John Kerry today endorsed Barack Obama at a press conference. I have to confess I couldn’t watch more than 30 seconds of the speech. John Kerry spoke, like, well, John Kerry. Buy that, I mean Kerry sounds as if he trying to play Hollywood’s version of a pompous, self-important, sanctimonious wind-bag. As I commented on repeatedly in 2004, Kerry’s problem stems from projecting to loudly, thus robbing his voice of its conversational quality.

Bill Richardson dropped out of the race today. I would have gladly listen to him for the whole speech but he was so boring, bland and tedious that CNN cut away from his speech and I never could find it on another news network. Richardson started off by complaining that the news media had leaked the story that he was dropping out—it’s never attractive to whine. Next, Richardson read his speech (with his eyes bobbing up and down—mostly down) saying boring and predictable things. Why he needed a written script at all is beyond me. Richardson can be a talented and funny speaker—it’s a shame he blew a big opportunity today. It may have been his last opportunity of the national limelight for awhile.

(I’ll post videos of both speeches once they are available)

Here is a great video used to introduce bill Gates before his last keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show. The video is funny and well done. But I feel it should come with a warning: Don’t try this at home kids! Why? Because it is extraordinarily time-consuming and expensive to put together a video like this. My advice? Most speakers are better off coming up with an interesting speech rather than getting lost in the details of editing a video. So if you have the resources of Microsoft behind you and you are good friends with international celebrities like Gates, then go for the fancy videos. If not, think twice before going to these lengths.

Bill Gates is giving his last keynote address to the Consumer Electronics Show tomorrow. Here’s where you can watch it live.

Gates is due to start his departing speech at 6.30pm US Pacific Standard Time, so start streaming early to avoid missing out. Here are your streaming options.

750k high quality webcast stream
300k good quality webcast stream
100k blob quality webcast stream

Gates is no Steve Jobs when it comes to presenting showmanship, but Gates has evovled into a comfortable and competent speaker over the years.