Election night in Ireland as yesterday's votes are counted. It takes ages and ages to find out who won, and I won't be repeating my Gore/Bush mess where I declared "I'm staying up until I know who won!"

The system is pretty confusing for someone new to the country. You can vote for (in Cork South Central) 5 candidates and with each vote you also write down your 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th choices, just in case your guy gets bumped. Your candidate is in if she/he gets a minimum number of total votes; last place candidates fall off the ballot and their 2nd choices go to whoever is left... and on... and on.... Sometimes they go to 5 or 6 distributions.

All of this is theoretical, 'cos I didn't get myself down to the Garda station to get registered to vote in time. What an idiot.

We had some "fringe" candidates -- the Immigration Control party and the 9/11 "Truth" party... you know, the folks who believe that 9/11 was a government conspiracy. They were both out in the first round, but they did get a few votes. Yikes!