My Synopsis of President Obama's Speech to Congress

It was not a State of the Union but it sure felt like one.

Overall Grade: A-

Dedicated Proper Time to Pertinent Areas:A

95% of his time was spent on the largest concern in our country today, the economy. At the end, he mentioned some additional initiatives such as defense and terrorism. This was a stark contrast to Bush who seemed to be transfixed on The War Against Terror during his presidency. As recently as President Bush's last State of the Union, even as the wheels had come off the economy, he still not only mentioned defense first, but spent the majority of his time on the subject.

Had a Detalied Plan: B

He broke down three areas of spending which he felt were key to reboosting our country back to its rightful place as the leader of the freeworld (not that i think anyone has taken our place, but its like a race that we should be winning by a mile and are only barely winning). 1)Healthcare 2)Education 3)Energry Efficency. While you could argue he was not specific enough, I would argue that it is not his job to have all of the details. He essentially gave congress an outline for what he would like to see in the bill that ultimately must come from congress

Tone: A+

President Obama's tone was very different from two weeks ago, perahps on purpose. He used fear to emphasize the importance of getting the stimulus passed quickly. The market did not like this. Many people felt that he was not optimistic enough, however, you can't understate our current problem. It truly is the perfect storm. Many people have compared the current environment to the great depression, however the japense credit, banking, and real estate bubble of the 80's is far more similar. It is now 20 years later and their market still has not recovered.

Now that the bill has been passed, he used optimism to let america know its going to be okay. I can honestly say that i haven't fel that good about our country in quite sometime. There was on tone of uncertainty or confusion, everything was in the simple context of "We Will". Well the naysayers will say that his message of hope is just words, please remember, perception becomes reality. When people beleive we are in a recession, the Pavlovian response is to stop spending, whether we are or aren't in one. It is good to finally here someone say that the economy will recover. The president was positive and reassuring in tone but also "kept it real", its going to take time and recovery may not be right around the corner, but we will recover.

Attempt to reach across the aisle: B

Still needs work, but is light years ahead of Bush on this one, just look at his cabinet. There is republican representation, how much did Bush have. This doesn't count all the members who resigend over the years. You could get a full court pick up with all of the guys that left his cabinet, it was like a revolving door. Whether Obama gains Republican consensus is irrelevant right now, because when you have the majority in the house and you're the president, its your playbook.... at least till 2010.

My #1 Concern: B

I will start him out here on this one b/c it remains to be seen on this one. He is trying to tackle a multitude of different issues. My concern is that he will become the Jimmy Carter of the 21st centruy: Too Unfocussed On Too Many Different Issues to Be Effective. The likelihood of solving our economic problem while also creating universal healthcare and energy independence is very slim. However, as a mentor once told me, if you're gonna swing you might as well swing for fastballs.

A-Rod: The Only Truth I Care About

When there is an elelphant in the room, introduce him. Alex Rodriguez did just that during his interview with peter gammons and his press conference which followed only a few days later.

I do not condone steroids nor do i believe they have truly as big an effect as the media makes them out to have. Quite frankly I don't really care, he is one of the most gifted players to ever play the game with or without steroids. While we could spend hours having the steroid debate, I'm not going to. Instead I would like to make an observation and prediction. With all of the weight off of A-Rod's shoulders I expect and beleive he will have a great year.

Lets back track over the past few years. Things on A-Rod's mind:1)His steroid secret2)Cheating on his wife 3) Madonna 4)Getting Caught with Strippers 5)The pressure of living up to his contract 6)The pressure of playing in New York 7) Hitting in the clutch

Perhaps its not the steroids, but carrying all of this mental baggage around that have made his shoulders so big. While, the secrets are now out, he is now divorced, hes nowbee here long enough to adjust to new york, and during 2007 he proved he could hit in the clunch.

Now with all this gone there is only one thing left for him to do...play. His mind is free of all of these secrets he's been carrying around with him. He no longer has to be perfect.

Let's be honest..no pun intended..he is a great player. If he delivers this year, the fans will not only forgive, they will forget.

A Review of Blue Point Brewery

"If you build it they will come"

Well, they built it nearly 8 years ago and on Saturday afternoon I was privelaged enough to take a drive out to Patchogue to visit the Blue Point Brewery. For those of you who are not familiar with Blue Point, it is currently the only brewery on Long Island that has weathered the microbrewery fall off in recent years, it is becoming increasingly popular on long island and the east coast, and oh yes, it delicious.

Their beer has become so popular and widely recognized that I showed up expecting a small factory. What I found when I arrived shocked me. A small bar area and a manufacturing operation that was roughly the size of an autobody shop. I couldn't believe that this small place was the birthplace of all these great beers, but it was, and they're not only good, they're really good. Blue Point excels because they recognize that beer is truely about quality, not quantity. Rather than flooding the airwaves and t.v. with commercials they have very quietly produced great beer and let their beer speak for itself.

I was fortunate enough to meet one of the two owners. Dressed in jeans, old sneakers, and an old sweatshirt you can find Pete drinking with the locals at the brewery bar (And not behind the bar serving but out mingling with the locals). He looked like a dockworker, but the reality is that he will one day be the millionaire next door (if he isn't already). If you didn't know he was the owner you would just think he was some guy who wandered in off the street, seriously. He explained to me how everything worked, never at any point full of himself, and upon receiving compliments on a particuliar beer, he would respond "Yah its alright". One group of women asked him "Do you work here?". His response "Yah, you could say that". Still never even suspecting for a second that this average dressed joe could be the owner, they asked "Well what do you do here?" His response " I kind of do everything."

A truely amazing story, just two guys who started with like myself with a homebrew kit and the desire to make great beer. They have very quietly had 86% growth last year while Annnheiser Busch had 2%, and according to the owner they did this without trying too hard. As a true beer enthusiast I can only hope that Blue Point's # gets bigger and Annheiser Busch's # gets smaller. I hope that this beer will one day be nationally known as the beer from long island.

I would reccomend a visit to anyone. Tours and tastings run during the week but I don't know when and on saturday from 12-7. Beer is free, jugs are $9

A Review of the Beers

Toasted Lager- my personal favorite, their most widely distributed, a copper beer, has flavors of caramel, honey, and cofee

Hoptical Illusion-one common theme-hops, hops and more hops. Made with extra hops during fermenting , then during bottling poured over strainer filled with fresh hops into a bottle. Not for the faint of heart. Love or hate this beer you won't taste anything else like it.

Winterfest-similar to sam adams winterfest. tastes great

Octoberfest-creamy, definitely some nut brown malt in it, delicious.

Blueberry- not dominated by blueberry, still tastes like beer, the ladies seemed to love this one

Oatmeal Stout-could have had more oatmeal flavoring. Iam not a fan of stout but it was good for what it was suppossed to be. My cousin Joe really enjoyed this one

Pale Ale-very hopsy , very similar to sierra nevada pale ale

Golden Ale-light colored, quality body, great summer beer b/c slightly lighter. Hints of brown sugar, was told by joann was similar to my homebrew

The Wait Is Finally Over I've Added a New Post

Yes, its back, its better than ever, and its not the Hess Truck, its Malfsmouth. Many of you may be asking why doesn't Brian blog more often. I thought about this question and without further delay the answer is ..................... well its all relative. If you're comparing me to my friend Craigs page or our softball team page (gamersallaccess.blogspot.com) then yes I blog infrequently. But if you compare me to that guy out there that posted once, got bored with the blogging scene like I have with the bar scene in Long Island, then I've done alright with my five posts. On top of this how much is there to write about. For example here are some of my friend Craig's blog titles.
"Craig takes a shower....Craig goes to the bathroom.....Craig goes to bar....... "
My point is that excessive posts make your blog a lot more like away messages and a lot less like the ruminations book by whatever that kids name is from bellmore. I mean am I listening to the nightly news or something, what is this. These blogs have become like the national enquirer.... too much information which even if i was interested in, aint true. For example our softball manager Billy did not impose a curfew for softball, he suggested not going out at all.

For the blogaholics, you base the frequency of the postings on the theory that people will visit your website to see the new posting when in fact the opposite happens. There is just too much information and too frequently, so joe six pack (not to be confused with joey nick bag, lazy susan, and phil de basket) gives up on reading the blog because he lost track of your inside jokes six blogs ago, all of which, by the way, went up as of this morning. When the little boy kept crying wolf, eventually no one listened!! So while I'm not saying my blog is great (but it is damn good) I am also not wasting 5 minutes of your day by making your read a new post, only when I think its important.
So really what this argument comes down to is do you want to be Jay Z and release a 4 mic album every 7 months or do you want to be Nas, keep the people hungry and drop a 5 mic album every 3 years. I know whose style the people of the street like and it sure as hell aint jay z. People are thirsty for my blog because they know it is filled with quality, NOT quantity. And I quote "Brian, it's been two weeks since your last post. I need my fix" -WBEZ. Well that fix has returned and unlike my friend Russell, it lasts all night long.

Shames Attacked by Feminists

After waking up early and leaving his home at 2 pm the inevitable happened. Craig Shames was attacked by a group of feminists. It began when twelve women from the Adelphi Rugby team, piled into three different green VW Beetles and marched to his condominium armed with food from supermarket aisles 11, 12, and even the dreaded aisle 4 (baby food). They began by throwing mixed vegetables at him along with seeded hamburger buns (which he hates), motzah balls made by non-jews, twizlers but not the red ones he likes only the chocolate (as we know craig is against anything that is darker) and bags of carrot sticks (his favorite).....which apparently smelled like fish, you can fill in the blank on that one. One of the disgruntled women even went as far as to throw Susan B. Anthony coins at him, yelling "Its the mans fault that no one accepts these things, even in 7-11 I have to explain to them that its not Canadian currency". At the end of the beating they stripped shames of his clothes when a sudden twist of fate happened. They noticed he had no penis. They were shocked, as they began to feel bad that all along they had beaten on one of there own. As they were about to leave and apologize one of the women noticed that shames did have a penis, it was just that it was not noticable through the furry patch of hair between his legs. Upon realizing it the women did a manuever on craigs face know only as "feeding the kitty", and then forefed him big juicy steaks which he couldn't finish.

Most believed Shames had this coming after his offensive women's rights comments in his Danica Patrick article. Shames was hospitalized after being knocked unconscious by the center on the rugby team. One observer commented "She was pushing at least a duece and a half". Another observer commented "it looked an elephant sitting on a fly". One black observer commented "she had a fat ass...and nah I don't mean p-h-a-t, I mean straight up like two thanksgiving hams were up in his grill. "

After returning to consciousness Shames was available for comment. "This was not the type of twelvesome I had wanted." Shames denies reports that he began crying when they began forcefeeding him the seeded hamburger rolls, he is eligible for Time Magazine's Women of the Year Award

Deep Throat Revealed

If you haven’t heard about whats going on with the followup to the informant in the Nixon Watergate scandal then please read this article at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2005/05/31/AR2005053100655.html before reading mine otherwise the parity won’t make too much sense to you.

3 months of mystery and days of waiting are now over now over. The mystery of the informant known only as “deep throat” who gave up Craig Shames in the scandal “Steroidgate” is now over. “Deep throat” revealed himself at a 9am press conference this morning to the world. His true identity, Rob Roll, the ss for the gamers. The real life story was even made into a movie called “All the Gamer’s Men”. The movie tells the story of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, the two reporters responsible for shedding light on the steroid scandal. The film showed many of the rendezvous tactics used by Roll to leak the story to the two reporters. Roll knew of the monumental risk, and of the wire tapping and surveillance techniques used by the gamers administration, specifically Manager William Bezouska know for his iron fist techniques such as the curfew. To erase the trail, Roll would ride multiple taxis, sometimes in the wrong direction and often walked long distances to reach the middle of the night meetings. It was reported that when “Deep throat” wanted to meet he would circle Woodward’s copy of baseball weekly, and even though it was circled in lipstick and said “for good time call Big Bob at 555-5555” the point was made. When Woodward wanted to meet with Rob he would take a rainbow flag, (the rainbow since he wanted to identify with Rob and assumed this would be a more welcoming symbol since Rob played for that team and we don’t mean the gamers) and fly it from his balcony. It appears that most of the rendezvousing took place at a male strip club requested by Rob, and Woodward still was confused about that till this day. “He would always call me and ask me what I was wearing. I was always like hey lets stick to the story here, lets not get off track. He then requested that we always meet at the same gentlemens club and requested that with respect to his anonymity that I call him deepthroat. I still don’t where that name came from; all I know is that all of the male dancers at the club said it was his special ability. …….I really didn’t want to know anymore at that point”
There had been months of speculation as to “Deep throat’s” true identity. Some speculated that deepthroat, perhaps a play on words for Gamers Lcf Brian Malfettone and his big mouth. Others thought it was Gamers’ Of Scott Zimmerman because of his feminine tendencies. The story remained confidential for so long because the two reporters, Bernstein and Woodward, went through great lengths never to reveal their source but when Shames was required to test for the steroids, the secret could no longer be hid. While those following the scandal know as “Steroidgate” are happy to see its over, others such as Gamers Rcf Scott Goldsmith could have cared less. “I’m not sure what everyone is talking about with Deepthroats involvement to Craig Shames. I watched the deepthroat movie and there was nothing about Craig in there. It was just some lady and a kabossa.”

New York Auto Show

I went to the New York Auto Show a while back and saw some great cars. For your viewing pleasure i have posted them below

New Mustang 

Hybrid Engine 

Another Bentley I think 

This is actually a $180,000 Ford believe it or not 

Another Benley I think 

Lamborgini 

Happy Birthday Craig

I would like to take this time to wish one of my best buds Craig Shames a Happy Birthday. I have decided to make a top ten list in his honor:

You Know You're Craig Shames if:
#10) You check the paper for job openings such as General Manager of a Professional Baseball Team
#9) You believe that every pitch you bounced in softball was just a bad call and the ump is hatin on you
#8) You think driving your car is a video game and yell "weeee" when going around a turn
#7) Regarding you and Natalie Portman, you believe its not a matter of if but when
#6) Your penis has the racial tolerance of the grandwizard of the KKK
#5) You believe the food pyrimad consists of bagged carrots, pretzels, and twizzlers.
#4) You have trained your dog to be exactly like you and hate every one
#3) You have a new best friend every day
#2) You are walking topless on the beach and people ask you why you are wearing a sweater
#1) Your take on alcohol and women are the same...."I've never had any"

-Hope you enjoyed this. In all seriousness Craig is a great guy.........................for me to poop on!! No but seriously, Craig is great.............................to throw rocks at!! Okay, okay I'll stop I love Craig....................as a backstop. No for real though he is the man and a great friend so happy birthday.