I hope you celebrated the Holidays in the fashion of Santa Monicans’ for Renters Rights, by buying yourself a present with someone else’s money.

I don’t know about you, but the holidays just weren’t the same for me this year without Martha Stewart.

I prefer Martha Stewart Living to the CortiSlim Lifestyle.

I was encouraged to read the newspaper headline “Gang Violence at the Top of Genser’s Agenda”, but was disappointed to upon reading the article to learn that he was not referring to SMRR.

The Annenberg Foundation is donating $21 million to refurbish Marion Davies’ old beachfront home at 415 Pacific Coast Highway and convert it to a public recreational and educational facility. Final plans for the refurbishment will not be made until after holding public workshops, or “charettes.” Charette must be the French word for charade.

I wonder what grant writer proposed the fiction of a beach house having an educational mission. I have never known much serious scholarship to occur at the beach, save for the study of anatomy.

I wonder if the elderly man mugged on Montana by a transient was comforted by any Santa Monica politician by telling him that our homeless problem demanded a “regional solution.”

Bobby Shriver showed that all it takes to get elected in Santa Monica without the SMRR endorsement is to be a political icon. Could someone please sell a house here to Michael Reagan?

Here’s some advice to anyone saving for a child’s college education. Set up three separate savings accounts: one for tuition, one for living expenses, and one for Starbucks coffee.

You know you are a Starbucks Coffee addict if any of the following are true of you:

• You cancelled your subscription to the L.A. Times because you can always find it in the discard pile at Starbucks.

• Despite its left-wing agenda, you now read the New York Times, as it is also in the discard pile.

• You have enrolled in night classes, so you will have books to study while you sit and drink.

• You bought a lap top computer just to fit in.

• You now prefer paper cups to Wedgewood.

• You no longer like linen napkins. You prefer recycled forest products.

• Your dining room table at home now seems way too large.

• You vary your order depending upon which Barista is on duty.

• You have some tenants direct deposit their rents into you Starbucks account.

• Paris, London and Venice have lost their allure. You now summer in Seattle.

• You came out of retirement and took a job just for the coffee breaks.

Here are a few of my New Year’s resolutions:

• Don’t drink the City water.

• Memorize all the bases on which one may not discriminate including-race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, children, age, HIV+, disability, service animals, or “any arbitrary basis.”

• Create shorter list of groups that you can discriminate against such as Red State voters, Halliburton employees, etc.

• Handicap which community group will be the next to propose a $100 million plus bond measure.

• Introduce TV set top device which will allow viewers to block Public Access Channel completely, even when channel surfing.

• Become a Clippers fan.

• Suggest rotating Homeless feeding program between Council Members yards.

• Ask liberal friends if they actually read all of Bill Clinton’s Memoir.

• Clean out garage. Try to sell that Perot for President yard sign on E-Bay.

• Suggest to Ralph Nader that he can get more votes by changing his name and running for office next time as Ralph Cramden.

• Take out second mortgage to fund Starbucks habit.