Signs of the Times, Issue No. 135 - 12/14/10

45 minutes ago: if you've got it going on, the world is yours, people. just remember that. #cantbelievethis

Greetings to one and all on another lovely Tuesday. What to talk about today? What to talk about? There is surprisingly little going on in my life right now, believe it or not. School is done, classes are done, and all that stands in my way of freedom are two measly tests. Shouldn't be that tough of an order. Anyhoo, topics to be discussed: my blog's destiny in your hands, the end of an era, my thoughts on "Survivor," the Mania runnin' wild, the dumbest Christmas song ever, and the dumbest fantasy football manager ever. On we go!

I'm not really in the "thinking mode" right now, which you may think is a bad thing, but hey - back off - my first final is a take-home, open-note, open-book, open-internet, open-anything essay exam, so I'm not too worried about it. I have studied a little bit and I'll study a little more today, but I'm not worried about it. My final on Friday will require a little more effort, but I can start thinking about that tomorrow afternoon. Being in this non-thinking mode, I have gone viral looking for ideas of things to blog about today. So... if this Issue is no good, I blame it on you people.

This has been me for the last 17 weeks. Just... American.

Austin and Michelle said I should write about my final radio show, which will air on www.kuteradio.com at around 10:00 on Friday morning. This is the end, for now, at least. My three year stint with the radio is coming to a close this week after DJing for the KAGE and K-UTE and interning with X96 for a semester. It's been a wild ride, my friends... I'll really miss it. I'll miss heckling the callers. I'll miss playing the music. I'll even kind of miss updating my Facebook fan page for hours each weekend to provide my so-called fans with a bunch of crap that they don't even care about. This semester has been pretty different for me. I never thought things could be much more ghetto than they were at the KAGE. That stuff seemed pretty old school to me... but after a semester at K-UTE, I'd go back to the KAGE any day. I have sadly strayed away from what my show ended up as down at Snow. "City Council" gradually evolved from a regular radio show into a bit of a story, where you could follow my adventures (whether it be falling asleep on the show, getting arrested, or staging a pro wrestling match on the top of the studio) throughout each two-hour block and throughout the entire semester. Now that I'm at K-UTE with little-to-no editing equipment and limited time to prepare each week, I'm basically back where I started. I have still enjoyed the show, but it was hard to adjust to a much smaller listenership. It was fun having the K-UTE Clash, undoubtedly the most popular segment in "The House that A-Town Built," which pitted... well, I guess if you know what the Clash was, there's no need to explain it, and if you don't, it's too late now. This Friday's show will be the K-UTE Clash championship - Darth Vader vs a Giant Twinkie. Now I know that many of you will discount my show's credibility merely due to the fact that a Twinkie made it to the finals should know that that was a very, very popular Twinkie! It will be interesting to see who ends up winning. I can see it going either way, but I think it will be very close. And, on a final note, I either wanted to go out with the best guest of all time or I wanted to go out the way I came in - and the way I spent most of my air time - alone. I wasn't going to make a huge effort in finding a guest for the show, but the other day, it hit me - and the final guest fell right into my lap. He'd be home for the break, anyway... The Coach!! My final guest will be my brother, Austin. My show will start as soon as I finish my Mass Comm Law final on Friday morning, so have your internet on at around 10:00 to catch A-Town's final goodbye, a show you won't want to miss.

Still unsure about what to do with the headband...

Kristin Manning suggested that I blog about "Survivor." It came as somewhat of a shock to me when I found out that the "Survivor" finale was this Sunday. Only two episodes left. And, oh yeah - SPOILER ALERT. This has been one of the worst seasons I can remember, as far as the cast is concerned. There were hardly any likable castaways this season and many of the ones that were likable were voted off early. Things started looking better when Brenda was blindsided two weeks ago, but now that Sash won Individual Immunity last week and still has his (Marty's) hidden idol, he looks like he's back in business, even after having lost both remaining members of his crumbling alliance. After Benry (one of the remaining "good guys" left at this point) was voted out last week, it's getting to the point where all hope is lost. I won't be happy, no matter who wins. I'm pulling for Fabio (who I hated at the beginning of the season, but has grown on me) or Holly (who totally deserves at least the viewer-appointed $100,000 for what she did at the reward challenge two weeks ago). I don't like Jane. I think she's ridiculously annoying, but for some reason, everyone is just bowing down to her, so I think if she makes it to the finals, she'll get the votes. Chase is an idiot that can't think logically in the game. Dan doesn't deserve to be there and Jeff Probst said he can't imagine any scenario where Dan would win the game. By the way, if you're a fan of the show, check out Probst's blog that he posts every Wednesday night or Thursday. It's outstanding. Anyway, I think Sash actually has a pretty good chance of winning it all, as a matter of fact. He'll at least make it through one more Tribal Council with his idol. He's (believe it or not) probably a lot stronger than some of the other contestants at this point, and I hate him. Those are a couple huge factors in determining who will win the game. Ugh... This has not been a great season. Love the show, love Jeff, hate the cast. We'll see how things end up in the next few days.

 Can I get my torch smuffed? - yes, smuffed.

I woke up this morning to find a text message from Twitter notifying me that my never-ending quest for popularity is right on track: "@atownmania You just set the trend for 'monta ellis' on @happn_in_slc | http://happn.in/slc/14dec10-02am/" This is regarding a tweet I tweeted last night about the Golden State Warriors' Monta Ellis, who almost came to blows with the Jazz's Deron Williams in the fourth quarter of last night's game. Apparently I started the trend, meaning, I guess, that a bunch of other people in Salt Lake City tweeted about Monta Ellis after I did and I got credit for starting the topic. Yesssss. You, too, can follow the Mania. It's only a couple clicks away.

So Cody comes home for lunch a little while ago... and there he is. Sitting. Eating. And texting away on his newly-acquired cell phone. That's P.M.U.!! I can't believe this kid just turned 16 yesterday. What is the world coming to? He can date? What?!? Heaven help us.

**QUESTION TIME!!**

And now for the part of the Newsletter where people never ask me Questions. But today... like a Christmas miracle...

Q. "Dear A-Town,

Now that you're graduated from college, what are you going to do now?"

- Mom

A. Something else.

I think that **QUESTION TIME!!** used to be one of the most beloved parts of the Newsletter. Clearly that is not the case anymore. Oh, how the mighty have fallen, as they say... But now, what the people really like is The Boo Box. And let me tell you about something I hate more than almost anything else in the world. That song, "Christmas Shoes." I HATE that song. It is quite possibly one of the dumbest songs ever written, right up there next to that song full of lyrical genius that spouts, "I wanna be a billionaire so freakin' bad." Who writes this crap? BOOOOOO!!

In China, poor kids work for Nike.

The Game Ball this week... I'm tempted to not even have a Game Ball this week. Austin texted me Sunday afternoon whining about how Christensen Crush would be lucky to have more than 150 points this week. "Wah wah wahhhhh, T.O. only got me 3 points and some other guy only got 0.20 points!! Blah blah blah." Then his freakin' KICKER gets him 30 fantasy points on five field goals and four extra points?! The kicker?! Obviously, Austin's team would go on to win the week, getting almost 100 more points than my team. I've accepted defeat and resigned myself to battle it out with the Red Devils for third and fourth place. Austin and Harper are just too good. But hey, I'll mention that Ed Rothlisberger's team had a good week, as well. That diminishes the amount of credit that I have to give Austin in the end.

Can you believe THIS GUY is beating everyone??

The Shoutout of the Week goes to the Carpenters. The band. I'm sitting here typing up the Issue and we've got a bunch of Christmas CDs on shuffle. Right now there is a Carpenters rendition of "Silver Bells" and my mom pipes in from the kitchen, "Some of these songs are almost unbearable, aren't they?" I responded saying that it sounded like we were walking through FantasyLand or something. The part that really confused me was when they sang, "Think of the happiest things/It's the same as having wings." I swear, I don't remember that verse ever being in there. "And mercifully, it ends," my mom said as the song faded out and the mechanical clicking of the shuffle function cut that awkwardness like a knife.

At the bottom of the page something that essentially kicks off Christmas - this year's Christmas card, featuring (as voted upon by you, the Loyal Subscribers) my celebrity followers from Twitter, Bryon Russel, David Hasselhoff, and Big Mike from "Chuck." Next week you'll be getting the rhyming Christmas edition and on the 28th you'll get The Year in Review, so keep an eye out for the poll on this page where you'll get to vote for what you think was the best thing that happened to me in 2010. As self-centered as that may sound, it usually ends up being one of the best Issues of the year.

That's about it for this week. Now I have to go study with this girl who thinks she's hot and has totally used me all semester for notes and test-taking strategies. I may be dumb, but I'm not stupid! I'm seriously only going because she said she'd pay me. I won't let her, but it's worth a shot. Maybe if we're talking 20 bucks or more, I'll take the deal. (Two hours later) Just got back from that colossal waste of time. The good thing was that it isolated me from the internet and gave me time to sit there and read a 10-page long Hillary Clinton speech. I'm still somewhat in shock from what I just witnessed. Keep in mind that tomorrow's essay test is open-book, open-note, and open-internet, so I don't really know why this girl is freaking out so much. So I get there and she's all nervous for the test and I'm basically just biding my time until I can leave. She explained to me her brilliant idea of using all the resources she can get her proverbial (and literal, I guess) hands on and then went on to call a (I'm guessing) cute boy to help her out. I seriously almost busted up laughing when she started the conversation off with, "I trust you a lot..." Hahaha!!! And then she went on to say, "you're a political buff!!... I'll even make you breakfast!" She's basically having this guy come over to her house tomorrow morning to "tutor" her as she writes her essays... And when I say "tutor," I mean that it basically sounds like just because she's "cute" and undoubtedly rich, she can flirt her way to having a guy come over and write her essays for her. That's P.M.U.!! Holy crap, I couldn't believe it. Oh, and yes, my dear, those tweets weredefinitely about you. *wink!* Unbelievable. Whatever my grade ends up being after my test tomorrow, at least I can say that I earned my grade.

Until next Time,

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

Aaron