Well, here we are, on the precipice of history. Tonight (or tomorrow, perhaps) we'll know who'll end up the 44th President of these United States.

It's pretty exciting.

And scary.

Of course, being a loyal Red Sox fan I always have to hold my breath until the last out. (What was the line from Lost? "It's fate. Some people are just supposed to suffer. That's why the Red Sox will never win the damn Series.")

Well, now that we've won the World Series twice maybe fate doesn't have it in for me. Maybe Obama can win this thing tonight (or tomorrow, perhaps).

Liz and I did our part and voted this morning at about 10:45, then drove over to the Cooks Corner Starbucks for our free cup of coffee. And then no more politics until tonight.

Yes, this morning we swore that we're not going to turn on the television until 6 pm, because it's too easy to get sucked into the vortex of punditry and spin for hours on end. It seems like we've been in that vortex since January. It gets old.

Granted, I just read a half dozen articles about the election - how Ohio and Florida are the battleground states, how Virginia hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964, but has Obama ahead in most polls, how Missouri has picked the winner each election since 1904 (save for a 1956 lapse with Adlai Stevenson), how there are actually six counties in the country who've picked the right candidate since 1960, how Obama won the early-voting town of Hart's Location, New Hampshire (sorta like the fictional Hartsfield's Landing from The West Wing) ... my mind is already spinning.

Yeah, part of me wants to just take a sleeping pill now and get up at 6 am tomorrow to see what happened.

Sometimes I fear fate.

But don't worry, I'll probably be glued to Brian Williams and the NBC News crew all night long. Might as well fire up some popcorn and have a few beers.

We'll either be celebrating victory, or drowning our sorrows ...