Greetings to one and all! Hello, hello. Come on in. Take a seat. Make yourselves at home, all three of you. Welcome once again to another marvelous edition of the "Signs of the Times" Newsletter! Topics to be discussed today: breaking news in the wacky world of sports, orthography, the battle of the brothers, customer feedback and my new dream job, and some "Q.T." with the J-Man! On we go!
**QUESTION TIME!!**
Q. "Dear A-Town,
Have you ever considered getting a FDG (fake dead girlfriend)? I hear it does wonders for your public image. May even get you some Heisman votes or more blog readers."
Just wondering,
- Your Mother
A. What a week in sports, right?? Oh wait. None of you like sports. I forgot about that. Well guess what? It's my blog and we're going to talk about sports. I'll see you next week. Ahem. So. Can you believe this Manti Te'o story?? If you don't know what I'm talking about, you've been hiding under a rock somewhere or you completely, intentionally go out of your way to ignore anything sports-related. It has been all over the news, not just on ESPN, but locally and nationally on non-sports networks for a week now since the news broke last Wednesday. Basically, Manti Te'o the linebacker who was "raised Mormon," as they say, but made headlines for the prominent Catholic school, Notre Dame, had a heart-breaking storyline through the most recent college football season. Te'o, one of the country's top football players, lost his grandmother back in September (in the sense that she passed away, not that she was disoriented). Losing a loved one is never an easy thing to deal with, unless you, like, really really hate them or something, which I don't think was the case in this instance. On that same day -- or sometime between two to four days later, depending on the source (#inconsistency) -- Te'o's girlfriend, the "love of his life," as he frequently told reporters, lost a battle with leukemia. This tragic story captivated the collective attention of college football fans and we unitedly backed the upstanding young man as he continued to have a great season, despite the almost insurmountable adversity he faced. Te'o finished second in voting for the Heisman trophy, awarded to the country's best overall player, largely, I believe, thanks to that incredibly sad storyline, as well as his great on-field performance, of course. Notre Dame was thoroughly trounced in the National Championship by Alabama and Te'o was virtually a no-show, putting forth a sub-par performance, much to the dismay of his many fans.
Last Wednesday, news broke that the whole story behind Te'o's dead girlfriend was a hoax, a joke. It never really happened because she is not a real person. (Even just typing that sentence made me laugh out loud.) How preposterous is that?? She was not in a near-fatal car accident, she was never diagnosed with leukemia, she never met the Te'o family in Hawaii like he and his parents say she did, he never spent time in the hospital with her like he said he did - in fact, there are no records of anyone under that name ever being checked into the hospital, no records of the crash, no Social Security number, no birth records, no death records - NOTHING! It was all a hoax! And everyone in America believed it! And it nearly won him the Heisman! It wasn't even real!! BUSTED! Now, I, for one, find that absolutely disgusting, right off the bat. What I find even more disgusting is that people are still dumb enough to believe him, not a far cry from people who still loved Joe Paterno after the Penn State child abuse scandal. Morons! People are still putting Manti Te'o up as some good guy who got "duped" into some elaborate scheme and he's the victim of this sick joke and whatnot. That's a bunch of bull. Let me tell you why.
Theory: Te'o claims that he met this girl online, which, in today's world, is not totally far-fetched. People "meet" online all the time. If this was five years ago, ten years ago, yeah, that'd be a little weird, but online dating has become a necessary evil for many people these days. Fallacy: You're Manti Te'o, the second best player in the country. You're, I suppose, a pretty good-looking guy, and you're a college athlete, for crying out loud. You've got your pick of any girl in the nation, practically. Why on Earth would you settle for a long-distance, online relationship? I'm not buying it. You could be the butt-ugly back-up punter for UVU's football team and you could still get a hot girlfriend - and THAT is saying something, considering UVU doesn't even have a football team. Girls are suckers for athletes, especially good-looking, talented ones. Manti Te'o would not have any need for online relationships.
"Well, she's 5'6"... I mean 5'4"... she has brownish, blackish, reddish hair..."
Theory: Te'o initially said that he and his girlfriend would spend time together, whether it be on vacation, in the hospital, or even getting their stares pleasantly tangled on campus at Stanford, according to one South Bend newspaper. Fallacy: That's a bunch of garbage. As the media has sorted this whole mess out, they've placed the blame squarely on one of Te'o's buddies, who created the fake girlfriend as a joke. Well, sure, maybe Manti got "duped" and he fell for an elaborate tale of an attractive online profile... but why did Te'o repeatedly tell reporters that she was the "love of his life" and tell so many stories about meeting her and spending time with her? Even if he was totally fooled by his friend, HE LIED TO REPORTERS. Period. According to reporters, Te'o informed Notre Dame that this was all a hoax back in December. Then why did he tell College Game Day in JANUARY that he loved and missed his dead girlfriend?? Busted. I don't care how great of a person the media wants him to seem, he's at least partially involved because he got caught in his own lie.
"I couldn't go to the funeral because she told me not to."
Theory: Te'o cleared the air by admitting that they never actually met. He claims that the relationship was purely online and via text/phone calls. Fallacy: Ok, thanks for admitting that. But, again, why did he, himself, on camera say that they actually HAD met? Boom. Furthermore - and I'm no idiot in the ways of the internet, so to speak - I cannot imagine having such an allegedly-meaningful relationship with somebody online for over two years (!!) without ever questioning why you had only ever seen two or three pictures of her. That's a little sketchy. If, hypothetically, I were to ever attempt to have a relationship with somebody I met online, I wouldn't trust anyone that only had one or two pictures of themselves. I wouldn't even consider talking to them if they had zero pictures of themselves. That's just straight-up weird. Either they're incredibly lazy (how hard is it up click "upload"?) or they're fake. Either way, I wouldn't want anything to do with them. If they had two or three pictures of themselves and that's it, I'd be suspicious, especially if they look attractive. We all know how these fake, made-up (zing) girls are. They would never pass up an opportunity to take a picture of themselves any time they walk past a mirror. Did he never ask to see more pictures? Was he completely content with the two or three that this person had on their profile? Did he never ask to Skype with her? I mean, I'm not a big Skyper, but I'd imagine that if I was really, actually in a long-distance relationship with the so-called love of my life, I'd probably want to Skype at least once a week and probably more. ...not that I'd know from personal experience, but... wouldn't you?? So if Manti's admission is actually true, he must be the most trusting, gullible fool in the world. Seriously. You'd think that a 12-year-old would have figured that out. Two-plus years without ever even having seen this girl via camera or webcam. Incredible. I'm actually, honestly insulted that he thinks we would believe that load of crap.
"B-b-but... She promised she'd make it to the game!!"
Theory: In an off-camera interview (wuss) with ESPN's Jeremy Schaap that came out last Thursday or Friday night, Te'o said that he still actually believed that this girl was real until the day that the news nationally broke that it was all a hoax. Fallacy: Really? Really?? Then why did you tell Notre Dame in December that you knew it was fake? Incredible. The only reason he's saying that he didn't know the girl was fake until two days ago (at that point) is to cover for the early January interviews that followed his admission to Notre Dame where he said the two had met, etc. This guy thinks we're a bunch of chumps.
"I swear, though. She's coming."
I could go on and on. I have, as a matter of fact, griping about the absurdity of this story to my parents for a great majority of the last weekend. It doesn't affect me, personally, and the outcome doesn't really matter at all, but I just find it all fascinating. How do people come up with this stuff? And who has the nerve to follow up with the plan and carry it out on such a national stage for so long? Incredible. And then, as if the Te'o drama wasn't enough, ESPN immediately moves from the fake dead girlfriend to the Lance Armstrong scandal. It sure was a bad week for good liars.
Perhaps what angers me most of all out of all of this, however, is the mere notion that I didn't come up with it first. That sure would have saved me a lot of grief at family reunions.
Q. "Dear Aaron,
Have you ever actually met Craig T. Nelson? Are you really the Tag Team Champion of the World? And this is actually Aaron, is it not?"
Love,
- The Fan Club
A. Wait, I'm sorry... What?
Yesterday was President Obama's Inauguration. Allegedly. I wouldn't know. I didn't watch it. That was at the very bottom of my priorities list, as a matter of fact. I know it's history and he African-American and his wife has tremendously toned triceps, but I honestly don't give a flying fig about any of that. However - and this may come as a shock to some of you - I was on Twitter yesterday for a short period of time and I saw something that made me kind of rub my eyes a little bit. I took a gander at the left side of the screen at the current trends in the United States at that point in the afternoon and, to my absolute orthographic horror, saw that "#anoguracetion" was trending. "#anoguracetion"?! "ANOGURACETION"?!?!?!? Are you KIDDING ME?!?! "Anoguracetion"?! (*audible laughing*) That's not even close! Not even close at all! I'm sorry, and I don't mean to be racist, but... SERIOUSLY?! Seriously, people?????? It was like watching all the pro-Obama/anti-Romney Twitter trends during the election all over again. Typos and misspellings galore. Ever heard of a little thing called "Spell Check"? Huh?? You see that little squiggly red line underneath where it says "#anoguracetion"? Huh?? That means you're spelling "#inauguration" wrong. My apologies, but we live in a country of absolute idiots. And they're taking over. It's scary.
Everybody and their fake girlfriend is excited about the upcoming Super Bowl, which, for the first time will feature two brothers - John and Jim Harbaugh - as opposing head coaches. Some have even gone so far to tentatively rename the upcoming championship the "HarBowl I." It would be cooler if it ended up turning into "HarBrawl I" instead. For one thing, I know that if Austin and I ever made it to the Big Game as opposing coaches, it wouldn't be some giant love-fest at the end where we met at mid-field, embraced each other with tears streaming down our baby faces, and both went home "winners." Oh no. Regardless of the outcome, at least one of us would probably go home with a black eye. What are we going to do? Shake hands and pretend the game never happened? Forget this lovey-dovey rose-colored-glasses garbage. Only one team goes home a winner, whether you're brothers or not.
Deep down inside they want to punch each other in the face. I know they do.
At work, we have recently started doing a customer satisfaction survey when we assist customers over the phone. Sadly, having customers like you doesn't get your name on a plaque anywhere most of the time, but I still like reading through the feedback some of the customers give at the end of the survey. Every once in a while, they say some funny stuff - like the guy who filled out the survey and said he would let me date his daughter. Several customers have also given the backhanded compliment of saying, for instance, "I talked to Aaron, who was very helpful. Previously, a woman answered and was unhelpful, fyi" (sic). Heh. (*smirk*) It's nice to occasionally get good feedback in such a monotonous job - and that's nothing against the company, it's just the nature of most call centers. Same stuff, different day, over and over and over. I find this feedback gratifying. One customer last week said, "Aaron C was extremely knowledgeable and attentive... Give him a promotion." Not to toot my own horn or anything, but there have been a few customers that comment saying that I need a raise or a promotion. Too bad nothing will come of it. Not while I'm here, anyway. Believe me, I've tried many times.
So, needless to say, I've been contemplating other potential jobs I could look into. I've come up with a good list. What do you think of these?:
- Background vocalist in a rock band
- Pro wrestling commentator
- Minor-league sports mascot
- "Jungle Cruise" skipper at Disneyland
I'm actually serious about being a skipper on the "Jungle Cruise." A lady that called in one time told me I'd have a good tour guide voice, so that's kind of where I got the idea. Plus, I love Disneyland, so what do I have to lose? I have tortured one of my co-workers by Googling "Jungle Cruise jokes" and practicing some of the one-liners on him. (He wasn't impressed.) Also, I seriously did go to the Walt Disney Company's "Careers" page to see if there was anything posted. I didn't find anything inside the park. Maybe that's not the best place to look. I don't know. If anybody has the inside scoop about how to get hired to work IN Disneyland, I'm serious. Get in touch with me. But even if there are no actual job postings online that I can find, I know a sure-fire way to make them hire me - I'll go VIRAL! I should make a video showcasing my amazing wit and charm and, if I can get enough people to watch the video, they'll be forced to hire me. They will have no choice. That's the hard part, though. Actually getting people to watch, like, and share the video. People are lazy.
"The eighth wonder of the world - the backside of water!!"
As if there were any doubt in anyone's mind, I'd like to come out and say that I have the cutest nephew ever. I was surprised when I got home yesterday and walked inside to see little Joshua bust through the laundry room door to give me a hug. Ahhhh, what a cute little guy. I wondered why the TV would be on TNT to watch the Spurs/76ers game last night, but, as we have recently come to find out, Josh loves watching basketball! We spent a while on the couch chanting "Go! Go! Go!" at the TV and he even scooted closer to me for part of it, which made my little, black heart swell with joy. We spent the rest of our time together high-fiving, climbing up and down the stairs, laying on the floor to look at the ceiling lights, and practicing putting on hats. It was a good time. He's the cutest little guy - and for that, I present him with the highly-coveted Shoutout of the Week. Also, I request that he come over more frequently.
That's about it for this week, kiddos. And check it out! I'm even done early! Perhaps some of you will actually get to read this on Tuesday, rather than Wednesday morning. How 'bout them apples?? Anyway, if you'll excuse me, I've got a hot date with my girlfriend tonight, so... I'll catch you guys later.
Until next Time,
Move It! Sell It! And Leave the Door Open!
Aaron
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