ZERO DARK… Squid loves the week between Christmas and New Year’s because it allows Squid to hunker down in a dark movie theater, watching movie after movie and making Oscar predictions. While the based-on-reality thriller Zero Dark Thirty doesn’t open in Monterey County until Jan. 11 (its limited release in big cities has it slated for an Oscar run), trailers have captured Squid’s attention.


They’re probably capturing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s, too. Zero Dark Thirty is the tale of the 10-year hunt to find/capture/kill terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, in which Panetta, then-director of the Central Intelligence Agency, played a pivotal role. Although the film’s credits don’t identify by name the real-life CIA director, the role is being played by character actor James Gandolfini, who outweighs Panetta by a good 100 pounds. 


Squid believes Panetta’s ego is healthy enough to withstand an inaccurate physical portrayal, especially if the story is spot-on (uh, it’s not, critics are saying). But if anyone sees Sylvia Panetta buying more salad fixings than normal, give Squid a shout. 


MAKE ME A MAP… While Squid was watching the Squidlets unwrap their BPA-free, lead-free electronics, Squid had a moment of nostalgia for the old days. It’s with a similar twinge of wistfulness that Squid will miss scrolling through thousands of pages of typewritten microfiche at the Monterey County Assessor’s Office.


For once, the county got technology right, with a fancy new website (www.co.monterey.ca.us/gis) that combines digital mapping (called geographic information system, or GIS) with information from all those old documents. It’s a tool County Assessor Steve Vagnini is excited about, mostly because he thinks it will curb greenhouse gases as people won’t have to drive to his Salinas office to scroll through old deeds. 


Squid’s hopeful they’ll put an end to the rumor about County Supervisor Lou Calcagno getting a desal plant for Christmas. For every detractor of Cal Am’s water supply proposal, there are two conspiracy theorists who say the utility wants Moon Glow Dairy, Calcagno’s Moss Landing farm, as a contingency site. But Squid can smell a conflict of interest from a mile away, and looked at Cal Am’s maps with a nifty little GIS overlay. The back-up properties (after the Dole spot in North Marina, which Cal Am already bought) are on Capurro Ranch, Dynegy and Cal Am arch-nemesis Nader Agha’s Moss Landing Commercial Park. It’s too bad, because Squid loves to get Squid’s tentacles on corruption. Instead, Squid will patiently wait for the Fair Political Practices Commission to finally come out with something this year.