Last Thursday some friends and I adandoned our usual end-of-the-week celebratory routine and did something I'd never before done: played BINGO. It certainly wasn't the most thrilling three hours of my week, but it was...interesting.

Once I finally got the hang of it -- one of my friends joked that I was probably having a hard time figuring out what was going on because the concept was so basic; she often says my life is so complicated that I've lost the ability to comprehend the simple -- I experienced a rollercoaster of reactions throughout the night. The learning process bred frustration, then came stress, which was followed by a period of excitement as I came close to winning, and finally, boredom.

My friends and I didn't win anything -- we were no match against the regulars, with their crocheted "BINGO" money bags and "Dab-O-Ink" (a brand of ink blotter used to stamp numbers on BINGO cards) caddies.

I had no idea people got so into playing BINGO. During a brief pause in the evening, for example, a woman near us screamed to the front of the room, "Quit your yappin' and call the damn numbers!" Later, when the same woman mistakenly yelled "BINGO," I would not have been surprised if the room of hollering and angry BINGO players had formed a mob and attacked her.

Although profitable for those who win, I can't say that BINGO is something I'll do on a regular basis...but maybe if I buy more cards this week, I'll have a better chance of winning some big bucks.

-Gabe

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For generations, a fundamental dilemma in California politics has been how to get more water from the rain-rich north to the arid south. About four out of every five gallons of California's drinking water passes through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta east of San Francisco. The delta, which is crisscrossed by 19th century levees, is a nexus of rivers that carry snowmelt down from Sierra Nevada on the way to the sea.

But huge state and federal pumps -- the pumps are two stories high -- suck water out of the Delta and send it southward along a system of canals to the farmers in the Central Valley and the population centers of Southern California.

So much water is taken out of the Delta that its natural currents and tides are disturbed and its aquatic life threatened.

Many state and federal water experts said the way to fix this problem was to build a huge canal around the edge, or periphery, of the Delta to bypass the heart of the Delta while moving huge amounts of water from north to south.

The Legislature agreed: Sixteen years ago lawmakers approved a plan for the so-called Peripheral Canal, which would have been the largest public works project in American history, a 44-mile-long concrete- lined ditch as wide as a 12-lane freeway that would have skirted the edge of the Delta and would have taken surplus water from the north state to the south.

But cautious lawmakers refused to make this decision alone -- they placed the plan before voters in the form of a referendum, SB200, and it was defeated. In the north, the canal was rejected 10-to-1 after a bitterly emotional campaign.

But this year, the canal may be back.

For three years, environmentalists, farmers, water district executives, state and federal officials and engineers have been grappling with the problem and they have come up with three alternatives. One is to do nothing, the second is to partly restore the Delta and improve storage and transfer facilities and the third already is viewed as the "preferred alternative" -- a huge canal.

The formal recommendation by the group, called CalFed, was supposed to be offered before Republican Gov. Pete Wilson left office in January. But several weeks ago, in a briefing to water district executives in Burbank, Wilson's top environmental adviser, Douglas Wheeler, made it clear that more study remains to be done.

That means that the state's final decision on the project will come from the new governor, Democrat Gray Davis. On the federal side, the decision will be made by the Clinton administration.

Nobody is certain how Davis will decide this issue. But last week, Davis appointed a high-level transition group of 33 people to advise him on water and agricultural policy. The group is dominated by growers and water executives who generally support the concept of a canal. The signal is unmistakable: There is every likelihood that a peripheral canal ultimately will be approved.

If that happens, it will lead to a fierce political fight over water.

Experts are quick to point out that any canal would take only SURPLUS water to the south; it would not disturb existing supplies.

But North State residents are skeptical. They view the canal as a means to steal their water for the huge agribusiness farms and swimming pools of the south. As the state grows, more water is needed, particularly in the highly populated south. Nearly a third of Californians live in Los Angeles County, and half the state's population lives below Santa Barbara.

Most of Southern California gets its water via the Metropolitan Water District, a Los Angeles-based water wholesaler and the largest single customer of the State Water Project. The MWD has made it clear it won't support a water plan that does not include a canal.

A few days ago, the Legislature's nonpartisan fiscal adviser suggested that Davis may inherit a billion-dollar budget deficit from Wilson, and the media have focused on this issue as the major issue next year in the Capitol.

But of far more importance is the dispute over water. How Davis decides that issue will be the major test of the new Davis administration.

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