Signs of the Times, Issue No. 181 - 11/08/11

Forty shopping days left!

Greetings to one and all and ho, ho, ho to you! Oh wait. What month is it? Topics to be discussed in today's "Signs of the Times" Newsletter: Why you shouldn't celebrate Christmas until Christmas, the most annoying day in movies, my weakness with friends, "Survivor" spoilers for slackers, my latest video game, the game that kid will have to ask somebody else for, and TARDIS retaking control. Shall we? On we go!

It's November 8th, people. November 8th. Somebody please explain to me why I saw Santa Claus out on the side of the freeway yesterday morning with a sign that said "Christmas music on Today's 106.5"! Why?? There is still a month and a half until Christmas and three weeks until Thanksgiving! Actually, hey, I've got a good idea. How about we just skip all of November? Let's just go straight from Halloween to Christmas? Let's skip college football season, let's skip my birthday, who gives a crap about Thanksgiving? Let's get straight to Christmas. Call me Scrooge, call me the Grinch, say what you will. I don't hate Christmas. I love Christmas and the Christmas season. I'm just a firm believer that the Christmas season shouldn't start until all the November holidays are over. The day after Thanksgiving - heck, even Thanksgiving night - go for it. Blast that Christmas music. I just think that, due to the relatively-few number of Christmas songs that there are to begin with, if I started listening to every single rendition of "White Christmas" starting on October 27th, I'd be more than burned out by the time Christmas actually rolled around. I know that you die-hard Christmas-in-November lovers out there are still not satisfied. Here's an example. I love Disneyland. It's, by far, my favorite vacation spot. I think that part of the reason why I love it so much is because I don't go there very often, so when I DO get the chance to go, I want to go on every ride, see every show, and take tons of pictures because who knows when I'll be back there again. If I went to Disneyland every single month, I'd probably still like it, but I think it wouldn't be quite as special to me. It wouldn't bum me out if I didn't get to go on Splash Mountain one last time because I'd be able to go on in the next month anyway. Back to Christmas music. I like it. I really do. And the reason why I like it is because it reminds me of December. It reminds me of the holidays. And Christmas comes, as they say, but once a year. Listening to Christmas music all year long wouldn't make Christmas in December any different. It wouldn't be fun to hear sleigh bells jingling (ring-ting-tingling, too) in the winter because you'd already been hearing it all year long. Does that make sense? That's all I ask, people. Just wait three more weeks. And... when does Wal-Mart start selling stuff for Valentine's Day, by the way? I want to get a jump on some of those heart-shaped chocolate boxes.

Wut.

November 5th is probably the most annoying day in the history of American cinema. By some coincidence, several notable events in movies have fallen on the fifth of November, most prominently Doc Brown's invention of time travel and... something that happened in the movie "V for Vendetta". Some of you stalkers out there may know that "Back to the Future II" is my favorite movie. I've got nothing against Emmett Brown or the flux capacitor. I do get annoyed, however, by people who think they know everything about time travel. It's a movie, people. A movie!! I've never seen "V for Vendetta," but every November 5th, Facebook is flooded with status updates saying "...remember, remember the fifth of November..." Isn't that movie rated R? Ooh. #ReasonsNotToAddYourBishopOnFacebook

Never seen it.

Christopher Pitts suggested that I blog about something that only A-Town could do. How about consistently losing games of "Words with Friends" by 200 points or more? Oh yeah. When I first started playing the game, I was convinced people were cheating against me. I still think they were. Don't tell me that you use words like "dixit" on a daily basis. Not a chance. Now the number of unordinary words has declined, which has been nice, but I'm still losing every game big time. Maybe I just suck at it. I think that I go into each game thinking, "Let's play as many words as possible. If there's a word to be played, play it." On the other hand, other players undoubtedly go into each round saying, "Ok, where are the 'triple letter' tiles and where can I play an X or a Q?" That's my problem. If you've recently laid the WWF smackdown on me and I've declined a rematch, don't take it personally. I'm just sick of losing. WWF smackdown. Did you like how I just did that? Little play on words there. Play on words. With friends. I'm on a roll.

W-O-W is right.

I've got a brilliant idea. I'm going to start calling companies' customer service departments and saying something along these lines: "I hate your company. Your products suck. I'm never ordering from you again. Now give me some free stuff so the money I spent on you won't be in vain."


DJ Mein wanted me to compare my pro wrestling skills to the boxing skills of Joe Frazier, who passed away yesterday. I know next to nothing about Joe Frazier's boxing skills, unfortunately. But I will tell you that I'm a heck of a pro wrestler. The reigning, un-dis-puted TAG TEAM CHAMPION OF THE WORLD!! And yes, I've had multiple dreams about "The Big Ticket 3" in the last month...

**QUESTION TIME!!**


Q. [SPOILER ALERT] "K so I'm just going to assume you have seen last week's 'Survivor'... if you haven't do not read further. Can you BELIEVE Cochran? For someone who is a 'student' of the game, that's one of the worst moves I've ever seen! What does he think will happen once the rest of his tribe has been voted out by Upolu? Just wondering if you thought it was as stupid as I did. Also... what is your opinion on Hantz's nephew...?"

- Whitney Metcalf

A. I've never really been a of Cochran, to be honest. I find him annoying and a pathetic player in multiple facets of the game. Even for someone who claims to base his strategy on years of studying the game, he certainly has some strange ideas. His most recent move was an interesting one. I can see how and why he would act that way, but at the same time, I have no idea why he would do what he did. I understand that he is tired of being bullied and looked down on by his tribe as a weak physical competitor, so it makes sense that he would want to get out of that situation. But what I don't understand is that he was in somewhat of a position of power on his original tribe. He and Ozzy had just pulled off one of the gutsiest moves in the history of the game one episode earlier, but now with the conclusion of the last Tribal Council, Cochran's strategy essentially renders Ozzy's win at Redemption Island pointless. Cochran may have bought himself an extra week or two with his last move, but either way, from a physical standpoint, Cochran is at the bottom of the totem pole no matter what he does. I don't see him lasting more than a couple weeks, especially now that Ozzy will be gunning for him. As far as Brandon Hantz goes, I think he's a nice guy and he means well, but the guy is just an idiot. The guy is a loose cannon and cannot be trusted. I think Brandon will be around for a while because he'll do anything to save himself. I can see him flipping on his current alliance if it means he'll get another week in the game, but for now I can see him forming a new alliance to take care of Cochran. Brandon is no Russell, but he's been an interesting character for this season. A couple quick, additional notes: I think the guy to watch right now is Albert. He's in a good situation socially and will be a strong physical competitor further down the line. And finally, I publicly apologize to the two Utahns, Dawn and Rick, who I almost guaranteed would be voted out in the first three to five episodes. Rick is this season's Dark Horse and NOBODY saw that scrawny little BYU professor, Dawn, turning into the tough cookie she's been up through the merge. Great show. The best on television.

Nerdy boy.

For this week's edition of Hashtag Mania, I asked my incredibly reluctant Facebook friends to vote for their favorite Hashtag for my Twitter peeps to use today. The winner of said poll was #SadButTrue. Not necessarily the one I would have chosen, but when the people speak, I listen. Here it is. Enjoy. Maybe.

@atownmania: Only two people responded when I asked what today's hashtag should be. #SadButTrue

[One hour later] @atownmania: Nobody else has used this hashtag. #SadButTrue So much for that.

@crackalacka22: the Joe Paterno saga. #SadButTrue

@crackalacka22: Obama is President. #SadButTrue

@crackalacka22: My toothache kept me from sleeping. #SadButTrue

@crackalacka22: Tower Heist had lots of questionable language and wasn't as good as I thought it would be. #SadButTrue

@atownmania: I have 704 friends on Facebook, but only like 15 of them ever talk to me. #SadButTrue

@crackalacka22: I'm going to Idaho next week. #SadButTrue

@snorlex622: I'm in my third round of English 2010 #SadButTrue

@crackalacka22: NBA players are babies and we all have to hear about their actions day after day after day....#SadButTrue

@crackalacka22: BYU football could be WAC Champion this year...if they were in the WAC. #SadButTrue

@crackalacka22: I finally scheduled an appointment for the dentist. #SadButTrue

@krispixkay: I can't wait for this day to be over. #SadButTrue

@atownmania: Oh great. @crackalacka22 just said he's done trying to help me with this pathetic installment of #HashtagMania... #SadButTrue


I haven't done the Week in Review lately, so here's something. I've recently been seeing a lot of publicity for the new Playstation 3 game, "Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception". I took to eBay a while ago and picked up the first "Uncharted" game to give it a while. I'm not a huge "gamer," per se. I like sports games and "Rock Band," primarily, but I'd heard tons of hype about the "Uncharted" games, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Originally released in 2007, this game would be considered ancient, from a PS3 standpoint. The "Uncharted" series follows a treasure hunter named Nathan Drake as he searches for artifacts long since buried in the annals of history. "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune" follows Mr. Drake as he searches for his ancestor, Francis Drake, and the fabled El Dorado. Immediately, the game reminded me of Indiana Jones - which is a good thing. It's a picturesque adventure story in the jungles of Central America. The game flows incredibly with no visible load times, taking you from one of the story's 22 chapters to the next in the blink of an eye. I'm typically not a huge fan of shoot-'em-up type games (one too many bad experiences getting wasted by 11-year-olds in "Halo" - and by "one too many," I mean one), but "Uncharted" was a fun game. It's easy to pick up, not too long (only took eight non-consecutive hours to finish it), and the story is gripping. I'd recommend the game to anyone out there looking for a fun action game to pick up and, thanks to the age of the game, it should be relatively cheap for you to pick up on eBay or Amazon like I did. Eventually I'll probably get to "Uncharted 2: Among Thieves" and way down the line when I can get it inexpensively I may check out "Uncharted 3" (which scored a perfect 10 out of 10 in IGN.com's review when it was released last week), but what I'd really like to see is an "Uncharted" movie. New-age Indiana Jones. I'm telling you. I give "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune" a 9 out of 10.

Get 'em, Drake.

Speaking of video games, I was just at the store this afternoon after I got off work and this kid came up to me and said this: "Hey, can you come pretend to be my older brother?..." [What, was the kid being bullied? Do I need to go beat somebody up?] "...so I can buy this X-Box game? I'm a couple months short and can't get it on my own." Are you serious, bro? That's P.M.U.!! (I told him no, by the way.)


Reluctantly, I must present this week's fantasy football Game Ball to my arch-nemesis, Team TARDIS, who passed me to reclaim first place in our league after last weekend. In my defense, I had like a billion players on a bye week, so that's freakin' cheap. Willis McGahee carried the ball 20 times for 163 yards and two TDs for 53.30 fantasy points in a week where the TARDees took it to the rest of the league, posting, yet again, another dominant, league-leading performance. The good news for my Assassins, though, is that all the good guys have taken their bye weeks and will be in action from here on out. Watch out, TARD-o, we're coming for you!

Good job, I guess.

The Shoutout of the Week goes to Aaron Jackson, who probably doesn't even read the Newsletter, but he asked me to blog about how much I miss him and how awesome he is. Consider it done.

That's all she wrote for this week. Or... all he wrote, in my case. That's it for this week, kiddos. Oh, will we have an exciting Issue next week! I'd better prepare myself for the busiest day of Facebook in the entire year. More on that later. Peace out, people. Peace out.

Until next Time,

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

Aaron