Boston U. v. Cornell (@ MSG) recap; also, another retail (mostly Kmart/Sears) update

Well, after an equal parts boring/relaxing Thanksgiving Day/Black Friday (more on that later), it was back to MSG for me this weekend, this time for (#19) Boston University (hereafter referred to simply as "BU") against the unofficial "home" team in Thanksgiving weekend games @ MSG within these past few years, (#7) Cornell, and, for the most part, things were much the same as back then, with the ride over via NJT being relatively smooth, given the agency's "dire straits" right now, allowing me to spend a few minutes just "people watching" inside Penn Station, mostly to see (A) how many (other) fans were walking through there, and (B) which fans - for the most part, it looked like there were more Cornell fans, although, after seeing more BC fans there last December, only to enter the Garden and find it full of "North Dakota green", I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised to have ended up in the midst of a bunch of Bostonians this time around!

The game itself started off as usual, with highlights of some of the past BU-Cornell matchups, along with highlights from some of Cornell's other (non-BU) past MSG games, but once the puck dropped to start the game, though, Cornell took complete control, keeping the majority of both the shots and time of possession, although quite a few of the shots missed the net entirely, yet BU seemed to have all the trouble in the world with trying to clear its zone, giving Cornell even more opportunities for shots on net, which, despite not converting on a mid-first period power play, Cornell would indeed convert soon enough, scoring with about five minutes remaining in the opening period, although BU put forth somewhat of a response to end the period, which, unfortunately for them, still ended with just the lone Cornell goal...

Once the second period started, though, any and all momentum that BU had at the end of the first period seemed to just disappear, as Cornell suddenly unloaded on BU early on, adding another goal about seven minutes into the period, then only needing about another two minutes after that goal to stretch the lead to 3-0, taking advantage of another BU penalty, so, by then, I'm sure anybody would assume that Cornell was on its way to just routing BU, but, suddenly, BU started "pouring it on" in the shots column, recognizing that it was suddenly down big, drawing a few more Cornell penalties along the way, and leading to a bit of a "skirmish" with only about a minute left, leaving BU much better positioned for what would end up becoming quite the third period after that!

The last period started with "more of the same" from the last half of the second for BU, including a power-play goal, but Cornell suddenly re-took the momentum, appearing to "seal the deal" with a little over nine minutes left in the game, only to see BU score twice about a minute apart to cut Cornell's lead from 4-1 to 4-3, although BU couldn't get the game-tying goal at all in the end, despite spending the last two minutes with the "extra attacker", allowing Cornell to hang on and win by the same 4-3 scoreline that had once been 4-1!

BU box score/highlights/recap

Cornell box score/highlights/recap

This time, in contrast to some other past games, both teams' bands made the trip, with both the BU and Cornell bands being placed more or less on the same "side" of the suite level, yet being placed on opposite "ends" of the rink, perhaps to prevent any trouble between those groups, and, obviously, along with whichever of the respective school's fans in the building, they both provided the only sounds after goals, since the actual "goal horn" itself never sounded, which, in a sense, provided a bit of a "throwback" feel on that front, since there were decades in the past, before (allegedly) the Chicago Blackhawks first installed an old yacht "foghorn" in the ancient Chicago (Indoor) Stadium way back when, when it was just the fans, or, in the case of college hockey (or college sports generally), the bands, also, when present; they also allowed a "fair share" of "pre-recorded" music throughout the game, which, weirdly enough, also featured NHL "timing" rules - under 14, 10, and 6 minute-media timeouts...

...there was also a bit of a weird moment between the PA announcer and Cornell fans after the 2-0 goal - if you've ever seen anything from over in Europe (mostly the Bundesliga in Germany, or Serie A in Italy), you've probably heard the "call-and-response" between the announcers and fans in those arenas/stadiums over there; well, the MSG PA announcer tried that then, and it seemed as if he threw off their usual "timing", since none of the Cornell fans provided the "response" to his "call" during the announcement after that goal, so he went back to the full names of the next "point-getters" on the third (3-0) and fourth (4-1) Cornell goals, to which the Cornell fans called out the last names of each of the trios of players involved in those goals!

To the "gridiron" now, this weekend was just plain crazy, with Alabama losing @ Auburn, and Miami getting upset @ Pittsburgh, along with Ohio State letting Michigan hang around early on, and Wisconsin completing an undefeated regular season, only needing the B1G championship game v. Ohio State next weekend to effectively reach the College Football Playoff, with at least ten teams all fighting to reach the "final four" of college football!

The NCAA usually takes a break for most of December, in deference to the end of the academic semester every fall, and returns in late December/early January; that being said, Army and Sacred Heart will be at the "new" Nassau Coliseum the first Saturday of January (1/6, 7 P.M.), so, barring anything these next two upcoming weekends (12/1-2, when Army will be hosting (18) Colgate, and Princeton will be hosting both Dartmouth (F) and Harvard (Sa), or 8-9), that will most likely be the next game I end up attending!

You could make the claim, at this point in time, that the Kmart/Sears company has become my favorite "target" (pun totally intended) in retail, but, honestly, I'm not nearly the only person on this planet who's read a bunch of articles on how those chains have singlehandedly shuttered thousands of locations within these past few years/this decade, despite the present, if sluggish, overall economic recovery within that amount of time, and formed thoughts of my own...

The N.Y. Times recently spent its "Black Friday" at a pair of Sears locations within this state (Phillipsburg, N.J., right across the state line from Easton, PA), and formed drastically different conclusions about each individual location, yet similar thoughts about the company in general - the Phillipsburg location is actually "winding down" right now, in order to be completely cleared out and closed entirely by January, being located in a mall with tons of vacancies right now (the article specifically mentions Payless Shoes and Radio Shack), and, in an even more baffling moment for the rapidly dying company, a Sears spokesman is quoted in the NYT article as claiming that stores like the one over in Phillipsburg, along with the rest that are currently being closed, don't provide a "fair representation of a current Sears shopping experience" - excuse me, "Mr. Spokesman"? I'm sure Sears hasn't had anything even close to a "current shopping experience" since Kmart bought Sears and consolidated as part of "Sears Holdings, Inc." back in 2005 - in fact, before taking over as CEO of Kmart and merging it with Sears, Eddie Lampert, that rat bastard himself, worked at Goldman Sachs before founding his own (mostly) "risk investment" financial firm, so that appears to be where he basically learned to "pit person against person", in the name of "competition"!

Also, at the beginning of this year, Sears sold its famous Craftsman line of tools to Stanley/Black & Decker, which immediately decided to take the "exclusive" label that Craftsman tools had long enjoyed within Sears, and later Kmart, locations, and "branch out" from there to places like Home Depot and Lowe's, along with other "specialty" chains like Ace Hardware, Orchard Supply Hardware, and the True Value Company, among other places!

Back here in Jersey, the Phillipsburg Mall location was empty this past Friday morning, only picking up once a few shoppers showed up shortly after 7 A.M., by which point in time I'm certain most other malls/shopping centers had already gotten jammed full of people, while the location connected to the Willowbrook Mall, somewhat closer to this area, in Wayne, took advantage of the mall itself being packed even before dawn, and the fact that the location itself has not (yet) been considered for closure, along with the ongoing downsizing/renovations to (eventually) bring in a Dave & Buster's entertainment center, not to mention the mall itself consistently outperforming most other malls everywhere, both historically and recently!

(also, some advice for retail in general to heed, also courtesy of the N.Y. Times, keeping in mind the total contrasts between Kmart/Sears and the rest of the economy/stock markets)

(P.S.: see below for an actual magazine cover from back in 2004)

discussing a rather predictably (yet still regrettably) unsuccessful theme park project

Just to discuss a little something different this time from my usual material, I'd like to bring you back to Disney, specifically, one of that company's more visible failures, instead of successes, in its history, and that would be its "America" theme park plan from the early 1990s, which, had it opened, would have been located near Washington, D.C., in northern Virginia, but, as you'll find out later, it was specifically where the company had planned that park to be in northern VA that would eventually "doom" the thing...

Ironically, despite the opposition from residents, the project had "official" support from both (D) and (R) gubernatorial administrations alike within the state government, which was purportedly both inspired by various existing "colonial" locations in VA, and also alleged to have taken from just about every other theme park in the state of VA, which had (apparently) just lost out on the opportunity to host the world's first Legoland theme park, which, as we all know by now, ended up going to San Diego (where Disney had a few, more minor, botched plans that I'll touch on later), and would have been placed in the Haymarket/Manassas area of the state, right near the site of a pair of Civil War battles, hence Disney's whole idea there - to build a "Civil War experience", of sorts, instead of building a few different "parks within a park", as Anaheim and Orlando have always been!

The other parks in the state might have objected, but Disney's project there might have, ironically, brought more people to some of them, instead of seeing them stay in D.C. proper, near all the memorials and monuments and whatnot; some historians also objected, saying that the various battlefields nearby would become overly "commercialized", and still others objected to the mere notion of places where "blood, sweat, and tears" had been shed over a century earlier being made "fun" in any way, shape, or form, yet the company touted some "quality of life" improvements in attempt to turn some of the opposition into support... Once some politicians joined the historians, however, in opposing the project, that was just about it for Disney's "capital-area" theme park, as the company decided to instead close down a few of its older/more outdated parts of its Orlando property, along with (attempting to) build near both of its other existing theme park here, including attempts to build a "west coast EPCOT", naturally called "WestCOT", in Anaheim, along with a "port" theme park in Long Beach, CA, between Anaheim and San Diego (speaking of which, how 'bout those Chargers, playing in a soccer stadium until 2020?)!

I'll share a few current (back then) Washington Post editorials, a pair both against and for the complex, in just a moment, but, if you ask me, the monuments in D.C. proper seem a bit too "static" to keep visiting them regularly, although I would've changed that thought process entirely had the project mentioned here not been controversial the whole way through its "life", and opening the place in the face of all the opposition from various types of groups nationally, even in spite of Disney claiming it would've been more of a "day trip" than any of its other parks, since, surely, they could've invested the millions it surely would've taken to adapt that to its D.C./northern VA surroundings, like climate control architecture/technology, and perhaps a few different characters from the ones we've all come to know and love out west and down in FL!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1993/12/21/downside-to-disneys-america/2e54e11f-dadb-4fe0-94c8-17a84069f8e8/?utm_term=.d7d98dd6ef50

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1994/01/23/disneys-trojan-mouse/10aa4a77-eb19-408b-a809-6e7808989a6b/?utm_term=.c65714a1aa2a

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1994/02/15/let-disney-tell-the-story/c230fca6-1407-491e-a8a8-1bd6c003bfd8/?utm_term=.92388a7f1882

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1994/07/18/disney-in-virginia-see-how-they-cry/bd681594-fdcb-491b-83dc-5e89df00af25/?utm_term=.30c1dcbf00cd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6MlVDBSmR8

http://micechat.com/12820-disneys-america/ (part 1; 2, 3, 4, 5)

Stevenson @ Manhattanville (D3 hockey) + Peru @ New Zealand (WCQ) recap(s)

Last night, I made the trip to the ancient Playland park complex in Rye, N.Y. (opened 1928), and the "ice casino" located right near the (currently closed) park (opened 1930, so not much longer after Princeton's rink, which opened back in 1922) - it's the N.Y.C. area's second (major) amusement park complex, after (the original) Dreamland/Luna Park/Steeplechase Park in the Coney Island neighborhood way down at the bottom of the boro of Brooklyn, just to give you an idea of what preceded Disney's parks; the rinks are so old, in fact, that the N.Y. Rangers once practiced there almost full-time; meanwhile, the game taking place on the "main" rink of three (all of which apparently got renovated back in the '70s, along with the "main" rink apparently getting further upgrades just a few years ago) in the "ice casino", or "game room" building, was Stevenson University (Owings Mills/Stevenson, MD, which just so happens to have had a mall prior to 2015) against Manhattanville College (Purchase, N.Y., but Playland appears to have the closest ice rink to the campus location there)...

The game itself was the exact opposite of Cornell @ Princeton last Saturday night, including the fans, who seemingly did more "trash talking" than actually supporting their team, and the game itself was quite "scrappy", also, with, surprisingly, quite a few Canadians and Swedes on Manhattanville's roster, and Stevenson taking quite a few shots on net on a trio of Manhattanville penalties in the opening period, yet emerging from that scoreless, only to face a few penalties of its own in the middle frame, killing off those penalties successfully, leading to what would be the only goal of the game late in the period on a bit of a "broken" play, when a breakaway for Stevenson turned into a pair of shots, the second of which got left "hanging" by the Manhattanville goaltender that got put home, and the third period was when things truly got ugly, as the teams took matching minor roughing penalties, then one of Stevenson's men hit an opponent way up high, earning a major penalty, along with a game misconduct, for that mega hit, although Manhattanville seemingly forgot how to shoot during the following five minutes, leading to a few penalties at the end that turned the "empty net/extra man" advantage the team would have had into a disadvantage, yet enough for Stevenson to hang on in what was a decided defensive struggle!

The arena itself, though, was honestly only missing a video screen of some sort somewhere above the rink, since the sound was honestly better than some newer rinks (like Barclays Center in particular, but that's what they get for rejecting the original development plans there); the playlist was quite varied, from the usual "stereotypical" rock tunes generally associated with hockey, like hip-hop/rap generally being associated with basketball/football recently, and even (recordings of) an organ's sound effects during some stoppages, although none of that makes up for the facilities themselves, with people having to enter through this lobby, head up a few stairs to this area with restrooms, and go either down another small set of stairs to the cold metal bleachers located down there, and carts/vending machines with more restrooms right behind them, which themselves were just ugly (although the upstairs ones weren't much better); honestly, between Princeton and Rye, I would make the trip to Princeton, as the phrase goes, every day, and twice on Sundays!

the only goal of the game (taken from the URL of the full game)

the aforementioned major penalty + game misconduct

Manhattanville recap

Stevenson recap

...also, Peru visited New Zealand this weekend, along with tons of traveling Peruvian fans (between 25 and 33% of Wellington, N.Z.'s Westpac Stadium, I'd wager) for the first half of a back-to-back, more-goals-wins pair of games leading to next summer's FIFA World Cup over in Russia, and, while, in my biased opinion, there won't be many, if any, New Zealanders traveling to Lima, just from a "socioeconomic" standpoint, with New Zealand being right next to Australia, and Peru being located near a bunch of countries formerly ruled by their respective militaries, Peru had better change things on the field itself in order to clinch its first World Cup appearance since Spain '82, with an Argentine head coach who looks more like a punk rocker than a former soccer player, since, at least on the crappy stream of the U.K.'s Premier Sports that I watched, it looked like Peru kept passing, instead of shooting, once they got openings in the opposing (N.Z.) "18-yard" and/or "6-yard" boxes, and allowed N.Z. too many long passes along the sidelines, which got turned into corners, which got turned into crosses through their attacking (Peruvian) "18" and/or "6" boxes, although, in all fairness, the "blanquirroja" (red/white) just barely missed taking at least a 1-0 lead back to Lima, early in the first half, when a backward pass deflected back to the N.Z. goal line before the N.Z. goaltender just reached back and cleared the ball off the goal line, although the Peruvians did "out-muscle" the New Zealanders, and mostly prevented them from getting breakaways, so, if they can just play the "trap", to an extent, next Wednesday evening (9:15 P.M.), they should, eventually, get a "breakthrough" goal to clinch the national team's first World Cup berth since 1982!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIQlBf_dvQ4

http://www.espnfc.us/report?gameId=497671

At this point, I'm still wavering somewhat about next weekend (Army, which just split a pair of games in Niagara Falls this weekend, hosting Holy Cross twice; Princeton, which lost to Union College in OT before rolling over RPI this weekend, hosting Yale, followed by Brown); I'll definitely be back inside MSG the following weekend, though, specifically that Saturday night!

Cornell @ Princeton recap

This weekend (Saturday), I returned to a few things: 1: seeing (#18, at least this past weekend) Cornell in action 2: visiting the Princeton campus 3: college hockey in general, about a week or so after returning from the cruise!

This time, though, I killed a few afternoon hours in the "PATH area", between the mall (Newport) in Jersey City, right near the NJT light rail/PATH stations located downtown there, before heading over to mid-Manhattan, where I waited a bit longer before what taking what, thankfully, turned out to be an "express" NJT train along its "red" line, the Northeast Corridor line, skipping the stations in Elizabeth, Linden, Rahway, and along Jersey Avenue in New Brunswick, only stopping at the "bigger" stations, like Secaucus, Newark Penn, EWR, the Metropark facility, Metuchen, Edison, and New Brunswick, before stopping at Princeton Junction (at least I did) for the "Dinky" shuttle to Princeton University that shuttles between both of those stations!

Just an FYI, if you or anybody (else) you know will be on the Princeton campus anytime soon: there's also a full-service Wawa location (as in, the (locally) famous convenience store chain) right off the shuttle train platform that is (reportedly) open 24 hours, along with having just about everything most Wawa locations have, from ATMs, freezers, and restrooms to those self-ordering kiosks that have increasingly appeared in fast-food restaurants in recent years! Also, since I mentioned the ATMs, I should also mention, again, as a service, that you might get bills in increments of $10s, instead of increments of $20s each, as most typical ATMs do, likely making that place even more convenient than you thought before reading this!

The game itself was quite something, after Cornell made the trip after defeating Quinnipiac in Hamden, CT, and Princeton played to a scoreless tie against Colgate at home, with tons of Cornell fans having made the trip down to Princeton (which I'm certain will be the case again in just a few short weeks, when Boston U. meets Cornell at MSG right after Thanksgiving, in quite the contrast to the team's game v. New Hampshire last Thanksgiving weekend, or any of the non BU-Cornell games there over the years, when the Garden was only about half-full, and there were quite a few attendance complaints); incidentally, perhaps I should mention that I'll personally be coming to you from approximately the middle of section 223 of the Garden that night...

Last time, I mentioned that Princeton's rink is among the oldest in college hockey, and it sure still looks the part this season, with everything still not having been renovated since the mid-'80s, except for the roof and sound system; the roof was reportedly renovated in the early 2000s, and the sound system was reportedly upgraded circa 2010; also, speaking of the sound system, neither school's band appeared, so Princeton was more than glad to show off some apparent changes to the building's sound system, with more of a "fog" horn instead of a "train" horn, a different "goal song" after Princeton goals, and a "roaring tiger" sound effect that played after every announcement of Princeton's goal/assist scoring, although, if you ask me, that thing sounded too similar to MGM Studios' various "lion" mascots for comfort there...

It only took Cornell about the first 1:45 of the game and a "man advantage" to open the scoring, although after that, as games featuring such incredibly early goals tend to go, things mostly slowed down for the minutes following that goal, although Princeton answered with the man advantage about halfway through the period to create the first of more than one tie throughout the night, only for Cornell to get another goal that Princeton would end up answering not just once, but twice, all within the last two minutes or so remaining in the opening period!

Princeton took that 3-2 lead through the first intermission, during which the kids who took the ice could only manage a single goal between their teams, showing that they most likely hadn't witnessed what had happened between the college teams just minutes earlier, and added another goal against Cornell's backup goaltender about five minutes into the middle frame, stretching its lead to 4-2, and afterward, seemed poised to extend the lead to 5-2, taking the majority of the shots for a few minutes, but then Cornell tied things up once more with a pair of goals in under a minute about halfway through the period, taking the majority of the shots after that to send the game to its other intermission tied 4-4!

Cornell kept up the pressure through the beginning of the third period, as the amount of hitting between both of the teams also increased, finally breaking the 4-4 tie with about seven minutes remaining in regulation, and, sure enough, Princeton furiously pressed to potentially tie the game yet again, but, in the end, even after a few post-whistle scrums, especially one with just three seconds remaining in regulation, alongside a pair of timeouts, and a video review by the officials, Cornell hung on to keep its top-20 ranking in all of college hockey...

2 more things:

1: as I mentioned last February, there's no shot counter in Princeton's building (UPDATE: not anymore!), but, reportedly, Princeton just outshot Cornell for the game, 25-22;

2: as you can probably tell, Princeton changed its center ice logo to its apparently "secondary" logo, a stylized "tiger head", instead of the university's "shield" logo that was there last season!

http://www.goprincetontigers.com/news/2011/1/1/295181.aspx

https://campusrec.princeton.edu/facilities-operations/locations/baker-rink

Cornell recap

(general) highlights

Princeton highlights/recap

Cornell Daily Sun (newspaper) recap

a reminder of what's still to come

recapping everything that just happened last week (Antigua, St. Kitts, Puerto Rico, etc.)

Well, now I'm back from three (and almost another half) days aboard Celebrity Cruises' Summit ship, along with a day on each of the islands of Antigua (St. John's - not the university, though; the capital of the island of Antigua), St. Kitts (Basseterre, although we never quite made it over to Nevis...), and, lastly, San Juan, Puerto Rico, where we witnessed the mere beginning of the incredibly long road ahead for that U.S. territory...

The ship itself first sailed in 2001, as one of the company's first ships of the new millennium, for a company that has, surprisingly, only been around since the late '80s, and, honestly, the ship still looks the part, despite apparently having been renovated a few short years ago - if nothing else, the company's "green" placards placed inside every (stateroom) bathroom onboard still looked like they were from the late '90s, with white lettering against a teal/turquoise background, although those with views out to the ocean/sea provided quite the views, although those down below a certain point - roughly halfway up the ship, likely still had views, albeit of the ocean itself, instead of seeing any sort of land formations up above the water, although most of the lounges/restaurants aboard the ship had these massive windows with views outside, and, obviously, there were a few top levels open for people to hang out on, which provided incredibly wide views of the ocean/sea!

The other day, down in Antigua, I mentioned the overall "demographics" of the ship, and while, in retrospect, I take back part of what I said about the age groups - there might have been very few other people around my age, but there were some of them, I noticed, although, again, that very well might have been the least represented age group there, with just about everybody, again, being older overall, unless they brought (younger) children along, although even the "toddler" population there might have been bigger than the "teen" population aboard that ship this past week!

That afternoon, I also mentioned how just about everything costs "an arm and a leg", and, turns out, that even includes the supposedly "free" stuff, with 18% added for all size groups to things like drinks in restaurants (specifically of the "alcoholic" variety, although there's a "package" along those lines that the company apparently sneaks onto everybody's eventual bills, to force them to get it off before leaving, or risk getting stuck making said payments) and spa services, along with various levels of Internet access increasing in both length and price anywhere from hourly access, to the entire length of the cruise, with, obviously, the hourly (starting off) costing the least, although adding up little by little, and the length-of-cruise deal putting all those costs together!

As for the "free" stuff, there's a cafe up top, right across from the gym/pool(s) (multiple pools, whirlpools, and a "thalassotherapy" pool in this "greenhouse"-type structure up top!)/spa facilities, and, again, a few restaurants down below, with the cafe switching between breakfast and lunch/dinner every day, before closing at night, with some of the restaurants not requiring, yet still recommending, reservations, while others (French, Italian, Japanese, etc.) were more along the lines of what you would see anywhere on the "mainland" here, with reservations required, and various parts of a sort of "menu" all costing different prices, so it's up to each group/individual, in the end, to determine where to go each day for their "nourishment"!

The crew onboard the ship, on the other hand, couldn't have been friendlier/more "personable" if it tried to do so, as seemingly everybody brought a different personality/stories to the week - some of them were more "comical"; others were more "joyous", and still others were more "personal", being able and willing to discuss some of the "behind-the-scenes" stuff that happens on cruises, along with some of the "hidden fees" the company tries to sneak into peoples' payments, and how even the crew members, of all people, have to pay for things like Internet access, along with how their families have dealt with them being "at sea" for months at a time, in some cases, before returning home for "vacations", and they came from just about every part of the world, with just as many Asians as ("non-hyphenated") Americans, and just as many Europeans as Latinos, as part of the ship's 1,000-person crew!

On the entertainment side of things, having mostly been to sporting events throughout my life, the TVs throughout the ship more than sufficed for keeping up with those things (except for the NHL), specifically the continuation of the NFL season, along with some early NBA action, and the first few games of this year's MLB World Series, although I, personally, didn't even bother with the casino down on one of the lower levels, despite passing through there quite a few times to catch a few comedy acts, along with a few Broadway-esque shows, and a Beatles "cover/tribute" band, along with a few games (mostly Celebrity's take on a few various "game/quiz" shows, along with some more generic trivia things), (other) live music performances, and dance parties - personally, I didn't care much for anything other than the comedy and stage shows, despite at least one of the live music performances being a jazz show, since I've always been one to occasionally pop that particular genre of music on at home to just sort of "unwind", and, overall, the comedy acts were quite "edgy", with the pair of comedians who performed taking shots at just about everybody and everything they could think of, and one of them just so happened to be from Jersey, getting off in St. John's, Antigua, to attend a wedding back here this weekend, and, among others, his favorite "targets" were our "esteemed" current Governor, especially his weight, and especially how he actually gained weight after his infamous lap-band procedure near the beginning of both of his terms as Governor here, along with midgets (quite the contrast from making jokes about Chris Christie, I must admit...), and midget wrestling in particular, along with the "hospitality" industry in general, especially airlines, and how he's always preferred cruise ships over airplanes, simply because cruise ships tend to be more "equal" compared to airplanes, which mostly have "first class", followed by everybody else in "coach"...

The various stage shows, meanwhile, took from just about every genre of music imaginable, across just about every era, although, with the exception of the first of them being about this - I guess you could call it "haunted" hotel, they seemed to have neither much of a story, nor too many "speaking parts", per se - they mostly just consisted of the ship's "cast" of performers working through various songs across about an hour or so each, although they almost effortlessly pulled off not just that stuff, but even a few acrobatic/almost "levitation"-type scenes, with curtains and wires and whatnot, which is much riskier than simply "covering" a few songs from various eras, as all those shows contained... (full disclosure time, I guess: I've only ever seen Broadway's Memphis (the story of the beginnings of "rock n' roll") and Wicked (the "untold" story "behind the scenes" of the story of the Wizard of Oz) before, so, despite seeing just about everything Disney has had to offer up across the decades, I'd say I'm not the most experienced Broadway person, despite having passed through there an untold amount of times so far...)

The Beatles show was interesting, also, with a "quartet", obviously, of Beatles impersonators, and even some, dare I say, rare (nowadays) footage of the actual group making its initial trip to N.Y.C. back in the mid-'60s, along with footage from some of the films the original group starred in way back then, although the screens on which that footage was shown, as you might very well see in the links I'll pass along to you later, were incredibly tiny, although I guess TV screens like those were what people watching those original guys watched them on back then...

The other comedian, last but not least, was born in (rural) LA, moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth, TX, area, later, where he said his parents still live to this very day and then finally moved to the Atlanta, GA, area, where he still lives, again, without his parents, and mostly made jokes about parenting and poverty/wealth, along with marriage/relationships, before asking various groups of people to stand/otherwise make themselves known, like military and law enforcement, before moving on to this somewhat bizarre half comedy/half saxophone segment, when he played a few notes, stopped to tell another joke (mostly puns by then), played a few more notes on the sax, told another (punny) joke, and so on and so forth! (also, both of them called upon people leaving those shows early to explain their reasons for departing early, before proceeding to joke about those little situations anyhow...)

As for the various ports, I'd rank them (even prior to the various hurricanes) (1) St. Kitts/(presumably) Nevis; (2) Puerto Rico; (3) Antigua, since Antigua happens to be an under-developed island to this very day, with roads and sidewalks alike being dangerous to travel along, although, unlike Aruba, that seems to have kept "commercialization" off the island, with only Burger King and a few American (or western hemisphere, I guess) banks populating the downtown area; the rest is just local restaurants and shops, while St. Kitts/Nevis actually have a more "primitive" "highway" system in place, although the same Burger King/western bank "duopoly" exists there, as on the island of Antigua, along with (reportedly) more monkeys than people, and even quite a few cats/cows/dogs/goats/sheep roaming both of those islands, so there was more "wildlife" than people on various parts of that particular island, while the opposite is true throughout the rest of the Caribbean!

Puerto Rico, on the other hand, at least currently, in the weeks following the devastating hurricanes recently, doesn't have any of that, since, although the infrastructure was in place before last month, as we headed from the ship terminal to the airport that morning, there was everything from a Hyatt Place hotel building that looked as if it had suffered no damage whatsoever, to a pair of completely shuttered Burger King locations, quite a few shuttered gas stations, and a few shopping centers that had been cut off from access, along with, obviously, downed power lines and trees, and buildings ripped apart by the rain/wind, although, amazingly, some people still had the audacity to take a tour of what little of the "old" part of San Juan was already open that weekend, which the cruise ship had the audacity to even offer to begin with, considering the situation of the vast majority of the island's residents, although, on a (somewhat) more uplifting note, just about every (digital) billboard that hadn't gotten shut off by the storms displayed messages of "solidarity" with the people from various Puerto Rican "big business" firms, although getting through the airport was a total mess, with some of the signs directing people through the terminal parking lots having been ripped apart by the storms, and people just gathering wherever they felt like doing so in order to reclaim their luggage that had been brought in these tiny vans, although, thankfully, everything inside was back up and running, with air conditioning being of utmost importance, followed by eating establishments and seating areas in the waiting rooms, although the (3G) wireless service inside the airport was just pathetically slow, and the Wi-Fi was non-existent, since it would connect initially, only to then display messages proclaiming it to be "offline", forcing everybody to clog up the already-slow 3G wireless connections, which themselves were likely not back to full capacity, never mind 4G, with electricity, obviously, preceding that in terms of "importance" to the locals there!

http://www.cleancruising.com.au/ship.asp?ship=CELSUM#tab-2

https://www.cruisecritic.com/reviews/review.cfm?ShipID=251

https://cruiseweb.com/cruise-lines/celebrity-cruises/ship-celebrity-summit

https://cruiseline.com/ship/celebrity-summit

(etc.)

In terms of my plans for the upcoming month, though, those include, obviously, a return trip to MSG for (currently) #6 BU v. (unranked, although you could make the case for top 20 or 25 right now) Cornell, the last Saturday of the month, although, before then, I'm looking at various places around here, including Princeton hosting Colgate (not the toothpaste brand) and Cornell back-to-back the first weekend of November (Fri. 3 and Sat. 4), UConn being at home all weekends leading up to Thanksgiving weekend (v. Vermont 3 @ 7/4 @ 3:30; Ohio State 10 @ 7/11 @ 3:30; UMass Lowell 17 @ 7/18 @ 3:30), Army hosting Holy Cross twice the weekend before Thanksgiving (Fri. 17 and Sat. 18), and, even, at the D-III level, Manhattanville College (Rye, NY, playing out of the historic Playland park ice rink in Westchester County) hosting Neumann University (Aston, PA) 11/10, Stevenson University (Owings Mills, MD) 11/11, and King's College (Scranton, PA) 11/18, along with Michigan State v. Minnesota @ MSG (Sat., 1/20, 8 P.M.) being on sale these past few days, so it's not just this next month/the "holiday season" I already have to look forward to; it's also the beginning of next year that I'm suddenly able to look ahead to!