Signs of the Times, Issue No. 183 - 11/22/11

Not so fast, my friends!


Greetings to one and all. On what could have been "Thankful Tuesday," I unfortunately just had too much to talk about already, so we'll be all over the proverbial map tonight. Topics to be discussed: Black Friday, the realization of a life-long dream, the Utes' championship hopes, the F-bomb heard 'round the world, potential nicknames for your new favorite team, and ten years of absolute shame. On we go!

This will be a big weekend for crazy shoppers. I've never gone Black Friday shopping. Black Friday has always been a day for me to sleep in, eat more turkey, and go bowling. But this year, now that I'm rolling in the Benjamins, I might go take a look around. There's some cheap stuff out there. Might be good Webisode material. There have been some sweet pre-Black Friday sales that I've already taken advantage of online. I'll tell you this - got something Next-Day-Aired to my house for cheaper than I could have gotten it locally. That's a beautiful thing.

Speaking of things I've never done... Perhaps you've heard that I realized a life-long dream last night. It's true, I went speed dating for the very first time. It's something that has intrigued me and that I've wanted to do for quite some time. For those of you unaware of the concept of speed dating, basically, they set up a bunch of tables with girls on one side and guys on the other. You get a couple minutes to speak with the person across from you, but after the pre-determined amount of time has expired, the guys rotate one seat to the left, where they get to know their next victim, er, speed dater. The tables had been littered with slips of paper with random questions like "If you were running for office, what would your slogan be?", "Which outdoor activities do you enjoy?", and "Which sport is your favorite to watch? To Play?", which would be used at the discretion of the daters.


There was a pretty good turnout from three of the Young Single Adult wards in my stake. There was probably about a 60:40 ratio of girls to guys, which was nice, as well. As I sat down at my spot before the activity started, I noticed a cute girl sitting across from me and to the right. "Please let me rotate right. Please let me rotate right," I thought. After my first three-minute round with the girl I sat across from, I heard those horrible, dreaded words: "Ok, gentlement, rotate one seat to your left! Rotate! Rotate!" Dang it. Needless to say, I did not get to speed date the hot chick. As I reached the end of the table, I needed to move to a new location. Confused, I asked one of the people in charge and they didn't really know where I was supposed to go, either. I ended up going and speed dating three girls at the same time because nobody was sitting across from them. I stayed there for two or three rounds and then rotated to the left again. I soon realized that I had sat down at a table full of girls from my own ward. Nothing personal against the girls in my ward - they're very nice and pleasant... but after serving as the assistant executive secretary in my ward for the last five months, I already had all of their phone numbers anyway and, no offense, I wasn't really interested in most of them anyway.


As soon as I got a chance, I got to the end of that table and booked it to a different table where I could meet some new people. Sadly, at that point, the activity was almost over anyway, so I got to talk to about four other girls who, well, I wasn't really interested in, either. It's not that I'm shallow, necessarily, but it's just that I don't have anything in common with some of those girls. It was frustrating. There were some attractive girls there, but I didn't get a chance to meet them for several reasons. Perhaps the most frustrating reason of them all would be that the guys would say "ROTATE! ROTATE!" over the cheap-quality PA system and nobody in front of me would rotate for about a minute and a half. This lead to an awkward 90 seconds of "I-already-said-goodbye-to-you-and-we're-done-talking-but-I-can't-rotate-because-the-dude-in-the-cowboy-hat-is-about-to-propose-to-this-chick-so-I-guess-I-can-sit-here-and-pretend-to-be-writing-notes-or-something". Everybody had a clipboard where they could write down something interesting about the person they just speed dated, notate whether or not they were interested, and a couple other things. It was never a good sign when the person you were talking to was keeping the clipboard close to their body and hiding it from view. That was a good indication that they were giving you a big, fat "N" for "not interested".


Another thing that was difficult to deal with was that many of the guys that showed up (and I stereotypically assumed it would be so) were the backwards-hat-wearing, baggy-pants, tree trunk neck, ex-football players that all the LDS girls would die for these days. It almost made me wish that I was just coming back from 15 years of inactivity in the church so girls would notice me, too. In the end, it was a relatively fun activity that started off with a lot of potential, but fizzled down toward the end where I just got sick of asking all the same questions over and over again: "Are you in school? What do you do for work? You say you like dogs and romance novels?" It was a fun experience, but did I meet my wife last night? Not likely. Not likely at all.

Had potential. It really did.

As a side note, this weekend marks the two-year anniversary of A-Town's latest venture into bachelorhood. Two long years. I'm telling you, people. If I knew what my problem was, I'd fix it.

Sad A-Town.

Who would have thought two months ago that the Utah Utes would be potentially vying for a shot at the PAC-12 championship?? I publicly announced my thoughts when our mediocre starting quarterback, Jordan Wynn, went down for the season with an injury. I thought we were done. I thought I wouldn't even need to watch the rest of our games because we were going to get stuck with some junior college quarterback that (from what everyone was saying at the time) sounded like he'd never even thrown a football in his life. I accepted the season as a failure, a rebuilding year, a disappointment. But here we are with one week left in the season and, if the cards fall into place, the Utes could win the PAC-12 South division and have a chance to play for an automatic berth into the BCS Rose Bowl. The Utes need to beat Colorado (given). UCLA needs to lose to USC (given) [USC, the current leader of the South division, is ineligible for any championships or bowl games due to violations of NCAA policies]. And the long shot here is that Arizona State needs to lose to Cal. Arizona State would hold the tie-breaker over the Utes if they ended tied for the season, so Utah fans should be squarely in Cal's corner this weekend. If the Utes win, if UCLA loses, and if Arizona State also loses, that would land the Utes in the inaugural PAC-12 championship game, most likely to face (and get demolished by) Oregon. But hey - not so fast my friends - The Utes once faced an Alabama team in the 2009 Sugar Bowl when nobody gave them a chance to win. And what happened? We kicked the crap out of them. We can do it, my friends! It can happen! Now join with my friend Scott Aylett and flap your little angel wings all weekend long. What a turn of events. I never thought we'd end up in this situation after all the injuries and turmoil that we went through in the first few weeks of this season. COME ON, UTES!! And, by the way, if BYU fans want a rematch, I'd actually be really interested in seeing that game played now.

You can DO IT!!

Speaking of "not so fast, my friends," what an idiot is Lee Corso, the eldest (age-wise) of mainstays on ESPN's weekly college football pre-game show, College Gameday. Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, and Chris Fowler travel for ESPN to the site of the biggest national college football game each Saturday morning and have made a tradition of predicting the winners of a handful of games each week. Corso is famous for donning the mascot head of the school he believes will win the marquee matchup each week. Nothing wrong with that. But last week as Corso made his prediction, he dropped the F-bomb live on national TV and it somehow made it past the censorship delay. What the freak? He later apologized for his outburst, reading a written statement, which ESPN posted on Facebook and Twitter later in the day. Wonder who wrote that one for him. If you're going to go off like that, don't apologize because you have to. Apologize because you want to. It's been a while since we've done The Boo Box, but I think Mr. Corso is a perfect example. Everybody together now - BOOOOOO!!

Oh yeah. This really happened.

You people lit up my Facebook status the other day when my infamous brother, Austin, suggested that he and I submit an application to compete on "The Amazing Race". Well, let's just say that none of you said we shouldn't do it. The overwhelming number of you were highly in favor of the proposal and we will take that into serious consideration. What's the worst that could happen? They say no? Today, Mr. Austin took to Twitter with the hashtag #PossibleNamesForTheBrothersChristensenAmazingRaceTeam and, though I wasn't originally planning on having a Hashtag Mania segment, I suppose some of these suggestions will do.


@crackalacka22: #PossibleNamesForTheBrothersChristensenAmazingRaceTeam rogue squadron

@atownmania: #PossibleNamesForTheBrothersChristensenAmazingRaceTeam The Brothers of Destruction
@crackalacka22: #PossibleNamesForTheBrothersChristensenAmazingRaceTeam the sons of thunder
@crackalacka22: #PossibleNamesForTheBrothersChristensenAmazingRaceTeam skinny white boys

@atownmania: #PossibleNamesForTheBrothersChristensenAmazingRaceTeam The Mormons
@crackalacka22: #PossibleNamesForTheBrothersChristensenAmazingRaceTeam the pride of the beehive state
@crackalacka22: #PossibleNamesForTheBrothersChristensenAmazingRaceTeam brothers from the same mother
@atownmania: #PossibleNamesForTheBrothersChristensenAmazingRaceTeam The Mighty Ducks
@gabbygayle19: #PossibleNamesForTheBrothersChristensenAmazingRaceTeam Yahoodies
@gabbygayle19: #PossibleNamesForTheBrothersChristensenAmazingRaceTeam Mama's Boys

@atownmania: #PossibleNamesForTheBrothersChristensenAmazingRaceTeam The Nation of Domination
@crackalacka22: #PossibleNamesForTheBrothersChristensenAmazingRaceTeam millionaires
@crackalacka22: #PossibleNamesForTheBrothersChristensenAmazingRaceTeam #1
@crackalacka22: #PossibleNamesForTheBrothersChristensenAmazingRaceTeam winners

@atownmania: #PossibleNamesForTheBrothersChristensenAmazingRaceTeam Hot White Heat
@crackalacka22: #PossibleNamesForTheBrothersChristensenAmazingRaceTeam mamushka

@crackalacka22: #PossibleNamesForTheBrothersChristensenAmazingRaceTeam the team thats in front of you

While we're talking about the fabled Brothers Christensen, let us discuss the most heated moment of the year: The Madden Bowl. Madden Bowl XI, to be a little more precise. Each year that Austin and I have been at home (took a four-year break from 2006-2009 due to LDS missions), we have competed on the virtual gridiron using the Madden NFL video game franchise. In 1996, I beat Austin in Madden Bowl I. That was back before either of us knew how to catch. Apparently Austin took the loss personally and he's beaten me in the nine subsequent outings. Hoping to avoid ten straight losses, I will challenge my arch-nemesis to Madden Bowl XI. The teams have yet to be chosen, but you can bet your sweet bippy that we'll be tweeting about it on Thursday.

Speaking of football, let's award this week's fantasy football Game Ball. This week, the Game Ball goes to my Patrick Willis of the A-Town Assassins. Willis has been a solid defensive back all season for the Assassins. In a week where nobody really blew me away, statistically, Willis' six and a half tackles, interception, forced fumble, and three deflected passes added up to a respectable 22 fantasy points. The A-Towners are back in first place and leading the way into the next week of competition.

Nobody wants to mess with this guy.

And on the topic of me, let's talk about YOU! The Shoutout of the Week goes to all the awesome people who called, texted, instant messaged, posted on my Facebook wall, or sent me a bunch of fruit in a ceramic football last weekend as I celebrated my 25th birthday. It was a great day and I had a lot of fun, but part of what made the day so great was that everyone was so nice to me! I appreciate all the birthday wishes so much! It's nice to know that 10% of my 700 online acquaintances took time out of their day to make sure I had a fun weekend. Thanks again!!

That's about it for this week, kiddos. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving - one of my favorite holidays of the year. It's the perfect time to relax, spend some time with your loved ones, enjoy some delicious meals, and take a few moments to reflect on all the amazing blessings we have in our lives. I'm grateful for all the good things that I have, especially my family, friends, and my membership in the Church, which make me happy despite everything else going on out there. Be safe this long weekend and save me some pie.

Until next Time,

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

Aaron