Nah. See it[Monsters Inc]. Then see it again for the little gags: When Sully scoops up some toys from a tot�s bedroom, note that one is Woody from Toy Story; he�s in every Pixar movie, and will be forever after their version of Alfred Hitchcock. (Sully also picks up a tropical fish, which is Pixar�s next movie.) Note how the employee ID of one the bad guys is 1040. Note how the characters are motivated first by the desire to get rid of this child, then by the need to protect her from harm and restore her to her safe little life - then look at the designation for Mike and Sully�s work area. It�s F5 - which, on every PC game I�ve played in the last few years, has one important function: "Save."---Lileks, of course.

The day started with a Thanksgiving phone call from one of my twin cousins. It was nice to catch up. Then we went bowling. I was pretty awful... 119, 156, 104. Rich continued his comeback with 168, 174, 145. We won three and lost one, so we should have improved our standing.

We left immediately from the bowling alley and headed toward Novato. On the way, at the rest area, we saw lots of people heading down toward the game, but since they got to go directly, we're sure they got there long before we did. Roni had the tickets, so we had to go over to Novato and then follow 101 south, instead of staying on 80 and going over the Bay Bridge. In Novato, we saw some deer, too. We were only about 10 minutes early before R. got home from work.

We left her about 4:15 and crossed the Golden Gate Bridge about 4:45. We then got about 10 miles in the next hour, and were at Candlestick about 6:15. Parking, in a dirt lot quite a distance away, is $20. We weren't the only people this late, and we found our seats about halfway through the first quarter. Fortunately, Rich had suggested we notice where we left our car. (That was about the only indication that I wasn't at the park alone. He had a radio in his ears and wasn't communicating. I wouldn't, under most circumstances, go to a NFL game on my own, but I did this time.)

There were a couple of those people who pop up on every play in the row three in front of ours. One of them finally got yelled down, so we could actually see some of the game. We had excellent seats in a corner. I'd never been in this area before... though we'd been almost everywhere while watching baseball here.

The halftime entertainment was Cirque de Soleil. I mumbled to Rich, "Where are the elephants?" One guy some seats over started yelling about the artsy-fartsy group, "This is a FOOTBALL team!" Me, under my breath, "Yeah, and it's in San Francisco!" Actually, they were good. When I went for food, I naturally caused my line to become the slowest one in the stadium. I began to fear I would turn into Martin Sheen. There was a sign I liked... "Hey Eagles, better take a T.O. cause T.O. is taking over." Behind us, the kid looked at the 35-10 score: "we're 28 points behind." Dad: "no, look, it's 35-10." "We're 10 points down?" "No, it's 35-10." "Oh, we're 35 points behind." Hmm. Maybe the kid should spend more time on his homework and less time at late football games. The Niners lost big, a couple of people got hurt, we spent too much money on food, a fight broke out with some Philly fans, and all in all it was fairly normal. We were pleased that the heavy winter jackets we'd brought weren't necessary after all.

A lot of people left before the game ended, which we regarded as a hope that we'd be able to find our car. (Even when you're losing, why would you leave before the end when the tickets are nearly $60 a pop? I'd stay for my money's worth!) There was still a huge crowd afterwards. It was good that Rich had orientated us, since there were thousands of cars in the lot. We ended up pretty close to it and turned the right way to start looking. We saw other people with remote keys held high, looking for their cars. We found ours right away, and sat in it awhile, but we're not that good at waiting, so we entered the traffic stream. It took an hour to get the football-field length out of the parking lot, and then it went a little faster to Third Street. That went pretty fast, but then we discovered two of the approaches to the Bay Bridge were closed. Around and around in downtown till we finally could get on the bridge.

We arrived at our hotel in Emeryville just before midnight, so I couldn't really enjoy the room as I usually do (I like watching Headline News and Fox News, for instance.) As we turned in, I saw a rat in the greenery, but the room itself was fine. We pretty much conked out.

Headlines.