of the Week goes to Taylor Boyce, one of my EFY kiddies and one cool cat. Keep up the Good work, my boy.

That's it for this week, fellows. I'm too lazy to go back and proofread this thing this week, so hopefully there aren't too many mistakes. It's Time for "LOST," the show that turns even the nicest of viewers into a bloodthirsty savage. Hopefully Claire gets killed off soon. Or Kate. I wouldn't mind her dying, either.

Until next Time,

Move It. Sell It. And Leave the Door Open.

Aaron