Sorry for the political stuff tonight. It's not geeky. You can't fondle it like you can an iPod or an Audiovox cell phone.

I also realize that my blog, and its political view, is very American-centric. Do I know anything about what's going on in politics in Germany, Israel, China, South Africa, Russia, India, Taiwan? Not really. Yet these places -- and others around the world -- have a huge impact on the technology economy.

What is the world-wide political tech story that isn't being reported?

Anyway, chatter amongst yourselves. See ya in the morning.

Is Dan Rather using a Tablet PC too? Hmmm. Sure looks a lot like my new Toshiba. If so, smart choice!

Yes, already the bloggers are starting to answer the question I raised. Doc Searls hits his first analysis of what the Republicans are doing right and the bloggers are doing wrong.

Another one? You CAN NOT leave Rush Limbaugh out of this. I've been listening to him for the past few months every morning. His influence and fingerprints are all over this.

Matt Drudge is reporting: Bush wins.

Update: now he's reporting: "KERRY CAMPAIGN SAYS 'NOT TONIGHT'"

Well, I'm home early, so that must mean Bush is gonna win. MSNBC is showing Bush with 269 electoral votes (270 are needed to win) so looks like we'll have four more years.

Now, the questions will start: why are the bloggers and the newspapers so liberal? Nearly every newspaper I read backed Kerry. The tech blogosphere also has a pretty heavy Kerry bent (I did see this bent in the 2200 blogs I read).

Not sure what it all means, but I'm sure it'll be a topic of conversation this weekend at BloggerCon.

Talk to you later after I do a feed read.

Engadget has pictures of Tim Russert's Tablet PC.

My favorite political blogger, Glenn Reynolds, is blogging up a storm.

Andrew Sullivan is doing it too as is the Daily Kos.

Technorati's political news page is worth watching.

Over at Adam Curry's, I learned that another famous outspoken person was murdered in Amsterdam today. He just uploaded a new Daily Source Code where he talks about it.

Well, take care, I'm outta here for the evening. Maryam has a nice dinner planned. Gonna eat a steak at Ray's Boathouse.

Got a political blog site that's better than any of these? Leave it in the comment here. I'll be back later tonight. If Kerry wins, a lot later. If Bush does, earlier. You can figure out the math on that one. :-)

Keith Rome just sent me this. Look at this Reuter's headline: Blogs Send Stocks Lower on Talk of Kerry Victory.

That's the first time I've seen blogs blamed for moving the market.

Hey, Doc, I guess the world has come full circle for you here. Markets are conversations? Heh, how about "conversations move markets?"

Just got back from voting. NBC News has streaming video results at http://video.msn.com.

While you're watching NBC tonight, check out the system that Tim Russert is using. It's a Fujitsu Tablet PC.

I just wanted to say thanks to my wife, Maryam, for the two best years that I've lived in my 39 so far.

It's always easy to remember our anniversary. It's on election day! Get out and vote!

See ya tomorrow.

Today I ran into Charles Fitzgerald, the general manager of platform strategy. He asked me what was happening on the blogosphere. I told him I did a link blog just for busy guys like him. He answered back that he didn't have time to read 100 items an evening.

"Give me one item."

Man, that's tough. I read 2200 blogs, 955 feeds, more than 1500 items an evening. It's hard enough to pull it down to 120 items (which is what I just uploaded to the link blog).

So, I wonder, can I pick one item out every evening?

It's so unfair to "bless" just one blog every evening, but, what the heck, it sounds like an interesting exercise.

Out of all the blogs written in the past 24 hours, which one is most relevant to a guy who runs strategy for .NET and Windows?

Jennifer Rice's rant about Nick Wreden's book titled Fusion Branding caught my eye first.

How about Firefox raising $250,000 from the community? That certainly says something about platform strategy, no?

Or, maybe, a link on using GPS with your Tablet PC. Nah, that's not something a busy executive would do, would it? Anyway it's in French.

On the other hand, a platform strategist should know about what developers are doing for the Tablet PC, like Loren's prototype of an ink-editing application.

Or maybe I should send him to see Dan Bricklin's ChangeThis manifesto on software that should last 200 years (Thanks Darren Barefoot for that link).

Oh, heck with it, we need a podcasting link, don't we? Steve Sloan thinks podcasting is great technology for education.

I give up. I can't pick just one blog. There's too many good ones!

Can you pick just one?

The Tablet PC team had a nice suprise for me tonight. Arin Goldberg called me up and said "can you come over to my office?"

Oh, oh, was I in trouble? Did I say something wrong?

Well, Arin told me I'd like it if I came over, so off I went.

When I got there he had a brown box. It's a new Toshiba Tablet PC!

Whew, just in time, too. My old one was wearing out. Literally. I typed so much on it that you can see a wear pattern on the keyboard.

But, now, gotta move everything over to the new one. Work ahead!

Let's see, new cell phone. New Tablet PC. And a Media Center in the near future (Maryam has given me the OK, just need to find time to do the homework on it and possibly build it).

Thanks to the Tablet PC team and thanks to the community members (hi Lora) who urged the team to get me a new Tablet PC. That's very kind. It'll definitely come in useful this weekend at BloggerCon.

Speaking of Tablet PC stuff, did you see Jim Hull's weblog? He's an animator -- worked on Shrek 2, among other things.

Today he wrote "The TabletPC is the greatest invention of all time" and "it's THE tool for the creative genius."

Hey, one guy gets it! We'll change the world into a more visual place one machine at a time. Thanks Jim for an interesting blog.

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to interview one of Microsoft's "20-year-club" Larry Osterman. First part of the interview went up tonight. He has some great stories. We'll be running a different clip every day this week from Larry.