Signs of the Times, Issue No. 231 - 10/23/12

Attacking me is not an agenda.

Greetings to one and all. We've got some exciting stuff going on today! Let's get right down to it, shall we? Topics to be discussed:  Something I learned from the presidential debates, an easy way to tell which neighbors you should avoid, my under-appreciated skill set, the stake volleyball conundrum, and upcoming plans for the fabled Brothers Christensen. BUT, most importantly, we'll be discussing my triumphant return to the throne as the King of College Radio as I help guest host my sister's show in Ephraim tonight. Oh baby. I'm excited. On we go.

I don't know much about politics, but I actually did learn something this election season: people that get really into politics scare me.

I'm not a big fan of Halloween, but we'll get more into that next week, I guess. As I was driving home from work yesterday, I noticed a lot of families in my neighborhood out putting up decorations in their yards. You know what, I'm not really into that stuff for a couple reasons: First, it's too consuming of my money and time. Second, the wind was blowing like a banshee yesterday. And third, I don't worship the devil. So... Yeah.

Stay away from these guys...

Tonight I'll be returning to the Motherland down in Ephraim to reclaim my rightful place as King of College Radio. Yes, it's true - As soon as I get off work, I'm headed down to Snow College to guest star on my sister's radio show, which, ironically, is about dating advice. Believe it or not, it's not the first time I've guest starred on a dating show. I've actually been on a couple shows about relationship advice. I suppose I have a somewhat unique perspective about that crazy little thing called "love," so it should be a fun time. I started off as an on-air personality back in the fall of 2005. As a radio rookie, I earned my own "specialty show" called "'City Council' w/ A-Town," which turned out to be a breakout hit that semester. At the end of the calendar year, I left school to serve an LDS mission where, despite my efforts to remain anonymous, many missionaries eventually learned of my college radio experience and often referred to me as "A-Town."  Upon my return from North Carolina, I headed back down to Snow for such notable accomplishments as "City Council," seasons two and three, and an MC gig at Snow's first-ever "KAGE Idol" competition. When I transferred to the University of Utah, I didn't participate in college radio for my first year, mainly because I didn't know such a program existed. However, one afternoon on my way home from class, I saw a tiny little bulletin posted in one of the hallways looking for DJs. I responded to the want ad and eventually got lined up with a staff position at K-UTE Radio as the Program Director (the same position I had previously held at the KAGE in Ephraim). I hosted a three-hour morning show each Friday at the U, which was a good time, but at the end of the Fall 2010 semester, I graduated and had to hang up my headband. It's been almost two years since I've been on the air now and I miss it quite a bit. I think about the good old days quite frequently and wish I still had a weekly show to run. I'm excited to spend a couple hours in the studio with Amy tonight. I'll try to get a recording of it and post it online somehow so you can all have the opportunity to choose not to listen to it.


At work on Monday morning, I had the opportunity to re-listen to some of my old podcasts from "The House that A-Town Built." That was some pretty good stuff, unbeknownst to any of my listeners. Some of my favorite lines from the episodes I listened to were "Limewire got the axe. Oh crap!" and "Happy little birthday to you, Bob Ross." Heh. I intentionally listened to my Halloween show, during which I only played Halloween-related songs. You know... Like "Thriller" by Michael Jackson, "The Monster Mash," and "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Heh. Frankie. No? Nobody gets it. 

You know, I've been thinking something for a long time - and the more I think about it, the more I believe it's true. I think I am probably the most under-appreciated genius in the world. Or at least west of the Mississippi. Since back in the days of the "KAGE Match" when people didn't understand why I paired John Mayer with The Presidents of the United States of America to the Halloween party that I referred to in the aforementioned Halloween podcast of "The House that A-Town Built" where I had gone dressed up as a member of the Nerd Herd from "Chuck" and people thought I was a missionary to the time when I wrote this really, inexplicably long sentence in Issue No. 231 of "Signs of the Times," I just don't think that people have adequately appreciated - or even really comprehended - how brilliant I actually am. Do people not understand that my Newsletter is crafted meticulously by hand each and every Tuesday, rain or shine? Is anyone else positively shocked that my A-Town Webisodes didn't make it viral, unless we're counting the number of times that I forced my immediate family to watch them over and over? I was left no other option but to concede in the race for the Oval Office due to lack of support, I cry myself to sleep every Sunday night because I know that CBS overlooked the Brothers Christensen for "The Amazing Race," and I haven't had an exclusive girlfriend in 35 months. Are you kidding me, people? Sometimes I figure that I can either continue to beg and to plead to be noticed by the American masses or I can take a stand. Recently, I took a stand. And you know what? It came back and bit me right in the bum. But guess what, everybody? I'd rather be rejected for being myself than be accepted for molding myself to become someone or something that I'm not. My name is A-Town... and I'm the best. You know it to be true.

Tag Team champion.

And then, in a late-night fit of non-violent rage induced, most likely, by drowsiness, I unfriended 79 people on Facebook. I felt considerably better after having done so late Sunday night. They can't say I didn't give them a chance to take off and run with me, either. Because I did... Oh yes, I did.As I watched the nightly news on Sunday night, one of their filler stories was about an alleged "Bigfoot" sighting. Is it just me or are people who claim to have seen Bigfoot (stereo-)typically not the most credible-looking people in the world?

Like these gentlemen.

What are people trying to accomplish when they ask you what kind of car you drive? What difference does it make?


I had a weird dream early Monday morning that I was driving my scooter from Salt Lake City to Provo. That's weird because A) I can't legally take the scooter on the freeway (the fastest I've been able to go on it is,  like, 37.5 MPH) and B) it's currently pretty much out of gas. Most of the dream consisted of me walking around with my helmet on and trying to figure out what kind of gas to fill the tank with.

I played Stake Volleyball for the first time this season last Wednesday night. I'm not a big-time volleyball player. In fact, I hated volleyball as a child. I remember having to play during "gym time" in elementary school. The balls really hurt my arms as I hit them. In retrospect, I think they were incredibly over-inflated. Anybody who has played volleyball with over-inflated balls knows what I'm talking about. Those things sting! I remember intentionally wearing long sleeves the next time I knew we had volleyball coming up so the balls wouldn't make my arms turn red. The teacher in charge of the gym period made fun of me in front of my classmates. I was a really shy kid, so that was pretty traumatizing for me. Anyway, I have gotten a little better at volleyball since those days and I don't need to wear long sleeves anymore, but there are still a couple things I'm trying to understand - like the Question I posed to female online acquaintances on Facebook the other day: When playing co-ed sports, do you find it more attractive if a guy is confidently good or amusingly bad? Now, to set the record straight, I don't classify myself in either of those categories. I'm definitely not very good at volleyball, but I don't think I make a total idiot of myself, either. As I looked around and did a little people watching that night, though, I found it interesting to note that I definitely wasn't the worst player on my team - heck, I may have arguably been the BEST player on my team for some stretches, blocking spikes, serving aces, volleying a ball that bounced off the wall back over my head from out of bounds and having it drop right over the net between two opposing defenders... That's not too shabby! With that in mind, I definitely wasn't the best player there. Not by a long shot. But the girls that were present were going ga-ga over the guys that couldn't hit the ball back over the net! I understand girls like guys who know how to have fun, but can't you have fun and be good, too? Somebody explain that to me.

He rocks at volleyball, but can't get a second date.

It's time for this week's "Amazing Race" recap:

Bangladesh! Oh gosh, I have a really, really hard time with that culture. I'm not sure exactly how to pinpoint it, but I would have had a very tough time in that part of the country. The teams started out having to re-finish a painted section of a bus using putty and a scraper. The hardest part of that challenge would definitely have been putting up with those INCREDIBLY ANNOYING Sri Lankan sisters. "Long, strong, and hard, Twinny. Long, strong, and hard." Oh... my gosh. SHUT UP!!! I'm sure CBS loves those two. There was also an option to do a "Fast Forward" challenge - the completion of which required team members to handle a bunch of huge, dead rats. Oh gosh. Kill me. There's no way I would have chosen to use the Fast Forward option. Disgusting. The clue had teams digging through a bunch of smelly, dried fish. Uh, again, disgusting. Doable, but disgusting. For this episode's "Road Block" challenge, teams had to either pound a bunch of cotton, pack it into a huge mattress, and sew it up, or use a bellows and sledgehammers to pound iron into a primitive weapon. Austin and I grew up doing manual labor. We'd pound the metal out pretty quick and be on our way. There seems to be a lot of miscommunication this season. I'm not sure whether this mainly stems from cultural and language barriers or if it's because people just aren't fully reading the clues. Anyway, to recap this episode, I think I would have had a tough time in that area of the world - but hey, when there's a million dollars on the line, nothing is going to going to slow me down. Not even a bunch of gigantic rodents. If anything, that would just make me want to complete the tasks faster. I really hate rodents. I had a bad experience as a child. Well, many bad experiences. I was the only one brave enough to fight off the onslaught of mice that invaded our basement in Draper. So I killed them. I killed them all. Even, in one instance, a baby mouse. I won't go into any more detail.

Switching back to the topic previously at hand, Austin sent me a link on Sunday night. This link, as a matter of fact: http://www.theamazingracecasting.com/apply ... The deadline is November 7... And we're going to get started on our audition video tomorrow.

Why, thank you, Phil! Don't mind if we do!

In sports news, the Utes suck. I need to stop planning my weekends around that garbage.

The Fantasy Football Star of the Week is Adrian Peterson, who rushed 23 times for 153 yards and a TD. His 50.65 fantasy points propelled my dearest mother to another league-leading week, giving her a dominant lead for first place (for the time being). I'll tell you what - my team needs to snap out of it! Luckily, most of my major players have already had their bye weeks, so now that we've gotten that out of the way, hopefully we'll see better results in the upcoming weeks. I can't lose! Especially not to my mom. She wins too much.

AP.

The Shoutout of the Week goes to Jason "The Barbarian" Moffat. Jason "The Barbarian" and I go way back. Way back to the days of Snow College. Our friendship and eventual rivalry on the airwaves at the KAGE can only be described in one word - epic. Yes, epic! Epic, in the sense that the rivalry spanned across weeks and months in a battle to define "manliness" - a battle which, ultimately, culminated in a steel cage match on the top of the KAGE. The match eventually became so heated that the arena exploded. Thankfully, we both escaped with our lives - but just barely. The bond of brotherhood and friendship that was forged in that process is unparalleled in the history of college radio. That friendship continues to this day as a testament to the absolute greatness that was spawned from the former hosts of "City Council" and "The Manly Show." Excuse me whilst I shed a tear of utter nostalgia.


Well, that's about it for this week, kiddos! I tried to knock the blog out early so I can prepare for the big radio show tonight. Yes! I'll be guest-hosting "The Love Shack" on the KAGE down in Ephraim tonight with none other than my sister, "The Dicer"! So come on! And bring your jukebox money!


Until next Time,

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

Aaron