State of the Union

Folks, I'll be honest - I don't normally enjoy watching the State of the Union. I know it's important, so I always read the transcript the next day, but having to watch it is painful. It's always full of drivel and things that will never happen and "ra-ra, my administration is amazing! whee!" type speak - whether it's a Republican president or a Democrat. Then there's an hour of applause for every other sentence spoken.

So yes, it's important, but I can get what was said without watching the circus it is.

Yet yesterday, I figured I should watch it...in a more interesting manner, though.

I'm not a big drinker by any means. I'll have a beer every month or so, tops. Yet last night I decided to make watching the speech a drinking game. As research, of course. *ahem* In any case, I was not alone because Amy also joined in the research.

We decided that because Bush has buzz words, we'd drink a sip/half-shot of beer for certain ones. We started off with a list of six and said we'd each choose three.

Our list of six: liberty, family, terrorists, America, freedom and democracy. Amy, sensing my distraction to what was on TV before the speech, quickly chose her three: liberty, family and terrorists.

I immediately objected. "No way, you left me with the worst ones!"

"Not true, I took 'terrorists.' That alone will be bad."

I eventually agreed to the decision. What we also added to our list was one word for each of us that would require us to drink an entire beer - basically meaning we lose (we're lightweights, one whole beer in anything less than an hour is destruction). It would have to be a word that had a slim chance of being said, but most likely would not come up.

I told Amy her Destruction Word should be "Mississippi." This is because we knew Bush would bring up Hurricane Katrina, but maybe wouldn't say all the states that we affected. She agreed to it.

I had a harder time figuring out mine. Fortunately, D called. Now that I look back on it, my word choice was just plain stupid. Perhaps D was working with Amy to bring me down. After a few emails this morning, I discovered this was true, D did set me up.

They chose the word "oil" for me, and stupidly, I accepted. I thought he would bring up energy policy, but there's no way he'd say oil. Dumb dumb dumb. Anyway, enough foreshadowing.

First of all, I had the worst word list. America? Come on, Bush said that five times in the first few sentences. And freedom? Argh.

Anyway, as the speech (and our tiny little half-shots of beer) continued, I took notes. The image to the left shows a smattering of them - they were taken on several pieces of paper lining our coffee table. Click on the photo for a full-size image. As the hour-long speech wore on, my handwriting became much much worse.

I pieced the notes together better for you here.

9:20pm - Michael Chertoff has huge hands. Dammit, stop saying America!

9:25pm - Cheney and Hastert look bored. Please say terrorists. Come on. Amy hasn't taken a drink yet, dammit. TERRORISTS! TERRORISTS!! SAY IT!

9:27pm - Amy is trying to write our rent check. I don't know why she chose the middle of a drinking game as the time to do this. Perhaps because drinking beer takes away the pain of how much this dump charges us.

9:28pm - Mother of ass, stop saying America. Please. Also, our shot glasses are appropriate. I'm using one from my college - which signifies the huge cuts the government just made in federal financial aid for students. Amy's shot glass is the one I got while in New Orleans back in the spring of '98. 'Nuff said there.

9:29pm - Speaking of Louisiana, one of their congressional reps is hot.

9:30pm - haha, look at hillary's face, she's all "f*ck this shit" when bush mentioned wire-tapping without actually saying wire-tapping.

9:31pm - Mikulski! There's our 3-foot-high senator! Yeah! Also, stop saying America, shit! Stop it! I need a break.

9:32pm - Our cat is staring at us from next to the entertainment center. The look on her face is one of shame. Tuesday is ashamed of us. I think she just shook her head.

9:33pm - "WTF? Who said we wanted a centralized economy?" Amy yells out. I'm giggling, Bush recently went through a long spate of the word 'terrorists.' Also, because she was so far behind me, I made her drink any time he said any derivative of the word 'terror,' including terrorism, terror, and terrorist.

9:34pm - I am so losing.

9:36pm - "Is he really saying that?" Amy yells out in rage. "Permanent tax cuts?"

9:38pm - For the love of all things holy, i need a break. bring out the second beer. NOOOOO!

9:39pm - Thank you, president Bush for only saying "the united states" that time and cutting it off after 'states.' god bless you for that. I need a break.

9:40pm - Haha, a joke about Bush's dad liking two people who are turning 60 this year, Bush jr. and Bill Clinton. Hillary's face is again priceless, again with her own smirk and a "f*ck this shit" look.

9:42pm - DAMMIT, DAMMIT - LOOK AT CHERTOFF'S HANDS! THEY ARE FREAKISH! THEY ARE SO BIG!! HE COULD CRUSH A COCONUT WITH HIS BARE HANDS!! I need another break.

9:43pm - blah blah blah. Amy got the easy words. Liberty? Please.

9:45pm - "Whee! Look at me, I'm Bill Frist and I'm a DOCTOR! Terry Schiavo was alive!! I saw the tapes!!!! RARRRGH!!"

9:50pm - F*CK! HE SAID OIL! DAMN YOU AMY AND D! NOOOO!

9:50pm - Son of an ass, he said OIL TWICE! ARGH!! Stop laughing, Amy.

9:51pm - 3 times! 3 times he's said OIL.

9:52pm - dead.

9:55pm - oh yeah, here come the tortilla chips. thanks, amy. what, Bush? blah blah "redefine marriage", rrrrright.

10pm - Amy just gave the cat a tortilla chip.

10:03pm - NOO! He ended with "America!"
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Here are two final tallies based on Bush's speech.
America: 71 times
Freedom: 16 times

Amy did better. For her words, as that one dude in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade said, "She chose...wisely."

Because I finally made Amy start drinking on any derivative of "terror," he must have said those about 10 times. In any case, it may sound like our living room was beer-soaked and covered in tortilla chips by 10pm, but actually we'd had a total of 3 beers by then. Each of us drank 1.5 beers. Yup. Lightweights.

So, I'm glad I watched the speech. I absorbed what was said and enjoyed the fun of our game. Perhaps next year we'll make it a group event. I will not choose my words so poorly next year.