As of this day can't get odder, new school board member Debra Goldman has been told she can't dress up as Mrs. Claus for tomorrow's Raleigh Christmas Parade.

John Odom, executive director of the the Greater Raleigh Merchants Association, gave the bad news to Goldman today. He told her that it's against their policy for any person other than the official Santa to wear the red Santa suit at the parade.

NEW YORK -- After beating Ohio State on Thursday night, North Carolina coach Roy Williams said he believed his Tar Heels could be a very good basketball team -- he just wanted to come sooner than it was.

Judging by the sixth-ranked UNC's 87-71 loss to Syracuse in the championship game of the 2K Sports Classic on Friday, it's going to take a while longer.

The sixth-ranked Tar Heels (4-1) tried to fight back 20-point second half deficit at Madison Square Garden, but lacked the firepower and poise to take it all the way.

It marked UNC's first loss of the season, and it will have to adjust fast: three of its next six opponents are ranked in the Associated Press top 25.

Carolina led 39-37 at halftime. But Syracuse opened the second half with a 22-1 run that gave it a 59-40 lead. UNC sophomore Tyler Zeller buried his team's first field goal of the half - on a short jumper - with 12:02 left before Syracuse' Kris Joseph gave his team it's biggest lead of the game, 62-42, on a 3-pointer.

UNC didn't fold. It countered with a 18-6 run - including six points by senior Marcus Ginyard, four from freshman Travis Wear, and a 3-pointer by David Wear -- to cut the Orange's advantage to a manageable 67-57 with 7:26 left.

But Syracuse immediately came back with a 13-2 run of it's own. The chants of "Over-rated!" began with about three minutes left.

And it was hard to blame the crowd.

Ed Davis and Ginyard led the Tar Heels with 15 points apiece, but the Tar Heels shot tk percent while allowing five Syracuse players to finish in double figures.

The match-up marked the first time UNC had played the Orange since Nov., 1987 - and the first time UNC coach Roy Williams had matched up with Syracuse coach (and friend) Jim Boeheim since the Orange beat Williams' Kansas team in the national title game in 2003.

Syracuse, unranked in the Associated Press poll but looking like it deserves to be, opened the game with an 11-2 run, but the Tar Heels used two 3-pointers from junior Will Graves and seven points from Davis to counter with a 13-1 run to take a 15-12 lead.

But Wes Johnson, a transfer from Iowa State and the Orange's leading scorer, scored 10 points in a row for his team to give it back a 22-20 lead.

The Tar Heels trailed, again, by as much as 31-22 when Scoop Jardine buried a jumper. But Carolina ended the half with a 17-6 run - culminating with an alley-oop layup from Larry Drew II to Davis.

For those who wondered why we wrote about Clay Aiken's riff on the school board elections, you'll love this news.

The Wake County Republican Party sent a press release this evening saying that GOP Chairman Claude Pope is challenging Aiken's right to remain registered to vote in the county.

Aiken has a home in Chatham County but is registered to vote at his mother's home in North Raleigh. Voter registration records show he voted in last month's school board elections.

North Carolina will be packing its bags the week before Thanksgiving next season, too. The Tar Heels will be one of eight teams participating in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off; they will play Nov. 18, 19 and 21. They will be joined by Davidson, Hofstra, Minnesota, Nebraska,, Vanderbilt, West Virginia, and Western Kentucky. Tickets will go on sale next summer. 

Are you ready for Thanksgiving? What will you have for dessert? You can have the standard pumpkin pie or how about a pumpkin icebox pie?

DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. -- Say what you want about N.C. State's prospects for the long haul, but the Wolfpack hasn't missed a beat yet.

In what may have been one of the best halves by an N.C. State team in recent memory, the Wolfpack hit 10 of its first 14 shots on its way to a 22-point halftime lead and 66-45 win over Akron, the defending MAC champions and an NCAA Tournament team last year.

The Concord woman who had a shot at one million dollars on today's "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" by correctly answering one question, walked away from the question even though she knew the answer.

Jehan Shamsid-Deen was asked the following: "A rare example of the word that rhymes with 'orange,' the Blorenge is a what? A: River in Ireland, B: Forest in Scotland, C: Mountain in Wales, D: Desert in Australia."

Do you know the answer?

Love it or loathe it, Triangle radio listeners are getting twice as much Christmas music this year.

Two local stations this week switched to all-Christmas format, WRAL-FM 101.5 and WRDU-FM 106.1. Last year, WRAL was the only one.

As always, the quest for higher ratings drives the decision, especially with advertisers slashing spending. This is WRAL's third annual switch and last year ratings rose 38 percent among its target demographic, women aged 25 to 54, said program director Barry Fox.

"We lose a few listeners, but we gain many more," Fox said. "We were receiving a lot of calls and e-mails [this year], asking when we were going to start. Then when we made the switch, we got some complaints."

Here's an excerpt from today's Oprah show, where she explains why she made her decision to walk away from her network show in 18 months:

Investment banking giant Credit Suisse has sold back about half its land in Research Triangle Park after concluding that it has ample room for future expansion in its current facility.

"We can probably add another 450 people in the building," said Jim
Captain, site executive for the Switzerland-based company. Credit Suisse currently has 950 full-time workers -- a combination of employees and contractors -- in its 211,000 square foot building in RTP.

The company has sold back about 35 acres of undeveloped land plus designated "natural space" to the Research Triangle Foundation, which runs RTP. The selling price of roughly $3.2 million is the same price, on a per-acre basis, that Credit Suisse originally paid.