http://www.citypaper.net/blogs/clog/...io-with-obama/
My morning routine usually starts off the same way every day. Wake up, go to the gym, grab a coffee and go to work.
But when you get patted down by the Secret Service at the gym first thing in the morning, you know something's up. I hopped on my usual treadmill and put on CNN. The news ticker scrolled frantically across the screen, as footage of the President-elect was shown over today's topic — "Is Obama Black or Biracial?"
It wouldn't be long before I could ask the man myself, as he walked majestically across the gym floor in his track pants and sweat shirt. I did a double take, and soon after that, looked around the gym to see if anyone else knew he was here. Nobody seemed to notice.
But he hopped on the machine next to me and broke a mean sweat while reading a copy of USA Today and listening to his Zune.
What the hell do you do in a situation like that? Well, here's a list of things I did while simultaneously running next to Mr. President-Elect:
Cranked up the speed to show my feats of strength.
Stared at him for a good 4 minutes.
Watched him watch himself on CNN.
Smelled my pits. Just to be sure.
"WHY DIDN'T YOU TAKE A PICTURE?!?!" was the main reaction I got from friends. My beloved mother asked me to ask him for health insurance coverage. But as he walked away, wiping the sweat off his brow, I couldn't ask for anything from the guy and was satisfied with him just being my president.
And OK, fine — I'll admit that I creepily savored his treadmill after he left.
Barack Obama: Zune man? Or Apple fanboy?
Yesterday the Philadelphia City Paper ignited a controversy over the question, with a blog entry that included the innocuous detail that the President-elect was working out while listening to the Microsoft (not Apple!) music player.
But today a spokesman puts the vicious rumor to rest. “Not true, the President-elect uses an iPod,” he says. And the Philadelphia writer, Neal Santos, blogs today: “It could belong to one of the many Secret Service dudes that were at the gym, Michelle, or even one of his daughters.”
That hasn’t stopped the merriment within the community — and yes, there is one — of Zune users, who are drastically outnumbered by iPod fans.
“For now we’re claiming the president-elect one of our own,” writes Adam Krebs on Zune Thoughts. On the site’s forums, Alber1690 writes “I was a staunch Hillary supporter, but this is awesome! I’m excited for the future of this country.”
“I don’t know if he can institute all of this change that everyone expects from him but he has impressed me once again,” writes Zune Max. “If the Zune team was on top of things they would send Obama some more Zunes for the new cabinet so they can Zunecast each other.”
On Zunerama’s message boards, one user writes “Look at what President Reagan did to the sales of jelly beans! This is great news!” “This is probably the best endorsement Zune could’ve gotten… for free,” says another.
The Apple crowd isn’t as psyched. “You can’t run an election claiming you own an iPod and garnering people’s votes then after you win suddenly start toting around a Zune. That’s just not cool,” writes James Poling.
“The news today that Obama is apparently a Zune user disapoints me. I wouldn’t mind trying one, but I wanted him to be an iPod President,” Twittered Scott Thatcher. (Most Tweets mentioning the Zune today are in reference to ZuneGate.)
- Andrew LaVallee and Nick Wingfield
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