On The Bench… Squid’s the first to admit that judicial elections aren’t normally wrought with mudslinging, scandalous sex and whistleblowers. This June would be no exception, except this is Monterey County’s bench, where the bar’s quite high in the scandalous sex, mudslinging and whistleblower departments.

Squid poked around at the candidates hoping to fill the still-warm seat.

Tom Wills looked good, until he told a daily rag how excited he was to bring his fine 29-year-career to a crescendo by serving the civil courts of the county. Yo, Tommy Boy, bit of bad news for ya: You’ll be at the bottom of the totem pole, arraigning drunks and sentencing johns on Monday mornings.

Mark Hood is a stand-up sort of guy, looks good in his avocado suits that blend seamlessly with his coifed red hair. His only real hurdle so far seems to be that he’s wound a bit tight. Then again, I guess the courthouse has seen quite enough undone ties to last a career or two.

Todd Hornik is described by colleagues as a solid beer-thrower-backer who can drop an F-bomb with the best of them and launch into a tirade like nobody’s business. Squid should take him to dinner – and beers.

Then there’s warm-and-fuzzy Luma Serrano, an immigrant who’s the perfect puff cloud of a story, working her ass off to get from Alisal High School to UC Berkeley to Columbia Law School. Yep. Squid could really like this one. Only… who would she sit with at lunchtime?

R.I.P., Sunfish… About six months ago, Squid got a tip that, at an evening event at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a visitor saw the “silhouette of the Virgin Mary, head inclined as if in genuflection and prayer, in the mottled side of the giant ocean sunfish in the Outer Bay Waters tank.” The 1,247-pound fish, it continued, had been “happily swimming and feeding, unaware of its special holy status.” Squid doesn’t know how much Merlot that visitor imbibed before seeing the blessed vision on the Mola mola; Squid does know that now, the Aquarium’s largest sunfish is with the Blessed Virgin.

On Feb. 14, the Aquarium euthanized Sunny (Squid’s nickname for the sunfish, which, had it been a little smaller, say, in the 100-pound range, Squid would have liked to snack on while watching Sunday-morning cartoons). Aquarium veterinarian Dr. Mike Murray and his team made the call a week after the fish stopped eating and was increasingly unable to swim in the million-gallon tank. Sunny, you’ll be missed.