I love my mom, but one of her odder habits is that she hums Christmas carols. Like, 365 days a year. And not even the whole tune, but one phrase, over and over and over again (specifically the title phrase of “Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland”).

I’m not even sure she’s aware she’s doing it, and this is where my troubles come in.

I’m up to my eyeballs in Christmas crap for work (*cough* back at 9pm tuesdays after baseball! *cough*) right now, and it is seeping into every corner of my brain.

While finally cleaning out my overflowing inbox, I started singing to myself. And it was only when I got an entire verse in, I realized what I was singing.

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,
Just like the ones I used to know
Where those treetops glisten
And children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow…

And then I put my head down on my desk and said softly, “Oh dear god, it’s starting.”

First, there was yesterday’s First “It’s Snowing Here” Text of the Winter from someone in Chicago (Hi, Mark!).

Then, there was the giant Friday the 13th snowstorm in Buffalo.

And now, it’s pouring rain in L.A. Rainy season here normally doesn’t start until late January.

This is going to be a very long winter.

Thing the first: Los Angeles apparently has the best mass transit system in the country.

Metro beat out major transit agencies in New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., to win the award.

Clean-air buses, customer satisfaction and expanded service all helped Metro secure the national award.

It’s a lot easier to keep customers satisfied when you have so very very few of them.

Thing the second: The most amusing headline of the day for Film School Nerds such as myself.

Thing the third: The Canadian Army vs. 10-Foot-Tall Weed Plants in Afghanistan. My favorite part is the description of what happened to troops in the area when some genius tried to eradicate the plants by setting them on fire.

Can I just hide under my bed until October is over?

I mean, at the rate my luck is going, the bed would collapse on me and I’d be trapped and die, but can I at least give it a try? Because that’s almost looking like a better option than continuing to try and power through the rest of October.

Fuckin’ kids.

I was sound asleep about an hour ago and was awoken by the cat yowling. This isn’t anything out of the ordinary, but I heard a police radio, so I figured the cops were busting up the guys who hang out in another part of the alley that runs behind my building, and rolled over to go back to sleep.

Then my phone rang. “Hi, Miss Shapiro, this is Officer [X] of the Santa Monica Police Department, I’m outside behind your apartment and it appears your vehicle has been broken into.”

Turns out someone on the alley heard someone smash my passenger-side window, looked out and saw the guys futzing around and called the cops. The cops scared off the thieves, who were apparently just some shithead kids.

They weren’t particularly smart kids, as the only thing they got was a $30 electricity inverter, and if they’d thought for about five seconds, they wouldn’t have even had to break the damn window to get into the car, as both the driver’s and passenger’s side windows were cracked.

I mean, I’m glad they didn’t get my stereo which I went to so much damn trouble to install, and there wasn’t really anything else of value in the car, so I suppose that’s good.

But I was speaking to my next door neighbors, one of whom has been living in the apartment for 17 years, and he said this was the first time someone had smashed a window in the parking lot that he could remember, though he noted that someone had let the air out of his wife’s tires this morning.

Nice to be the new guy in the neighborhood. Now I’m going back to bed, to get up even earlier to try and figure out how to clean up all this glass when I haven’t gotten around to purchasing a new broom or dustpan.

I had my inaugural barbecue at my new place today. I bought a nice grill at Home Depot yesterday (yay Home Depot having a Seasonal Sale even though barbecuing never goes out of season here) and broke it in today.

The only problem was I didn’t account for the COLA Flake Factor (COLA = City Of Los Angeles), and bought enough meat for both the people who said they were definitely going to come, and those who said they might be coming.

In reality, I should have bought about half of what I did, if not a third. None of the people who said they might actually showed, and then a bunch of the “Oh, Definitely!” people bailed as well.

In the end it was still quite fun, but I now have enough ground beef and hot dogs in my freezer to feed a small army, and enough beer to keep me drunk for weeks.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Part of the reason I enjoy my job is that sometimes very bizarre and amusing things happen.

Most of the time, I can’t write about them here because of the numerous and voluminous Non-Disclosure Agreements I’ve had to sign, but since the LA Times wrote about this one, I think I’m safe.

I hereby present the relevant part of the story, without further comment:

After the interview, he gets back in the golf cart. As he drives by the set of “House,” he spontaneously decides to stop. He pulls into a spot that says “Parking for Hugh Laurie Only.” Woods was told earlier that “House” sent over a good-luck cake. When he walks onto the set, the stand-ins who are rehearsing flip for the star.

I just want to thank everybody for the cake you sent us today.

Everyone stares at him blankly.

OK, it turns out you didn’t know about it. But I want to thank you for sending the cake you didn’t know about. We’re going to take it as a sign of good luck. And we’ll return the favor by sending you back a spinach soufflé. Just kidding. Keep up the good work. See you all later.

Outside, Woods says he wants to go to the “House” production office to thank them. His girlfriend, Ashley, who kept him in the tabloids all summer and has now joined him, says she wants to go home and re-curl her hair and change clothes for the evening’s premiere party. She wins.

Back outside his trailer

Woods tells the show’s crew about his visit to the “House” set. An assistant looks panicked. Woods is informed the cake actually came from the set of “Bones.”

The actor laughs and laughs before he asks: Does anybody know where “Bones” is?

Try Stage 10, Mr. Woods.

Whose Mets beat the team upon whose bandwagon I have jumped (the Dodgers) today:

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I haven’t been posting much because I’ve been up to my eyeballs in work and in the new fall season of television. I love that my job gives me a nominal excuse to actually watch all this shit.

For those keeping score, brief updates on all the shows I’ve been testing out for the fall season, sorted roughly by airdate/time:

Heroes – Extremely entertaining, and a lot better than I thought it would be. First two episodes show a lot of promise, but I’m not sure I buy that the production values and writing quality can be kept up long-term. Series television is harder than hell, especially when it has to look this good every week.

Vanished – Stopped watching after two episodes. Utterly preposterous with horrible acting, and totally wasted its Atlanta setting. If you’re going to bother to set a series somewhere other than New York or LA, then actually set it there. Don’t just intercut some stock footage of the city and call it even.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip – Major disappointment. As has been astutely pointed out by the TV critic at the Akron Beacon-Journal, a huge part of the failure is that the sketches for the comedy that’s supposed to save the world? Are exceptionally weak (and the Gilbert and Sullivan bit is a rip-off of a Saturday Night Live bit with David Hyde Pierce, which in turn was a rip-off of Animaiacs).

Friday Night Lights – Just watched the first episode, and it was fucking awesome. Gripping, well-acted, extremely well directed. If the rest even come close to the pilot, this show is going to be fantastic. My favorite new show of the season.

Knights of Prosperity – Hasn’t premiered yet.

Standoff – Dreadful. The pilot was just awful, though the second episode (which I watched because the TV was still on after my show finished) was at least slightly better, but the only reason it was watchable was because of Tim DeKay as the unhinged air traffic controller. When your guest cast far outshines your leads, you have a serious problem.

Smith – Better than it has any right to be. Way better than Heist and probably better than Thief. Again, another one I’m unsure can keep this up for 22 episodes, but I’m a lot more open to it than I was when I heard the premise.

Jericho – Unexpectedly and morbidly fascinating. Poor Man’s Johnny Depp (aka Skeet Ulrich) isn’t bad, and Gerald McRaney stumbles onto his second great part of they year after playing George Hearst on my late, lamented Deadwood. However, the post-apocalyptic premise is what makes this worth watching. The only question that remains, as it does for so many other shows, is: For how long?

20 Good Years – Hasn’t premiered yet, but I’m hearing horrible buzz.

30 Rock – Hasn’t premiered yet, but will at least be funnier (if not necessarily better) than Studio 60.

Justice – Interesting concept, headache-inducing execution. The first show I’ve ever stopped watching because of the style in which it is shot. I thought all the jump cuts were going to give me a seizure. There’s a line at which your special effects drown out your plot, and this show was about thirty feet over it.

Kidnapped – A hell of a lot better than Vanished, but didn’t grab me for some reason. I meant to TiVo the second episode, but when I forgot, I realized I just didn’t care. That’s never a good sign.

The Nine – Premieres tomorrow. Will at least be better than Six Degrees (see below).

Ugly Betty – Been done before, totally clichéd. Still really great, mostly because America Ferrara owns the title role. This is one of the few shows I don’t see having any problem whatsoever mining years of material out of its premise.

Shark – James Woods is great, but they keep trying to give him a heart of gold in the scenes with his kid, and it robs the character of any resonance. I’m going to keep watching for a few episodes in the hope that it improves, but I’m not too optimistic.

Six Degrees – The pilot committed the worst sin in television: It was completely and utterly boring. Didn’t even watch the second episode.

Dexter – Michael C. Hall is spectacularly creepy as a sociopathic serial killer whose day job is as a forensics expert for the Miami Police. Way better than the concept sounds. Also way better than anything else on Showtime, though I admit that’s a somewhat low bar to clear.

Brothers and Sisters – I don’t know why I even bothered. Sally Field has always irritated me, and I knew I’d never buy Calista Flockhart as an Ann Coulter-type conservative ballbreaker. I heard the second episode was better than the pilot, but not even Rachel Griffiths could bring me to keep watching it.

Kitty apparently decided to sit on my cable remote just as my TiVo was trying to turn the channel to get Prison Break recording.

Because of this, TiVo recorded an hour of some weird OnDemand program about gardening and building large sculptures out of PVC pipe instead.

I believe I’ll be hiding the cable remote somewhere kitty can’t get to it from now on.