The Monterey Bay Shores Resort, the 495-room hotel and condo complex previously destined for the Sand City coastline, went down in flames at the state Coastal Commission meeting in San Francisco last Thursday. The commissioners concluded that the resort as proposed is too big and potentially harmful to sensitive plant and animal habitats. "There are too many glaring inconsistencies here to make this project fit on that piece of ground," said Commissioner Dave Potter, who made the motion to deny.

But a little thing like a unanimous Coastal Commission rejection won''t stop developer Ed Ghandour. After the commissioners lowered the ax, Ghandour made a beeline for Monterey Peninsula Water Management District Chair Molly Erickson to advise her that he had filed a lawsuit against the water board, which in October denied him a permit to dig wells into the Seaside aquifer to supply his hotel with water.

Ghandour''s crew seemed a little confused about things relating to water on Thursday. Despite the water board''s denial, Ghandour''s attorney informed the commission that there was "no dispute there is water onsite, no dispute that the applicant is legally entitled to use that water under regulation from the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District," and that the project "can be built without a permit" from the water board.

All of which prompted Potter--who also sits on the local water board and who was heavily courted by the developer''s lobbyists to vote for the hotel''s wells--to ponder why the heck the developer applied for a water board permit to begin with. His life, for one, Potter quipped, would have been a heck of a lot easier had Ghandour simply sunk his wells unauthorized.

Speaking of Sand City, Squid''s been noticing that the average shopper risks life and limb getting in and out of the parking lot at Sand City''s Edgewater Shopping Center. It constantly amazes me to see seemingly normal people turn into rabid bullies when competing for the closest parking space to Target, especially in light of the likelihood that they''ll spend the next two hours walking four or five miles around the store. It also amazes me that people would rather play parking lot chicken than take the Sand City shuttle, which is designed to leisurely chauffeur shoppers from one big box to the next but rolls around empty every time I see it (where do you get on the darn thing, anyway?). And forget about trying to walk from Borders to Circuit City--you''re likely to be leveled by some frazzled shopper in a 5,000-pound SUV attempting to escape the horror of it all by reversing from his/her parking spot at full speed.

But I digress. What I really mean to say is, if you''re doing some last-minute shopping, mailing, driving or parking this weekend, be generous in the name of brotherly love. Bequeath your rightful parking spot to one less fortunate. Bestow your place in line to another shopped-out soul. Surrender your turn at the four-way stop to the driver on the left. It might not add up to much in the end--the fellow you helped may not even realize or appreciate the favor. But I bet you''ll feel a heck of a lot better about life, and perhaps your holidays will be filled with peace and joy instead of hustle and bustle. Most certainly Santa will notice, and you will be well rewarded for your generosity.