Rock Around Barack 1: They Held The Rally Where?
Word of warning: I'm sort of sick and, thus, prone to rambling.
OK, so I stole the title from Pearl Jam. Sue me.
Anyway, the week has started off well. The Giants won on Sunday, which of course caused some happy mayhem in the streets of New York. I'm nowhere near as big of fan of football as I am of baseball, but screw it, I was thrilled. I do love the Manning family, so any Giants or Colts wins are full of goodness. Pats losing? Just the icing on a very delicious cake.
On Monday, I went to the Barack Obama rally over at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, a 15-minute ride away on NJ Transit. I had to miss a couple of classes, but got back "Have fun!" e-mails from both of my professors, so I'm thinking that it was OK, especially since one of those classes is the Political Science one. Hey, this rally could be called field research!
I went with my friend Liz, who is a recent Obama-convert, having come over from the side of John Edwards. Comfort-wise, I was miserable the whole day, as I was still getting over a cold and my stomach had turned on me for whatever reason. Plus, it was snowing and we had to wait outside for a bit. The cold also led me to carry a bag full of tissue just in case and I can only imagine what the guards who looked through our stuff thought.
The actual name of the Meadowlands Arena is the IZOD Center - I went to it for a wrestling show when it was known as the Continental Airlines Arena, but I don't remember much about it. If I did, I would have been prepared for what was to come.
It . . .
. . . is . . . *
. . . hideous.
* Not shown in that second picture: the lens cap of my camera on the ground in a puddle after I accidentally dropped it. I noticed it was missing after about 5 minutes of walking and had to come all the way back, panting and praying to God that I would find it.
The colors have somehow managed to make this plain block of steel and concrete look even worse.
The New Jersey Nets play there, so what did they do? They wallpapered Vince Carter and Jason Kidd onto the sides. The idea of having the players up there sounds OK. But they came out looking like this:
Various extremities are cut off all over the place and the images themselves are all wrinkled. No wonder they want to go to Brooklyn. I think I would have less ill-will towards the place if they didn't charge $5.25 for a Snapple and around $5 for a smaller-than-usual hot pretzel. I was starving, but I was also broke, so one Snapple it is. When my father later heard about the prices, he told me that I should have talked to Obama about arenas taking advantage of their paying customers.
Across the street was the beautiful Giants Stadium:
OK, maybe not that beautiful, and especially not in this weather, where the greyness of the place and the construction just make the whole thing look gloomy. Hey, it was just waiting for its champions to come home. It'll pretty itself up again soon enough.
Of course, since they are the New York Giants, they are going to be getting a new stadium like almost every other team that has its own place and "New York" attached to the front of it. So far, it's very yellow:
Contrary to what all this pictures seem to point to, I did not stay outside the arena the whole time. We followed the highly-sophisticated directions and went on in:
OK, so I stole the title from Pearl Jam. Sue me.
Anyway, the week has started off well. The Giants won on Sunday, which of course caused some happy mayhem in the streets of New York. I'm nowhere near as big of fan of football as I am of baseball, but screw it, I was thrilled. I do love the Manning family, so any Giants or Colts wins are full of goodness. Pats losing? Just the icing on a very delicious cake.
On Monday, I went to the Barack Obama rally over at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, a 15-minute ride away on NJ Transit. I had to miss a couple of classes, but got back "Have fun!" e-mails from both of my professors, so I'm thinking that it was OK, especially since one of those classes is the Political Science one. Hey, this rally could be called field research!
I went with my friend Liz, who is a recent Obama-convert, having come over from the side of John Edwards. Comfort-wise, I was miserable the whole day, as I was still getting over a cold and my stomach had turned on me for whatever reason. Plus, it was snowing and we had to wait outside for a bit. The cold also led me to carry a bag full of tissue just in case and I can only imagine what the guards who looked through our stuff thought.
The actual name of the Meadowlands Arena is the IZOD Center - I went to it for a wrestling show when it was known as the Continental Airlines Arena, but I don't remember much about it. If I did, I would have been prepared for what was to come.
It . . .
. . . is . . . *
. . . hideous.
* Not shown in that second picture: the lens cap of my camera on the ground in a puddle after I accidentally dropped it. I noticed it was missing after about 5 minutes of walking and had to come all the way back, panting and praying to God that I would find it.
The colors have somehow managed to make this plain block of steel and concrete look even worse.
The New Jersey Nets play there, so what did they do? They wallpapered Vince Carter and Jason Kidd onto the sides. The idea of having the players up there sounds OK. But they came out looking like this:
Various extremities are cut off all over the place and the images themselves are all wrinkled. No wonder they want to go to Brooklyn. I think I would have less ill-will towards the place if they didn't charge $5.25 for a Snapple and around $5 for a smaller-than-usual hot pretzel. I was starving, but I was also broke, so one Snapple it is. When my father later heard about the prices, he told me that I should have talked to Obama about arenas taking advantage of their paying customers.
Across the street was the beautiful Giants Stadium:
OK, maybe not that beautiful, and especially not in this weather, where the greyness of the place and the construction just make the whole thing look gloomy. Hey, it was just waiting for its champions to come home. It'll pretty itself up again soon enough.
Of course, since they are the New York Giants, they are going to be getting a new stadium like almost every other team that has its own place and "New York" attached to the front of it. So far, it's very yellow:
Contrary to what all this pictures seem to point to, I did not stay outside the arena the whole time. We followed the highly-sophisticated directions and went on in: