Here's an admission that will surprise hardly anyone who knows me (and complete stranger that are just good at this game): I'm quite a nerd. For things that I'm interested in or that catch my attention, I love getting details, reading opinions, and storing up knowledge so that one day I could explain to someone else a chronology of events (score) or maybe even compile a list (double score).

So, I hear a new band, and I want to know all their albums, which ones are seminal, how their sound evolved and how they fit into a particular scene or genre. Sometimes I'll do all this without listening to much of their actual music. It's the same for wrestling and for comedy, and for the last 10 months, it has been the US presidential elections.

I get a lot of information from this site, run by Ashish, which aside from covering a wide range of issues and opinions, has been excellent at summarising and collating polling data, and explaining what matters. The way they have fluctuated has been one of the most interesting parts of this process. And the way polls look now, it is going to be a whitewash on election day.

I also stayed up last night to watch the VP debate. I thought Joe Biden was statesman-like, which is probably a codeword for dull. Which is fine - its hard to criticise someone for being competent and knowledgeable. I thought he pulled punches, as was predicted - given expectations, he would have appeared bullying and arrogant if he'd gone on the attack at her. Instead, he established Obama's positions and pushed the line about McCain being the next Bush. He also managed to (finally) cast doubt of McCain's supposed maverick credentials, and their increasingly noticeable absence in this campain

Palin grated on me throughout, not just her voice, but also the way she treated the whole thing as an opportunity to pivot to any topic she has pre-prepared lines about. Maybe her folksy manner is appealing to some voters, but she appeared out of her depth.

And I'll tell you what else. She's lining for a run at the nomination in 2012. So much of what she said last night was about her and her record, not that of her principal. Plus, the way she, this morning, openly contested the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan - it's like she knows this race is lost, so its time to push herself forward.

(By the way, I've always thought I too have a folksy charm: the way you can tell is that I have the word "folksy" in my vocabulary, and use it to describe elements of my personaility. And it isn't just my charm that is folksy. I also have a folksy shouting at the elderly for getting in my way, and a folksy addiction to petrol fumes.)

Anyway, I'm going to miss all this come November.