Signs of the Times, Issue No. 153 - 04/26/11

I just got unfriended because of Tuesday.

Greetings, greetings to one and all. How is everyone this lovely Tuesday? It's been a while, has it not? Sorry for my absence last week. I was off doing more exciting things. More on that later. Other topics to be discussed: Taking offense when none is intended, the life expectancy of my love for Tuesday, concern about my future hairstyles, being relocated, a new segment for the Newsletter, and the first victim of the A-Town Dating Service. On we go!

So where was I last week? I was in Disneyland, of course! Ah yes, another graduation gift to myself. I, along with my mother and my soon-to-be-high-school-graduate sister, Amy, headed to Sunny Southern California as a senior trip of sorts last Monday. We flew in to LAX on Monday afternoon, spent the night in Disneyland, and then hopped parks between the Magic Kingdom and California Adventure for the next three days. We worked those parks and went back to the hotel exhausted every night. Disneyland has gotten much, much cooler since my family last visited back in 2006. I, of course, went to Anaheim with a bunch of EFY counselors back in August, but it had been five years since Amy had been, so there were a lot of new things for her to see and do. One of the great parts about the rides in Disneyland is that there is so much happening, so much going on inside, and so many hidden layers that you can almost always find something new as you look around. Surprisingly, we went on the Haunted Mansion four times because we kept finding new things each time we rode. Similarly, there have been a lot of new additions to the Pirates of the Caribbean and "it's a small world" rides. The Hollywood Tower of Terror was, as always, a must and we accordingly went on it seven times. The relatively-new Toy Story Midway Mania ride was new for my mom and Amy and we had a great time trying to beat our high scores. It was a perfect week for a vacation, escaping the rainy, snowy, hailing weather of Utah, substituting it for an overcast week of 60s temperatures. It was niiiiice - and coming back to Utah was not something I was particularly looking forward to. All in all, it was an awesome trip and we loved every minute of it, from the sneak peek of "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" in 3D to miraculously finding Amy's lost phone on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at midnight, this was a Disney trip unparalleled by any other.

The three Mouse-keteers.

Moving on. Have we not previously explained that people get offended waaaaaaaaaaay too easily? Like... over things that are not even offensive? Ugh!! People, people... Here is one of many examples of people who need a little longer fuse: Today, as always, I updated my status on Facebook (stupid Facebook) to "Aaron Christensen is Feeling Good About Himself." Nothing new. You've all seen it before. You all love it. If you didn't love it, you wouldn't "like" it. Funny how that works, right? Anyhoo, today this chick from Colorado commented on my Feel Good About Yourself Tuesday status by telling me that I really need a new slogan for Tuesdays because the one I've been using (going on 7 years now) is "old" and apparently not fresh enough for her. I simply responded by saying A) no and B) that if she didn't like it she should probably stop looking at my statuses on Tuesdays. Minutes later, I discovered that she had unfriended me because of my response. Ok, whatever. Have a nice life.

Long live TUESDAY!

This brings me to my next point: that the vast majority of you people are awesome and freakin' hilarious. But first, I have to make mention of this week's Boo Box candidate. As you may have noticed, I had been sporting a sweet beard the last couple weeks. Due to my upcoming EFY interview (yes, I'm applying to be a counselor again... not sure if we talked about this - and no, it's not a definite thing at this point, just a possibility), I was going to have to shave my beard here in the next few days and I just went ahead and shaved that sucker off on Sunday night. It was a sad, sad moment for me. Not quite as sad as the time I had to trim my sideburns for my mission, but I honestly kind of miss the beard already. Many of you voiced your displeasure when I first started growing my goatee, but admit it - my beard started to grow on you, too. (Figuratively.) Now it's gone and Amy won't feel my face anymore and compliment me on how soft my beard is - and that's something I'll truly miss. So will she. So, yet again, I am conforming to the Man down in Provo and am clean-shaven. Everybody together now - BOOOOOO!!

Ok, back to the point that I was initially trying to make. You people are so funny. Most of you (with the exception of a few crazy, ultra-sensitive females) loved my General Conference commentary on Facebook, adding your own humorous thoughts to the comment thread. My profile has exploded with your comments again in the last two days or so in reference to my status updates about my beard. As proof, my status, "Aaron Christensen just shaved his beard. :-(" had 30 comments, including Scott Aylett's "Dislike." and Daniel Kennett's "Grow a mullet!" Things just escalated from there, eliciting an onslaught of comments about how attractive I'd look with a mullet. Yesterday, a girl saw the comments and texted me asking me to please not actually grow a mullet. Immediately, I changed my status to "Aaron Christensen just got a text asking him to please not grow a mullet." Six "likes" and 13 comments later, Andrea Chapman had suggested that I also grow chops, Jordan Holmes had asked me to grow a mustache, and Mario Morales telling me that he had a mullet last year and it was the coolest thing ever. And then, of course, there was Nicole Paul, ever the A-Town hater, who told me that she would come cut the mullet right off my scalp if I grew it. Regardless of what I decide to do with my hair (facial or otherwise), how can you not laugh at some of this stuff? It's all in good fun, my friends. All in good fun. But I still wonder how many people unfriended me because of it... Here's what I have to say - If you don't like what I have to say, stop reading it. The end.

You don't like it; you love it.

**QUESTION TIME!!**

Q. "To the editors,

Q1. The other day while doing a little lite reading, I found that in the fine print on the last page of the Guinness Book of World Records it notes that all world records are held by Chuck Norris, and those listed in the book are simply the closest anyone has ever come to matching him. Have you noticed this before?

Q2. Is it true that Chuck Norris can eat only one Lay's potato chip?

Q3. Is it true that Vin Diesel can light ants on fire with a magnifying glass - at night?"

Sign me,

A Loyal Subscriber that loves Feel Good About Yourself Tuesday

A1. Honestly, no. I've never noticed this. I usually stop reading after I get to that disgusting picture of the woman with the world's longest fingernails and then I'm too sickened to continue. Seems like your observation may have some credibility, however. BUT - I think Craig T. Nelson could give Chuck Norris a run for his money.

A2. I'm sure he can eat much more than that. That's just an educated guess, though.

A3. False. He needs a match. And he lights it off of his bald head. By the way, here's a Question for you: Did you know Vin Diesel is a "Kiwi"? I was shocked when I found that out. For a man who attempts to be as manly as Vin Diesel, I expected much more of him. And by the way, we're not talking about the New Zealand variety of Kiwis... No, no...

Craig T. > Chuck Norris

Well, I'm being kicked out of the singles ward I've been attending for the last two and a half years. It's probably about time this happened since most of the other Young Single Adult wards had tightened up their boundary restrictions a couple months ago. I'm not sure where they're shipping me off to yet. I may find out more about my reassignment tomorrow night at a giant meeting for all "YSA"s in the Salt Lake Valley being held at the Church's Conference Center downtown. They're allegedly going to talk about all the new, Church-wide changes taking place in the student and YSA wards and hopefully it will shed a little light on the subject, so we'll see what goes down. I'm excited for it, though. I've always been a fan of change (other than Jerry Sloan resigning mid-season). I like big free agent moves and blockbuster trades in sports, I like getting new callings, registering for new classes, and meeting new people, so I think this will end up being a good thing. Hopefully I'll meet some new peeps of either or both genders, make some new pals, and escape some of the incredible drama that seems to be commonplace in the old ward. Not going to miss that at all. Adieu, adieu to the three of you people in my old ward the occasionally glance upon my weekly 12-point font. We can still be friends on Facebook if you want.

For my next segment, I'd like to boost the statistics of the "Top Tags" portion of the blog site. There are tons of obscure topics that I've "tagged" in the past but haven't brought up since and I want to change that.  I will now go to the bottom of the blog site, select a random topic, and discuss it - in that order. We'll call it a Blast from the Past. Give me a second... Ok. The topic is "sleepovers." I haven't had one in years. I can't even remember why I would have mentioned this at all in SotT. Let's find out. Wow! This goes back to Issue No. 25 on September 23, 2008. Haha!! Oh yeah! This was talking about when my dummy roommates during my second semester at Snow invited some high school girls to come sleep at our apartment. As the Loyal Subscribers may recall, I quickly moved out of that apartment and into a much better one. Wow. Those were the days. Sleepovers were cool. I liked having them back in the day. Staying up until 12:30 and feeling like such a rebel... Falling asleep to some B-list movie that we had to blow the dust off of before we popped it into the VCR... Oh yeah. Probably the coolest sleepover I ever had was right before I moved down to Snow in August 2005. It was the final hurrah for my high school buddies and me, so we went big. We held a big sand volleyball game over at my church at the time and then the few, the select, the Banditos headed back to my house, pitched a tent in my backyard, and communicated with extra-terrestrials and the ghost of Roland E. Gaumer until the wee hours of the morning. Oh yeah. Sleeping in a tent is the best ever.

Be cool like these guys!

Time once again for the Shoutout of the Week - and on this Tuesday, if there was ever a man who deserved a Shoutout, it would have to be Mr. Clayson Quigley. This man is just a giant bundle of happiness. He is tall, he is nice, he reminds me of somebody I once knew and can no longer remember. He is talented, smart, funny, and bilingual! And he's SINGLE!! Yes, ladies, it's true. This man is available and willing to date you. Contact him here. This Shoutout of the Week brought to you by the A-Town Dating Service. That's correct. The A-Town Dating Service: serving men and... well, only men so far... for the last 14 days.

That's about it for this week. Life is good, the Earth is still orbiting, my fantasy baseball team is still dominating everyone, and it's still Tuesday for another six hours. Deuces!

Until next Time,

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

Aaron