As much as I needed a day like yesterday, I needed today even more. A Monday when things get done. Who could have predicted that? And I don't know how it happened, except that I'm finding a way to get things started. Once a job gets started, finishing it becomes so much easier.

Naturally, I'm doing the easy part first, but I'm already slamming head-on into one of my deadlines. The auditor is coming to my house Wednesday, and I now have everything she asked me for. More importantly, I have it in a format that'll tell her what I want her to know about it.

In the last two days I've also done all the background work for the 1099s and the W-2s. That leaves a whole lot left to get through before the end of January, but I'm not worried it won't get done. It might keep me up late the night before the final deadline, but I've been there before.

Did I say I was doing the easy part first? Well, guess what? Whatever part is already done becomes the easy part by default.

The latest surprise from Netflix was something called The Badge, with Billy Bob Thornton and Patricia Arquette. It originally appeared on cable, and I think the reason I had it in my rental queue was that Sela Ward and Jena Malone are in the cast, although they both have small parts. It's Billy Bob's movie. He plays an unsavory Louisiana sheriff forced to reexamine his values when a transsexual is murdered in his parish.

It's not a great movie, but I liked it a lot more than that similarly-named TV series that everyone is talking about. Some critics say The Shield is the best show on TV, and the Golden Globes apparently agree. I've tried twice to watch it, without being able to get to the end. It's not that I don't like gritty realism or violence. I think there's something about an unredeemably corrupt cop as the main character that turns me off.

That's my choice, no matter how many awards it wins. I still can't believe the Hollywood Foreign Press Association thinks it's better than The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The West Wing and 24.

While we're on the subject of the Golden Globes, I'd like to say nothing at all about Lara Flynn Boyle's dress. I'm still getting search query hits from the dress Jennifer Lopez wore at the Grammys two years ago, and I don't want that to happen again. (Oops. Too late.)

Sharon Stone seemed to be having a really good time, didn't she? I think I would have enjoyed accepting an award from her last night. And I think John C. Reilly should get some kind of award. He was in Chicago, The Hours and Gangs of New York last year. Those movies won two best pictures and a best director, all on one three-hour show.

Tomorrow's the day I get a touch of class. That's what they call the treatment they're giving my new Saturn to keep the paint from peeling and the stains from setting. I'm taking it in early, and I expect them to give me a ride home, then pick me up when it's done. So far they've done everything they promised, so I don't think there'll be a problem. I'll be without my car all day, but that'll give me time to clean the house up for the Wednesday audit. It's probably just as well, when I look at it that way.