AN OLIVER TWIST...  Sometimes Squid feels disoriented by this mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad world. Sometimes Squid feels as if nothing is permanent. Sometimes Squid feels sad, frightened and alone, and Squid hides under the covers, hoping the voices-those relentless, haranguing voices!-will go away, give Squid''s fevered brain some peace, some rest, some time off, for the love of God!

Sorry. Anyway, Squid''s point is that it''s a great comfort to learn that there is some constancy on the planet, after all. Bob Oliver, owner of Monterey Moped Adventures, is running for mayor of Monterey again. Oliver, who has tangled with the city over his use permit (which was once revoked because of various heinous crimes against city code), ran for council in 1990 and ''92. In 2000 he took on Dan "Queen Victoria" Albert, whose 16-year reign has seen the rise and fall of the MTV-Unplugged album series, riot grrl rock, the cigar craze, "Seinfeld" and Pokémon. So many changes! It''s positively dizzying.

But Oliver isn''t changing. No, sir. Squid''s pleased to learn that Oliver is keeping his platform the same as it was in 1990: streamline the planning process; remove downtown metered parking; build a desalination plant and/or a dam; "Instill ''Life''s'' Values;" and "Create Awareness and Responsibility/Stop Penalizing." There are a few other interesting planks to his platform, but those are the ones that rattle under Squid''s tentacles.

"Same problems. They''re just more acute now," Oliver says of the current climate in Mo Town.

But Oliver had to go and get tricky and include some new issues on his candidate''s statement. He wants the city to incorporate the airport district, deal with the toxic waste under the airport, redefine public education (a tall order for a city of 40,000, but why not dream big?), find new water sources in six months and disband the water board.

And suddenly Squid feels like getting back under the covers again.

YES, A CARDBOARD BOX WILL DO NICELY...Lately Squid''s come to think of the Weekly''s 401(k) provider in heavy quotation marks. Delaware "Investments," as Squid likes to call it, with all the dripping sarcasm those two little punctuation marks denote, has been the vehicle through which Squid''s pitiful retirement nest egg has shrunken from insignificant to infinitesimal. Last quarter almost everything Squid put in to Delaware "Investments" fell out the other end, leaving Squid to wrestle with the painful realization that Squid has no fiscal sense whatsoever, and that the promise hinted at by Delaware "Investments," that Squid would be enjoying hundreds of thousands of dollars in old age if only Squid would just faithfully salt a little money away now, might be a big fat lie. A scam. A scheme. A classic piece of capitalist fraud.

But hey! At least there''s Social Security, right? Wrong! Squid got one of those inadvertently comical letters from the Social Security Administration a week or two ago. The form estimated Squid''s retirement benefits in 2030 should Squid continue to earn a salary at the current terrific rate. Ladies and gentlement, Squid will be living on $901 per month 28 years hence unless Squid makes things very right with Delaware "Investments." Since it seems Squid recalls reading that in 2030 the average PG&E bill will run $200-$250, that''s not a lot left over for krill, brine shrimp and shoes.

But really, isn''t it wonderful that we''re finally going to privatize Social Security? Because at least that way, someone will get some money. It just won''t be Squid.

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