1) Not really about tonight, but about this night TEN years ago... it was the release day of the SEGA Dreamcast. I remember this night pretty vividly, actually. I believe it was also the night of the MTV Video Music Awards (as an impressionable 13 year old, of course video games and MTV were important spheres of influence in my world). Its kind of hard to believe that 10 years ago is so fresh in my mind, but I guess that is just a part of getting older...
2) Now, back to the present day. The Fightin' United came out with all three, crucial, golden points against Kansas City. Good to see them score in the run of play, since that hasn't happened in weeks. I can't really comment more on the game, seeing as how I could only follow it on the tweetstream from the DCUnited website. GOOD ON YA UNITED!
3) USMNT with a clutch victory over T&T on a 61st minute golazo from Ricardo Clark. It was a gritty match, with the back line putting in a pretty comical performance in the first half. Howard, as usual, was on point and there to play, although he definitely got bailed out by the crossbar and by T&T lack of cutting edge on a couple of occasions. The result is three critical points, so I am not going to complain one bit more.
4) Obama's speech. I don't really feel like trifling around with a comprehensive review of the speech (especially since it will be done much better on numerous sites around the interwebs), but I do have some quick hits that I would like to share:
+ Overall, I liked the speech. Good show from Obama.
- TERRIBLE from the fucking heckler from the Republican side of the aisle. What the hell was he thinking?!?! He is a federal-level official, not some grab-ass town councilman at a contentious school board meeting. Grow up and find some decorum. Actually, first look up decorum because I am sure you don't know what the word means.
+ Some form of public option, although I am not 100% confident that I fully understand how it would work. I look forward to more detail on this one.
- - Mandate... I am not really into the whole mandate concept, but it seems like it dovetails with the public option component somehow, so again, I look forward to more details.
+ Invoking Kennedy and reminding Republicans like Grassley that they need to grow the fuck up and stop fanning the flames of lies.
+ Rhetoric on the nature of government and what it can, should, and should not do. Very nice.
+ + Putting health care reform in historical perspective, and also comparing how we have gotten to this point with respect to major reforms.
+ + + (and I am paraphrasing here) "not the first president to try to fix this issue, but determined to be the last"... loved it.
Again, overall, I liked the speech a good deal, now its time to see how it travels down the various echo chambers and into the public opinion.
