Angst

OH, WE KNOW how much this is killing you, Ravens fans. Let's face it, on Sundays, you want to forget about anthrax and layoffs and special ops forces and bin Laden, and the nightly parade of yakking heads chronicling the whole damn nightmare of the past six weeks. You want to forget about whether it's safe to fly without some wild-eyed lunatic barging through the cockpit door and whether you've stockpiled enough Cipro and oxygen masks and biohazard suits to make it to Thanksgiving. On Sundays, all you want to do is this: tilt back in the La-Z-Boy and crack a beer and watch your football team for a few hours and get your mind off the scary stuff, which these days is called "everyday life."

Few situations are more stressful than law school final exams, and 'tis the season. But frazzled test-takers at the University of Baltimore School of Law will enjoy a stress-free zone full of soft fluffy dog love and puppy kisses tomorrow thanks to an enterprising student and Pets on Wheels . Seven therapy dogs and their human volunteers will visit the law school lobby from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, May 3, to de-stress students in the middle...

The best comedy flows from real-life experiences, and nobody on television is tapping that vein better these days than "Seinfeld," the NBC series that tonight at 9 and 9:30 gives viewers a double feature of back-to-back episodes on WMAR (Channel 2).Star Jerry Seinfeld built his stand-up comedy reputation on the "didja' ever notice . . ." school of observational humor, and tonight's first episode tackles a commonplace urban stress: the hunt for a good parking place.Along the way, it also proves another formula for a successful comedy series: By reaching back to "The Honeymooners" and "I Love Lucy," the show demonstrates the need for a strong ensemble cast of almost-believable characters.

JOHANNESBURG — There is an undertone of disquiet about the 2010 World Cup. It is difficult to pin down exactly, but the feeling is pervasive and clues to its identity seem to surface daily. It would be too much to blame it on the country's sad and complicated history, but the legacy of apartheid did come into play Wednesday. Readers in Johannesburg awoke to see the headline "History is on Bafana's side" emblazoned across the front page of the Star. The reference was host South Africa's game against Uruguay and also to June 16, 1976, when thousands of schoolchildren in Soweto staged a protest march.

Ball of Fire: The Tumultuous Life and Comic Art of Lucille Ball, by Stefan Kanfer. Knopf. 384 pages. $25.95. For decades, the list of successful Hollywood comediennes began and ended with Lucille Ball. A one-time Goldwyn Girl (a group of attractive, long-limbed dancers used as cinematic window dressing during the 1930s and '40s by producer Samuel Goldwyn), Ball knocked around various Hollywood studio lots for years, eking out a living and generally serving as the best thing in bad pictures, before finding her niche in the early days of television.

BERLIN -- In the West German high school days of Sandra Reuse, gloomy books such as "1984" were not just novels. They were blueprints for the future.Life was comfortable for Germans. Money and jobs were plentiful, but so were nuclear missiles, offshore oil rigs and butchered whales.For this well-heeled generation in black jeans and black leather jackets, doom was inevitable, prosperity irrelevant."We knew there would be a catastrophe one day," says Reuse, now a 26-year-old university student.

PASADENA -- "Zoe, Duncan, Jack & Jane" is the midseason series with the biggest buzz. And some of it is even deserved.The WB, a red-hot network built on such teen dramas as "Dawson's Creek" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," is billing "Zoe" as its signature sitcom, the first WB comedy to embody the same angst, wit and edge as its dramas.It's been called a teen version of "Friends" and a teen "Seinfeld." There are similarities, especially to "Friends.""Zoe" is an ensemble sitcom with four main characters -- two girls and two guys.

There's a lot of pitching angst out there right now, but let's keep it in context. Did anyone think Mark Hendrickson and Brian Bass were going to be lights out? (For more, go to baltimoresun.com/schmuckblog)

On Joey Porter possibly joining the Ravens I don't know if Porter will want to come here. I'm sure he wants to go somewhere where he will be the leader, and he knows that is not going to happen here. This just adds to my angst with the Ravens right now. I despise Porter so much I don't think I could even stomach rooting for him as a Raven.

8 p.m. [ESPN] If I understand this right, the series follows a group of gamers going around the country (including Baltimore) competing against each other in the Madden NFL video game. Much angst apparently ensues. In a world where a song written by glum rocker Morrissey can be part of an NFL promo ad, I suppose anything is possible.

The problem: Why is a lane of a busy downtown Baltimore street closed to traffic during the evening rush? The back story: Charlie Dell has had plenty of time to observe what's been slowing down traffic along Franklin Street just east of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. For more than a month, the Catonsville resident noticed that the southernmost lane of westbound Franklin has been blocked off to allow drivers to enter and exit a garage between Paca and Greene streets near the Social Security Administration building.

What was in the water of Montgomery County when director Spike Jonze grew up there? His talented, self-destructive movie version of "Where the Wild Things Are" connects to the woe-is-me side of the childhood psyche. In Jonze's vision of the classic Maurice Sendak picture book, Max, the scamp who escapes to a world of wild things after his mother calls him a wild thing, becomes a needy guy whose new friends echo his own loneliness and melancholy. He's more of a mood-swinger than a vine-swinger.

Many banks automatically cover your debit or ATM card transactions when you don't have enough money in your account, even if you never asked them to do it. It comes at a price, of course. Banks might charge $35 for each overdraft, no matter how small your transgression. Suddenly, a $3 blueberry muffin costs $38. But the days of enrolling you in an expensive overdraft protection program without your say-so may be numbered. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd says he is drafting legislation that would require banks to get your permission before enrolling you in the service.

There's a lot of pitching angst out there right now, but let's keep it in context. Did anyone think Mark Hendrickson and Brian Bass were going to be lights out? (For more, go to baltimoresun.com/schmuckblog)

The Virgin Mary as a fiery women's libber? Joseph as an insecure, self-doubting man? The angel Gabriel as an inexperienced, error-prone teenage boy? William Gibson's quirky, colorful and spectacular take on the Christmas story - The Butterfingers Angel, Mary & Joseph, Herod the Nut & the Slaughter of 12 Hit Carols in a Pear Tree - is at Rep Stage through Jan. 4. The compendious title recalls the names given to Christmas pantomimes in Victorian England, such as Harlequin and the Old Man of the Sea, the Emperor, the Ogre, the Good Fairy, and the Princess.

8 p.m. [ESPN] If I understand this right, the series follows a group of gamers going around the country (including Baltimore) competing against each other in the Madden NFL video game. Much angst apparently ensues. In a world where a song written by glum rocker Morrissey can be part of an NFL promo ad, I suppose anything is possible.

The Supreme Court has decided there are worse things than segregation, such as desegregation.George has agreed to aid Russia, and will discuss paying for it after the election.Democrats had better start thinking of Brown as a candidate for president and not just as a vehicle for angst about Clinton.The people of Maryland cannot pay another dime of taxes. Off-track betting in the millions, they can afford.No stadium can be as good as the anticipation and hype for this one.The Greens replaced the Reds as the great threat to French politics.

The best comedy flows from real-life experiences, and nobody on television is tapping that vein better these days than "Seinfeld," the NBC series that tonight at 9 and 9:30 gives viewers a double feature of back-to-back episodes on WMAR (Channel 2).Star Jerry Seinfeld built his stand-up comedy reputation on the ,, "didja' ever notice . . ." school of observational humor, and tonight's first episode tackles a commonplace urban stress: the hunt for a good parking place.Along the way, it also proves another formula for a successful comedy series: By reaching back to "The Honeymooners" and "I Love Lucy," the show demonstrates the need for a strong ensemble cast of almost-believable characters.

As every red-blooded American boy knows, the first rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club - and the second rule of fight club is you don't talk about fight club. That goes triple for Never Back Down, not because it's a secret worth keeping, but because it's reprehensible. Tom Cruise lookalike Sean Faris stars as a brainy, fight-prone high school football star who moves from Iowa to Orlando, Fla. There he becomes involved with a crowd devoted to practicing mixed-martial arts in their clubs, schools and McMansions.

MOB BOSS SUPREME TONY Soprano (James Gandolfini) these days tells himself that every day is a gift, but after being shot in the abdomen, simply eating sausage threatens to put him back in the emergency room. Rival mafioso Phil Leotardo (Frank Vincent) is back on the streets, but after quintuple bypass surgery and a near-fatal post-op infection, he's just hoping to make it to retirement. PAGE 7E ONLINE DECIDE TONY'S FATE How will it end for Tony Soprano? When the last episode of The Sopranos airs on June 10, will Tony live or die?