I needed a Tuesday last Friday.
Greetings to one and all and happy Feel Good About Yourself Tuesday to all of you. This Issue is coming to you live from the state of Utah which can really only mean three things: it's either being written by a Mormon, it's snowing, or both. In this case, it's your lucky day because I'm Mormon and it's snowing like a banshee out there, as I once heard it described. Not sure the term "banshee" really has anything to do with precipitation in any sense of the word, but I didn't say it. I think Cody did. Topics to be discussed today: Crappy Friday, some good in the world, the Reluctant Return, the offensive reviews, the best gift, and the worst Super Bowl. On we go!
Crappy stuff happens to everybody pretty much all the time. I'm sure you could find a day that is basically the opposite of "Feel Good About Yourself" Tuesday where nothing good ever happened and people were always depressed. Oh wait, don't they call that "Monday"? Hmmph! Well, some really crappy stuff happened to me on Friday. As of probably noon-ish last Friday, I probably would have classified that morning as one of the top five worst days of my life. Due to the fact that there is still one person out there that always votes for the negative options on my polls, I feel disinclined to tell you all the stuff that went down, but let's just say this. One of the things that happened was that (after a disappointing morning of job hunting), I was on my way home and I slipped on some ice, almost totally biffing it in a parking lot. I had my phone in my coat pocket, but as I fell, I flung my hands out, attempting to catch myself or break my fall. As I did so, my phone went flying to who-knows-where, unbeknownst to the man formerly known as A-Town. I hopped back on TRAX and figured I'd text my parents and let them know what had happened. I reached for my pants pocket. Just my wallet. I felt for my phone in my coat pockets. Nothing. Where the heck was my phone? I frantically searched on my seat, on the floor, underneath my bottom, but, alas, the phone was nowhere in sight. At the first available stop, I got off the train, but after taking one step onto the pavement, I thought to myself, "What if your phone is on this train?" I jumped back in the car to the bewilderment of my fellow passengers, looked unsuccessfully for my phone yet again, and then got off at the next stop, headed right back to where I had been that morning. I retraced all my steps for at least an hour, heading first straight back to where I had fallen on the ice, but didn't find it. Some teenage Bible preacher kids came up and asked me if I was ok and I inquired whether any of them had a phone I could borrow for a second. I placed a couple calls to my own phone in hopes that we'd hear it vibrating, but after a couple minutes of searching, I thanked them and hurried to every other possible place I had been that morning. Unable to find my phone, I threw in the proverbial towel, hopped back on TRAX, and headed home with one of the worst feelings I've ever had in my life. I still hadn't found a job, I'd had a really crappy morning, and my phone could have been anywhere on the entire planet and I had no idea where to look or how I'd ever get it back. Honestly it wasn't THAT big of a deal. I could always just go get another phone. You just never realize how much stuff you have on your phone until you completely lose it - like, not losing it in your car or in your house because then, at least, you have boundaries that you know the phone couldn't have passed... but my phone could have been in China for all I knew! I was just worried that somebody would find my old phone and wonder why I had so many pictures of topless, muscular men flexing their biceps (see SotT, Issue No. 140). Just kidding, Mom. I deleted those, don't worry.
Well, that's kind of a depressing story, right? I got home and was pretty depressed. I got online and was about to post something of Facebook telling people that if they wanted to send me any pictures of their ex-boyfriends that they should probably not do it right then, considering that anyone could have had my phone at that point, but I saw that I had an unread message waiting for me. It was from my old pal, Jason the Barbarian. The subject: "phone". Apparently he had sent me a text that morning and somebody had texted him back saying that whoever that phone belonged to should go pick it up at a certain location where this person had found it and turned it in. What an absolute miracle! The entire time I had been searching for my phone, I had been silently praying, "Please, please, please help me find my phone." When I couldn't, however, I changed my prayer. "Please, please, please let there be a good person out there that will find my phone and turn it in." I am extremely pleased to announce that there are, indeed, a few good people left out there in the world today and that there are good things that can come out of even the crappiest of situations.
True story.
**QUESTION TIME!!**
Q. "Dear Aaron,
How's the job hunt coming?"
Just Curious,
- The Junior Mounties
A. Well, (SALUTE!) as I briefly mentioned earlier, not very well. However, I have found a way to keep myself busy. I talked with a few of my buddies over at K-UTE this week and have an extremely unique, unexpected opportunity to help them out with their plan of creating a production studio and an interview room out of two empty closets in the Union building at the University of Utah. Seem like it will be kind of another Eagle Scout project or something, but it will end up helping me in the long run and should look impressive on a resume. The project looks like it might end up taking a couple months to complete and we should have it up and running by the end of the semester for them, so I hope that I'll be able to help them out as much as I can. I may have the opportunity to fill in as a DJ from time to time if I feel like it, but that's not the main purpose of my service at K-UTE this time around. Plus, I already said goodbye and I hate goodbyes. But, as always, I'll keep you posted with the Reluctant Return of A-Town.
Q. "Dear Aaron,
How are those movie reviews coming? Are you rolling in the dough yet?"
Just Curious,
- The Junior Mounties
A. (SALUTE!) Hmmph! Well, as of this morning, I've made a whopping total of $3.31 from my reviews at examiner.com, but more than anything else lately, it seems I've just been offending people left and right with my recent reviews. The controversy all started with my review of "Scott Pilgrim vs the World," which I proclaimed to be an "epic fail" and one of the worst movies I have ever seen. People didn't take kindly to that and have told me that because of that review they Question my taste in movies, refuse to read my future reviews, and have even stopped me at church to find out what's wrong with me. Read the review, people. I feel justified with what I said. Today it was pointed out that perhaps I'm letting my moral bias show through when I review these films, but is there anything wrong with that? Would you rather have somebody who was not affected one way or another by profanity, gore, sex, and other forms of immorality? Considering my religious affiliation and that of the majority of my readership, I feel no need whatsoever to lay my ethics aside as I review movies. I'm not going to adopt a part-time R-rated lifestyle just so I can "enjoy" movies that don't match the standards I have set for myself. So if you're ok with 57 "mild obscenities," according to imdb.com - not to mention the non-mild ones, frequent and blatant references to homosexuality, and premarital promiscuity - if that's the kind of movies you want to fill your time with, that's up to you. I, on the other hand, feel cheated when I spend my night with garbage like that when movie producers, directors, and actors can portray the same message without those unnecessary, trashy elements (see "The Mask of Zorro," "The Count of Monte Cristo," "Star Wars," "National Treasure," "Sherlock Holmes," or "Babe," for instance). My next mistake was to watch "The Last Airbender," a movie that many people absolutely hated, and give it a positive review. I had never seen the "Avatar" cartoon, so the alleged discrepancies between the cartoon series and the movie didn't bother me. Yes, the acting sucked, but I realized that Nickelodeon co-produced the movie, so I let that slide, too. I was actually pretty intrigued by the time the movie ended. My Facebook friends didn't like my stance on the show. What's a man to do? I reviewed "Despicable Me" last night, giving it a positive review after the movie got off to a pretty slow start in the first 30 minutes. Pending feedback in the next day or two, I think I was much less offensive with this review than I have apparently been in the past. Anyway, I like reviewing the movies. It gives me something fun to do and lets me do more writing, which I also like. I just need more page views, people! Seriously, just open up all my reviews and refresh the pages every five minutes or so for about an hour a day. That would be greatly appreciated. My plans to save all my earnings for the first seven months and then head to WalMart for a $13 movie are still going as planned.
I'm a third of the way there.
I'm sure many of you are wondering what I gave my mom for her birthday last week and whether or not it lived up to my expectations... Well, I gave her a BYU Snuggie and I think she has worn it every day so far. Despite the tingling sense of shame I felt as I put that in my shopping cart at the time I bought it, I think that embarrassment has been swallowed up in the knowledge that I got my mom to finally wear a Snuggie.
Fortunately I have no more bad dating stories to tell you this week. Unfortunately, that means that my readership might slack this Issue. I was amazed at the feedback I got after last Tuesday's installment. Poll votes are still upwards of ten, which is good, and last Issue even got five - count 'em - five comments on the blog site, including one from a man who was reportedly deceased as of late, Mr. Jon Davis. It's good to know that he's still alive - and apparently going to UVU now. Hmm... My mom told me last Tuesday that my dating life would make a good fiction novel. And then we said almost simultaneously, "...but it's not fiction!" Oh, good times for sure. Well, not really, but at least you guys like hearing my stories. If you only knew the half of it...
In sporting news, the Jazz suck lately and I don't want to talk about it and the Super Bowl is set for two weeks from now. Packers vs. Steelers... Oh yeah. Should end up being one of the four worst Super Bowls I can remember, right up there with Baltimore/New York Giants (the two best defensive teams in the league at the time... zzzzzzzz...), Tampa Bay/Oakland, and a couple of the Kurt Warner championships. I guess I'm cheering for the Packers (and I use the term "cheering" very loosely there) only because my hatred for Ben Roethlisberger (and, therefore, the Pittsburgh Steelers) surpasses comprehension. Stevenson Sylvester, my old home dawg from the U of U plays for the Steelers, though, and it would be cool for him to get a ring, regardless of the fact that he hardly played at all this season. So um... I guess you could say that I prefer that the Packers win more than I would prefer that the Steelers win. Boring. Hopefully they have good commercials.
This Aaron wants a championship belt. THIS Aaron already has one.
This week's Boo Box features academic advisors. Never really liked them. Never really will. Everybody together now - BOOOOOO!!
The Shoutout of the Week goes to Jason the Barbarian... the man, the myth, the legend... If only he knew how famous he truly was in the Christensen household. Really, if anyone ever deserved a Shoutout of the Week, it had to be the Barbarian.
That's about it for this week. We're just living the dream here at "Signs of the Times." Living the absolute dream. I hope I don't run out of gas on my way home from the TRAX station. #fingerscrossed
Until next Time,
Move It! Sell It! And Leave the Door Open!
Aaron
1 comment:
For job searching ideas try www.indeed.com.
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