Signs of the Times, Issue No. 177 - 10/11/11

This could have been Technology Tuesday. Dang it.


Greetings to one and all from Sandy, Utah. Where did the Fall go? You know what I'm saying? Geez. Well, on to the Newsletter, eh? Topics to be discussed today: The technological revolution, some whiny little babies, my second step to stardom, and more A-Town Mania on Twitter. On we go!


To start off the Issue, here's an old Newsletter segment called Top Five where I count down the Top Five things on my mind. Today, as I have just stepped into the new millennium with my new phone is just that - the Top Five reasons I feel like a complete idiot with my new device.

Um. Whoa.

#1 - Smartphone, dumbboy
It took me about three seconds to realize why they call it a "smartphone." The phone is smarter than me. Way, way smarter. I feel like a dang fool. This... this... "touch screen," I think is what they call it... It's hard, dang it! I've downloaded a few apps, but I'm still learning how to locate them on my phone and how to use them. At this point, after 24 hours, I think I still prefer using Facebook and Twitter on my laptop. The learning curve has been pretty steep so far and I'm sure I'll love it once I get the hang of it, but for now... whew... this thing is intense.

#2 - Holy contacts, Batman!
So the first thing I do with this puppy is sync my Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo! Mail to my phone and - voila! - I've got like 600 new contacts in my phone. But the problem is - I don't want most of these phone numbers! I'm not going to be calling all my little 15-year-old EFY kids! I don't want to accidentally call anybody (and, by the way, if I did accidentally call any of you last night, I swear I didn't mean to)! Can I delete any of these numbers? Will they automatically be re-synced with my phone the next time I add a friend on Facebook? Ahhh... But on the bright side, think of all the hot chicks I can text now whose numbers I didn't have before! Heh heh hehhhh...

#3 - Good vibrations
Some phones vibrate too much. My brother Cody's phone is like an earthquake when somebody texts him. Some phones vibrate just right. The LG phones I've had in the past were perfect. Not too long, not too short. This phone barely vibrates at all... which is nice. But seriously, if I don't realize that you text or call me until like three hours later, that's why.

#4 - "Ding dong" goes the bell... but not this one
How the heck do I set an alarm on this thing? Until I find out, looks like I'll be using my old phone to help get me out of bed in the morning.

#5 - Words with Frenemies
So apparently this game is all the rage with these hi-tech kids these days. I started playing a few games last night and I guess I was doing ok. This morning I started a game with my sister, Amy, and I played some simple word like "saw" or something like that. Her first word was "wedges." Are you serious??

Dumbboy.

David Stern, commissioner of the NBA canceled the first two weeks of the regular season yesterday afternoon. Good riddance, says I. I've been waiting for this day for months. I say they just cancel the entire season. These guys are spoiled rotten babies. If you think a 50/50 split of revenues isn't fair, I don't know what is. So the NBA players are whining that the owners are being unfair by not letting them just have their money and get paid. Hmm... Austin brings up a good analogy. You're a child. You ask your mother if you can go out and play. Your mother says you have to do your chores before you can go out and play. You say you don't want to do your chores, so your mother tells you that you can't go out and play. Simple enough. I have no sympathy for these college dropouts, especially when I see LeBron James tweeting about how he'll need sunglasses and Advil for the day since the previous night was "mad real." I chuckled as somebody mentioned him in a tweet asking if he should be practicing some sort of low-post move instead. Actions speak louder than words, my friends, and your actions certainly don't show that you're very concerned about playing basketball that much at all. Austin also mentioned in a tweet that he'd gladly split revenue 50/50 with the owners and trade an NBA player for their job right now. Seriously. Me too. Sign me up. Absolutely ridiculous. I believe I speak on behalf of all of America as I present this week's Boo Box entrant, the National Basketball Association. If you're really that worried about making money, I'm sure you'd be an absolute hit if you got a job at McDonald's or a gas station. They're always hiring. Everybody together now - BOOOOOO!!


Columbus Day was yesterday. What a weird holiday. Kind of like Presidents' Day and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. Like... do we celebrate these holidays or not? Banks close, the post office shuts down... but everybody else has to work. I don't get it. I say we either all get the day off or nobody does.


I was interviewed yesterday for "Newsbreak" at the University of Utah. "Newsbreak" is the student-produced news program featuring video interviews conducted by student reporters. Some of you may remember that "Newsbreak" did a segment about K-UTE last year which featured several lovely close-ups of my headband as I hosted one of my radio shows. Last night I was interviewed by a lovely young lady named Rachel who had one of the biggest wedding rings I've ever seen. In fact, I asked her if she had won the Super Bowl or something. Rachel interviewed me about my interesting experience with graduation ("graduating," finding out that I wasn't actually graduated, going back to school for an unanticipated semester, and then finally, officially graduating). Needless to say, it brought back some horrible, horrible memories. Just kidding. Sort of. Looking back on that experience, that was a pretty crappy thing that happened... but it could have been so much worse. I was incredibly lucky to have such close connections with K-UTE and I am eternally grateful that they let me come on board as an intern in that final semester. The interview, which went "all right" in my estimation, should air online and probably on TV, as well, like my K-UTE interview did last year in about a week and a half. If any of you are interested in seeing it once it is available for viewing, let me know.

They all want a piece.

I'm running a little low on topics this week because I was too busy whining about my difficulties in smartphoning last night to ask for your suggestions. So we'll go with a Blast From the Past, taking a former, rarely-used topic from Newsletters past and we'll see where that takes us. The topic for today is... Swiss Cake Rolls! Apparently I mentioned this in one of my past Issues. Yes, yes. Back in Issue No. 33 when Andrea Chapman asked me if I liked Swiss Cake Rolls. Indeed, I do like Swiss Cake Rolls. I find them very tasty. Very tasty, indeed. Swiss Cake Rolls, Ding Dongs, Ho Hos, oh yeah. That's some good stuff. I'm not a big fan of chocolate in most cases. It gets all over my fingers, it makes me really thirsty, I usually just don't like it. But this Little Debbie stuff? Oh yeah, it's delicious. I'm all for it. Um... that's all I really had to say about that. Moving right along.

How about that Utah weather, huh? Man, Fall was really nice, wasn't it? Lasted a whole two and a half weeks this year. Now it's hoodie weather again in Mormonville... which reminds me. Let's have one more last-minute entry for The Boo Box. How about that complete bozo from the Baptist church in Texas that called Mormonism a cult. Wow. What an idiot. If you haven't seen his interview with Anderson Cooper, I'd highly recommend it. This fool goes on and on about how Mormons do not believe in Christ, etc, etc, and Anderson lays the smackdown on the guy. It's awesome. Good for you, Mr. Anderson. And for you, Mr. Jeffress... well... Everybody together now - BOOOOOO!!

www.mormon.org. Go there.

The fantasy football Game Ball goes to two players this week: BenJarvus Green-Ellis from Gridlock and Victor Cruz from the one and only A-Town Assassins. "The Law Firm," as Green-Ellis is called, had 27 carries for 136 yards and two TDs and 54.15 fantasy points. Not too shabby. As for the free agent pick-up of the week, Victor Cruz of my stripling squadron was only projected to earn five points this week, but busted loose for eight catches, 161 receiving yards, one TD, and 44.65 fantasy points. That's what I'm talking about.

Good work.

Finally, time for the Shoutout of the Week, which will go to some of my celebrity peeps on Twitter. First of all, several weeks ago, the PAC-12 (@pac12) tweeted asking for the first 12 people to respond to their tweet with the hashtag #PAC12 and a picture of themselves in PAC-12 gear. Those 12 people would win a prize. I thought about it for a moment, decided against a response, but then figured it couldn't hurt. I snapped a picture of myself in my already-adorned Utes shirt and tweeted back to the Pacific 12 Conference. Later that night, I got a direct message telling me that I had won. A few days later, I received a PAC-12 cup in the mail, along with a $25 gift certificate, which I recently used to purchase a new University of Utah sweatshirt. #booyah And last, but certainly not least, on October 5, I tweeted my excitement about receiving a Barry Sanders Detroit Lions jersey that I got from a guy at work who offered it to me at an extremely thrifty price. To my absolute shock, I got home from work and checked my email, then greeted by the subject line "Barry Sanders (@BarrySanders) retweeted one of your tweets." Uh... WHAT?!? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Barry Sanders - THE Barry Sanders, a Hall of Fame running back, acknowledged me on Twitter by re-posting something I said to his then-43,000 followers. That pretty much completed my life.

My phone isn't the only thing that's been incredible lately...

That's about it for this week, kiddos. Thanks for joining me this week in my wonderful escapades. Feel free to give me any pointers about technology. It's been a steep learning curve so far.

Until next Time,

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

Aaron