Stepwise live-blogs the SOTU from the POTUS.

9:00 p.m. POTUS walks into the House of Representatives, to great cheering and applause. I have this on good authority that this happened, based on the newspaper accounts that I've read. Um, actually I missed seeing this myself. OK, OK, in fact my television was turned off at the moment. Well, Gilmore Girls had just ended so I figured, what was the point, really?

9:35 p.m. "America is addicted to oil." I totally agree. But regardless of your position on this important issue, I think we can all agree - because you know it, I know it, and the American people know it - that what the president really meant to say was: "America, you might as well face it, you're addicted to love [noise of bullet ricocheting off metal]." First allusion to a Robert Palmer song in a State of the Union? Quite possibly so, but my crack research department is going to have to examine Bill Clinton's speeches before I reach any final conclusions.

I will say this, though: If the president is going to start borrowing from Robert Palmer, then may I suggest starting with the most obvious move: surrounding himself with half-a-dozen or so icy, statuesque beauties. Not doing anything, to be sure - just standing there. Possible pretending to play musical instruments. Now, personally, I never found the women in Robert Palmer videos that attractive - just scary - but I'm sure that this would help a great deal to cure the languishing TV ratings for State of the Union addresses.

9:40 p.m. At this point of the speech that I did not watch, I was already in bed. To be precise, I was reading The Perfectionist, which tells the story of Bernard Loiseau, celebrated chef of La Cote d'Or, a restaurant with three Michelin stars in the small town of Saulieu, in Bourgogne. I'm practically at the end, and I don't expect that anything the author says is going to change my mind, so here's a brief review.

The author, Rudolph Chelminski, who apparently is a knowledgable and widely read food critic/writer (which I have no reason to doubt), violated three basic rules of writing. First, give yourself time to write a crappy first draft. Actually, he wrote a pretty decent first draft. Unfortunately, it appears that he didn't spend any time revising it, which was enough to make it into a lousy last draft. Or where was his editor? Whatever. Put simply, this book is a large loose baggy monster. Second, never use two words where one will do. A sin more likely to be committed when breaking Rule the First. Third, avoid breeziness. A sin compounded when breaking Rules the First and the Second.

Now, there was plenty that I liked about this book. I learned a lot about French gastronomy and changing fashions is haute cuisine from the 1940s to the present. And the author had a real affection for Loiseau, based on years of long acquaintance. That was sweet. Unfortunately, that good stuff was wrapped in a lot of wasted tasteless verbiage, much the literary equivalent of stuffing a delectable morsel of foie gras inside a Super Bean Burrito from Taco Bell.

1:35 p.m., the following day, when I am in fact writing this post. Hmm. It has just occurred to me that I can't even pretend to be live-blogging, considering that it's almost a full day after the speech. Well, whatever. Live-blogging is so 2005. I'm past that. I'm post-live-blogging. Post-live-blogging: catch the past as it happens - tomorrow!