SOTU DG

Photo from whitehouse.gov

As most of you are aware, the President gave his annual State of the Union Address last night, and concurrently the 2011 State of the Union Drinking Game was held. Being a bit of a nerd/geek/dork, I have likely been watching these speeches since middle school - although through the years, the reasons have changed. In primary school it was getting extra credit in Social Studies class. In college it was a good excuse to play a drinking game on a Tuesday. Today, now that I'm old, I'm actually interested in the contents of the speech and listen to better inform myself as a responsible, voting citizen, The drinking part is just a carryover.

If you google SOTU drinking game, you will be bombarded with results. After looking at several versions I've decided the version I play is much simpler and more efficient. The genesis for this version came from the Iron Chef Drinking Game. That game evolved into basically watching almost any TV show, developing a simple set of simple rules specific to that show, and play! Through the years the rules have been adapted to many a show, including: Price is Right, MXC, Cheaters, American Chopper, Blind Date, Southpark, Talk Soup, almost every cartoon on Adult Swim, and just about any other mindless TV show out there.

Four SOTU DG, the rules are simple, drink when any of a predetermined list of words are spoken. Each year, as the political atmosphere changes, so does the list of words. Everyone is allowed to give input to the list and the list can change at any point until the Sergeant at Arms proclaims, "Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States!" This year's words and respective count in the speech were:
Jobs: 25
Spending: 11
Economy: 7
Recession: 4
Bipartisan: 2
Housing: 1
Stimulus: 0

Deficit: 11 (Deficit actually wasn't on the list but we got about half way though the speech before referencing the word list and realizing this, so it gets this nice footnote)

NPR Transcript of the 2011 SOTU Address

It was brought up that each person should stand and drink with their respective registered political party if there were partisan standing ovation interruptions, as there are each year. This year, however, as the political parties comingled their seating, it was determined that this rule would be too difficult to keep track of and thus the rule was tabled, to be saved for some time in the future.

In closing, I'd like to echo a statement at the bottom of the Iron Chef Drinking Game web page. "Don't drink and drive. It's stupid..."

Hope to see you at the 2012 games.