qwghlm.co.uk : because all the other domain names were taken

Power problems and machine failures reported in Florida – great.

Ohio dragging on – sounds like near-chaos over there.

On the BBC, Alan Duncan is backing Kerry. Tories must still be pissed off at the White House telling Michael Howard to never bother coming.

Election coverage is great – live TV is always fun for watching mistakes. Best bit was when our man in Florida had to be given a (clearly visible on camera) thumbs-up from his producer, before he knew he was on air.

Damn, this is tense.

Grr. West Virginia, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Alabama all for Bush. No surprises there but it’s prolonging the agony. Come on, get some in for Kerry…

Made my first sandwich of the night. Not on the coffee yet.

Update: Kerry gets Massachussetts, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine (all four in that one). Now the score looks a little better. No marginals yet.

And more…: D.C., Maryland and Illinois called on the American websites, though no word from the BBC. Again, all three unsurprising.

Correction..: Maine’s votes are proportionally split rather than all given to one party, BBC have declared all for Kerry, the US networks only say three with one unknown. Kerry leads 77-66. C-Span’s Map is the nicest-looking one I’ve seen so far, the BBC’s map applet is just nasty and slow.

No surprises, Indiana, Georgia and Kentucky taken by GWB. Kerry just gets Vermont for now. Virginia and South Carolina too close to call – the former would normally be for Bush, I’d have thought.

Zogby predicts an enormous majority for Kerry.

For any US election virgins like myself, This handy guide (via kottke.org) explains some of the nuances of the election.

Random thoughts… I have about a million browser tabs – singlehandedly slowing down the web here. The virtual White House behind Peter Snow on the BBC’s coverage is cacking awful. The TV screen looks over-cluttered too. The BBC need to hire some guys with UI design experience for the current affairs teams.

I’m on my own in front of the TV at the moment. If anyone out there’s in the same situation and wants to keep me (virtual) company then mail me, I can give you my MSN/ICQ.

I am not feeling too well so I don’t know how long I’ll be staying awake to watch the election, but with a laptop and wireless connection in front of the telly, I’ll try to do the whole live blog commentary thing (following in Tom’s footsteps), for the US election. Maybe.

Not much to say so far, apart from the odd pre-election call leak that exit polls are giving a slight nod to Kerry. But still far too early.

I’m quite excited, in a silly way.

I’ve just had an idea – get as many RSS feeds of tonight’s election news and aggregate them together, saving on having to keep switching between sites tonight. So ingenious it’s bloody obvious. So far I have the BBC, Yahoo, Guardian, NY Times and Washington Post headlines all subscribed. Most of the US TV networks dont seem to have caught the RSS bug yet, more’s the pity.

A quick curio – I have just found out the origin of Florida Governor Jeb Bush‘s peculiar forename – ‘Jeb’ is simply his own initials, and his actual name is John Ellis Bush. So just like the term ‘PIN Number’, he is a case of (and a rare personification of) RAS Syndrome.