OK, so I utilized what resources I had at my fingertips to track down a café with free wireless (Cheese Bikini, Beast Blog & Bay Area Free Wi-Fi), only to miss 3 of the 4 speeches I wanted to see (Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama & Ron Reagan). Here’s some helpful information for those of you who might want to be at a cafe later than, say, 7:00pm:

• Fertile Grounds - Closes at 8:00
• Addison Annex Café - I have no idea when they close, but they were not open around 6-6:30
• The Musical Offering - Closes at 5:30

Of course, Berkeley Espresso closes around 11:00, but they were the ones without access to begin with. In trekking back towards the car, I decided to pop into Starbucks (2128 Oxford St; closes at 9:00; doesn’t have a restroom) and just eat the T-Mobile charges.

After seeing Teresa Heinz Kerry’s speech, well, it was totally worth it. Out of all the speeches I’ve seen (President Carter, President Clinton, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton), I’d rank it the second best thus far (first being Bill). To go off on a slight tangent, I have to say I really wasn’t impressed with Hillary’s speech at all (kinda makes one wonder what all the furor about getting this more important role in the convention was all about), although Tim Grieve and Geraldine Sealey of Salon claim that this was because she was originally supposed to introduce both her husband and Kerry but plans had changed at the last moment. Whether this is the case or not, I am much more impressed with THK - her speech was wonderfully eloquent and gave me goosebumps a couple of times it was so moving.

Other good news: At least I can go back and watch (or read) the speeches I missed (including Vice-President Gore’s). I just wish there was someplace that had the Veterans Caucus event (between Carville, Clark and Cleland - goosebumps galore). My convention-going friend Dave shot me a quick email about the amazing talk Michael Moore gave for “Take Back America” - hope that one makes its way online too (frustratingly, right now Salon’s got a picture of Moore at this talk, but doesn’t mention anything about it).