Signs of the Times, Issue No. 214 - 06/26/12

"I am home with my pants on (life is good)"

Greetings to one and all. Ah, what a crazy day! At work today, I was part of a team that was in charge of making a video for an upcoming Customer Service retreat, so I worked on that for most of the morning and didn't have my usual breaks and lunch time to work on the blog. The video turned out nicely, by the way. I got to leave work at 1:00 today so I could head to my stake's temple day, which was fun. Once I got home, I fulfilled my civic duty by participating in the Utah primary election, then we had a joint birthday party for Austin and Lex, and then I caught up on some TV with my parents and Amy. Quite the busy day. BUT, I've still got a blog to write, so let the brainwashing begin. Topics to be discussed: The eBay sniper, quality vs quantity, the closest I've come to public intoxication, my thoughts about LeBron James, an easy way to make girls mad, the worst way to show you're interested, the Channing Tatum predicament, and a special guest blogger. On we go!

I bought something on eBay yesterday. I got a little bored on my break at work and I started taking a look at some things. There were a few auctions ending in the next few minutes at that point, so I placed a few bids with high hopes of victory. Twice in a row, I was the high bidder all the way down to the final seconds, but twice in a row, I walked away empty-handed. The first time came as a shock, since I was still the high bidder with like eight seconds left, but the second time it happened, it just flat out ticked me off. I did what all ticked off people do when they want to solve the mysteries of the universe and Googled it. "Why do I keep getting outbid at the last second on eBay?" So apparently there's this think called "sniping." "Sniping" on eBay refers to a bidder who uses some sort of software or website to automatically place last-second bids so they almost always end up outbidding the top bidder an instant before the auction closes. It's a cheap trick, but hey - if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. So I sniped an auction ten minutes later and showed those fools who's boss. It made me incredibly happy. When I was being the one being sniped, I was furious. But now that I am the sniper, I want to spend all day making other people miserable by outbidding them.

Pzzzewww! Pzzzewww!!

I've recently come to the conclusion that my iPod is full of a bunch of total crap. Don't get me wrong - I, A-Town, the former college radio all-star, have a lot of great music in my library, but as I have been listening to my headphones at work the last couple weeks, I constantly find myself skipping songs that I don't want to hear. This prompts the Question whether it is better to have a lot of music simply for the sake of having it or to narrow down the number of songs for quality's sake. It's the classic argument between quantity and quality. I think everybody would like to have 100 GB of music, but are there really that many good songs? I've had to face the fact that, despite my love for the band, Barenaked Ladies, they have some songs that I honestly just don't like. I think that in the next few days, I'm going to need to go through my iTunes and unfriend some of my beloved music. Is that wrong of me?

I wish more bands I liked were coming in concert. I like going to concerts. Concerts are fun. They're terrible dates, from my experience, but I wish there was a good show coming up. My family has tickets to see the Beach Boys and Earth, Wind, & Fire, which is pretty awesome, but I was a little slow on the draw for both of those, so that's unfortunate. The last concert I went to was Bon Jovi back a little more than a year ago. Let me indulge you with a story. I attended the concert with my good friend and Loyal A-Towner, Ed Rothlisberger. For the first half hour or so, there was an entire row of empty seats behind us. We joked about wishing some attractive girls would come sit behind us, but didn't take the thoughts seriously. And then, to our surprise, up walked six or eight somewhat-attractive girls (keeping in mind, of course, that it was dark up in the nosebleeds, so they probably weren't actually that attractive). They walked on up... up, up, and up some more... up to the row right behind us. (The closer they got, the less-attractive they became.) Perhaps the least attractive thing about them was that they were all carrying a beer in each hand. We joked about them spilling beer all over us, but didn't take the thoughts seriously. It didn't take long. Probably 15 to 20 minutes later, I felt something running down my back. I couldn't believe it. And they didn't even apologize, either. Classless.

They poured beer on me.

Well, LeBron James is a champion. I don't like it. It should be no big secret that I totally hate the NBA. I love, love, love my Utah Jazz, but I really hate the NBA. I know there are some people out there that think I'm just a "hater" or whatever and I don't like seeing people succeed, but this hatred is just coming from a kid who grew up in love with basketball. I used to LOVE the NBA. "Space Jam" was on TV the other day and I sat down to watch it for a few minutes. Those were the good days. And, I admit, as much as I hate Michael Jordan for ruining my entire life, he was so much better than Kobe or LeBron. Those were the good old days of pure, team basketball. Now the NBA players have become so selfish, self-centered, and bent on making Sportscenter that I just absolutely hate it. It's not a team sport anymore. It turns into a pick-up game or one-on-one way too often for my liking, so, basically, my mindset is that if the Jazz are playing, I love it. Once the Jazz are out, I just cheer for the underdogs (AKA I cheer against the superstars). Sadly, the Miami Heat were able to gut it out and knock off the Oklahoma City Thunder in this year's Finals. My final word on the matter is this: LeBron is still a loser and no matter how much the media tries to shove down my throat that Mr. James is a good guy and it's time for us to all forgive him, I will never cheer for him. The self-proclaimed "king" wasn't good enough to win a championship in Cleveland so he got his buddies together and formed a little super-team. And now that it worked, I'm sure we will be seeing more and more super-teams across the NBA. That's bad news for places like Salt Lake City, which are not exactly celebrity hot spots and known for their night life. So now that LeBron has won his first championship we are all supposed to bow down to him? The guy took a short cut! He took the easy way to the top. And I'm supposed to feel good for him? I'm supposed to be happy for him? Am I happy for kids who get elected to be student body officers in high school because they have a famous family? Am I genuinely excited when Alabama wins the BCS championship after an imperfect season? Do I congratulate a kid that cheats on the ACT? NO! Heck no!

I've been having a hard time sleeping lately - and for once it's not because I've been having weird dreams. I've been sleeping awkwardly on my arms recently and sometimes I wake up with a dead arm, a sore shouler, or a plethora of different issues. Why is this happening? I have my typical sleeping position and it has never really caused me problems until now. I suppose you'd say I'm a "stomach sleeper," so I lay on my stomach with my head turned to either direction, my right arm out to the side, and my left arm, typically, underneath the pillow. Generally, I find that quite comfortable. But not lately. I don't know what the deal is. And, quite frankly, I don't know who to talk to about it. Are any of you sleep therapists or something? You see, many of the people I once considered my closest confidants are now married, so I sleeping habits are something that I generally try not to bring up with them. Um, anyway, I'll let you know if I somehow uncover the magical key to a good night's sleep. Or something.


So what's the deal with dating? Many of you may have noticed that I extremely rarely blog about positive dating experiences. Perhaps you think that this is because I never have any positive dating experiences. I'll leave that up to you to speculate. But, truth be told, the reason why I hardly mention the good times that I have is because I fear to incur the wrath of every other girl on the planet. You know it to be true. The moment I or blog about or post a picture of me with any non-related member of the opposite gender, every other female out there would never want to talk to me again. Every extended family member on Facebook would assume I'm engaged and then, for instance, if it was only a first or second date and things didn't end up going anywhere, as soon as I went out with anybody else, everyone would wonder what happened to "that girl I was dating." It just creates a lot of drama that I don't think is necessary. Instead, I'd rather just post the horrible stories so you can all have a nice laugh at my unfortunate expense and keep the good stuff private. But, come to think of it, who really cares if I offend anyone? What? Are people jealous that I actually spent time with a girl and not with them? - and Heaven forbid it be a cute girl! How dare I spend time with cute girls! The silly thing about all of this is how jealous people get about this stuff. If you're really that jealous, why don't you, uh... show some interest or something?

Speaking of showing interest in people, I have a bone to pick with all you single girls out there. This is nothing recent and I'm not referring to anyone in particular, but since when did it make sense that, in order to show that you were interested in someone, you had to pretend like you weren't interested? I'm no Sigmond Freud or anything, but, to me, it seems like if you're interested in somebody, you let them know. Right? So why is it that whenever anyone shows interest in someone of the opposite gender shows any interest, the other person is immediately less interested? (And this works both ways, by the way.) I've seen this happen time and time again and I seriously just don't get it. I understand that it's weird if you're already planning your wedding after the first date, but what's wrong with showing a little interest?? There's apparently some unwritten rule of love that if you go on a good date with somebody, you're not supposed to tell them that you had fun until like two or three days later. I don't follow that rule. I think it's stupid. I've also been single for a long, long time, so maybe there is method to their madness, but I doubt it. What is the point of that? Like, to make them think that you kind of had fun, but maybe not? This whole "playing hard to get" stuff is garbage. Maybe I'm crazy, but why can't two people just both be mutually interested in each other and not play any games? Weird. Again, this isn't referring to anything specific, necessarily, it's just a Tuesday and I'm thinking about things, ok? Anyway, if anyone can explain this stuff to me, that would be great. Again, to recap, why should or shouldn't I mention positive dating experiences? And why do you have to pretend to not be interested in someone in order for them to like you? I don't get it. This stuff is dumb.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I love roller coasters so much. I'm having a company party at Lagoon this week and I'm so dang excited. First of all, Lagoon is no Disneyland, sadly, but the company party last year was a blast. I don't think I'd been to Lagoon since ninth grade and my love for thrill rides far outweighs the ghetto-ness of Farmington, Utah. Secondly, I'm going with a girl. A cute one. I may post pictures. Sue me.

On a final tangent about confusing women, I asked a Question on Facebook last week, much to the disgust of some online associates. My inquiry was simply how women would feel if men thought about women the way that women think about Channing Tatum. The almost immediate response from females was that there already are men that think that way about women. My rebuttal was that you don't see me getting all worked up about movies about female strippers now, do you? Oh heck no, you don't! Channing Tatum, the alleged "actor," is starring in an upcoming feature-length film entitled "Magic Mike." I've tried not to see the commercials that come on from time to time as I am enjoying an evening of television. Apparently in this movie, Tatum is a male stripper who is raking in the dough. I've seen an outpouring of "Oh... mah... gosh, I cannot wait to see 'Magic Mike'!" statuses and there have been multiple pleas for producers to release the film in 3D. (Now you're all thinking, "Geez! What kind of people is Aaron hanging out with?!" - but we all know that I don't hang out with anyone, so it's not like I'm BFFs with these girls.) Really, though. Ladies. Are your parents not on Facebook or something? Goodness! I would never in a million years publicly express my enthusiasm for such a film, regardless of whether or not I was actually planning on seeing it. Can you imagine the outrage that would ensue if I ever said "Aaron Christensen can't wait to try out that Pamela Anderson workout video!" Yeah, I don't think that'd fly. Have you all seen pictures of girls on vacation making smoochy-faces at those "Thunder Down Under" billboards? Or am I the only one with sleazy pictures filling up my news feed? (Female rebuttal: "But men go to Hooters all the time!") My rebuttal: I don't go to Hooters. And, hypothetically, if I did, A) I wouldn't take pictures of it and B) nobody would find pictures like that "cute" like they do when there's Girls' Night in Vegas. Again, I may be absolutely insane here, but can anyone else see this horrendous double standard? As if all the women crying over Taylor Lautner with a shirt off wasn't bad enough... "Magic Mike" is the worst thing to happen to my self-esteem since I had to burn those photo booth pictures in my latest Webisode.

Don't hate him because he's beautiful. Hate him because he's in a movie about strippers.

A girl who recently added me on Facebook the other day was talking to me about some of my videos that I've published online. She seemed to have been at leastsomewhat amused, but she asked me, almost degradingly, if I knew how I looked in those videos. Hilarious? I'm pretty sure that was the answer she was looking for.

Justin Lundberg suggested that I blog about the digestive habits of birds and, though, due to the PG nature of the blog, I cannot directly respond to his suggestion, I can tell a story from my childhood. My family was in Southern California on vacation and we were spending the day in LegoLand. We had paused to take a break for lunch. I was sitting at a table waiting for the rest of my family to finish up, when, all of the sudden, I felt something warm on my shoulder. It was at that point that I realized I was sitting right under a tree. That, Justin, taught me more than I ever wanted to know about birds' digestive habits.

I've got a guest blogger for tonight. It's a special guest blogger. Not only will this be his first-ever publication, but, indeed, you may say that I am delving into an area which I have never before tried, so we will see how this goes. The guest blogger this week is my one-year-old nephew, Joshua Christensen. He has a very important message for you all:

"0t  jhnkjloi;p8u7878uyujymnu6mn6guik8uihjmk,ol.;/"

- Joshua Christensen

"I don't get it. What's so offensive about that, A-Town?" I thought you'd ask. You see, the controversial thing about all of this is that little Josh did that with no compensation, whatsoever. That's right. I did not pay Josh to be the guest blogger. That, my friends, is what you call "child slavery." 'Atta boy, Joshy.

The Shoutout of the Week goes to my dear father. Pops had a bit of a wild weekend last week, but he dealt with it like a champion. He has had an incredibly positive attitude and continues to be a great example to me. Welcome home, Daddy-O. It's nice to have you back again - and with your pants, no less.

That's about it for this week, kiddos. Sorry about the late delivery, but I assure you that it was all for a good cause. All right. Good night and happy almost-Wednesday to you, my Loyal Subscribers.

Until next Time,

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

Aaron