Birthday Party

My nine-year-old son is an early riser. He gets The Sun in the morning from the end of the driveway, dumps it on the floor and checks out the weather in the bottom right corner, under the fold. He was born on Opening Day, 2002. Since then, the Orioles are a combined 674-904, having finished a combined 262 games out of first place. We have not been above .500 later than Aug. 23 in his lifetime. Last year, we did not spend a single day above .500. This year, the Orioles pitching staff ranks 30th out of 30 MLB teams in earned run average, quality starts, earned runs, runs, hits, doubles, home runs, total bases and wins.

IF YOU ARE the parent of a young child, here is a novel idea for your kid's next birthday party.Instead of having the party at McDonald's or the bowling alley or Chuck E. Cheese's, where you have to deal with that stupid mechanical mouse and his goofy friends, maybe your child could have the party in his or her own home!Now, I know what you're thinking.You're thinking: This is too far out. This guy has flipped his lid. What kind of a world do we live in when some newspaper hack with an obvious drinking problem is allowed a fifth of Wild Turkey and access to a word processor, so he can spew forth any insane idea that pops into his whiskey-soaked brain?

I used to bowl semi-professionally - on the birthday party circuit - when my children were younger. It seemed they were always being invited to bowling birthday parties when they were in elementary school. From middle school on up, they were invited to the cooler version, "Cosmic Bowling," which adds another layer of entertainment in the form of flashing disco lights and blasting music videos. In the adult world, this is known as "Migraine Bowling." Frequently at these events, I'd end up reserving a lane a few down from the birthday party and bowl with the other parents who had drop-off and pick-up duty.

In Britain, poppets is a term of endearment for children.In Annapolis, it's a new store children should find endearing.Browsing in this children's shop in the Annapolis Harbour Center makes a visitor feel rather like Alice in Wonderland, after the Shrink-Me episode, what with the handmade dollhouses and endless shelves of miniature furnishings.There's a tea set by Muffy Vanderbear, labeled with the jingle: "A spot of tea for Mommy and me." A white settee just about reaches a child's knee, and the real porcelain tea set is slightly bigger than your thumb.

A month ago, Diane Green was combing the Internet at her home in Northern Virginia for information about one of her favorite baseball players -- Babe Ruth -- and found a Web site about the museum in Baltimore devoted to the legend. She was all set to pack her family into her car and drive from their home outside Fairfax to Southwest Baltimore, when she decided to delay the visit. The Web site was advertising the museum's annual Babe Ruth birthday party in a few weeks, and she wanted to be there for it. "We wanted to wait and make our first visit here a special one," said Green, before a champagne toast at the museum yesterday.

A Perry Hall woman's 30th birthday party ended in violence early yesterday when a guest stepping into an argument was killed by a young man swinging a Samurai sword, authorities and witnesses said.The victim, Noel Franke, 25, of the 7900 block of Marfield Place in Parkville, was nearly beheaded in the 1 a.m. attack, Baltimore County police said.They said Mr. Franke, a drywall contractor, was killed as he attempted to stop a quarrel over food between the assailant and another man in the woman's townhouse in the 8800 block of Green Needle Drive.

I 'm not sure when it happened, exactly, but at some point my children's birthday celebrations shifted from parties with pizza and cake to something more closely resembling a destination wedding, complete with a gift registry. We went from My Little Pony parties and GI Joe parties to plane tickets to the beach or Vegas. And now that my children are in their 20s, their birthdays seem to go on for weeks, if not the entire month. They're kind of like festivals. And if they aren't celebrating their own, they are celebrating the birthday of someone else in their pack, including any number of dinners out and an equal number of little gift bags.

For the past two years, James Nasty has co-hosted the Physical Education dance party at Ottobar each Friday, spinning everything from Basement Boys to Future Islands. This Friday, Nasty will not only host TT the Artist's birthday party at Ottobar, but he'll be shooting footage for his first music video. His sets are eclectic, so it's no surprise his answers for Like/Dislike are, too. What's on your iPod? Rye Rye's latest mixtape, RYEOT POWRR , with the homie, DJ Sega, Hall and Oates' Greatest Hits and the new LMFAO album, Sorry For Party Rocking . I also put tunes I have in the works on my iPod.

Salesmanship was the buzzword last night among the nearly 300 state and local Democrats who gathered to watch President Clinton's address and to celebrate the birthday of Councilwoman Vera P. Hall, the state Democratic Party's chairwoman."

Roger Joseph looked on as his 2-year-old daughter, Evelyn, wearing a sparkly tiara and standing on a chair surrounded by friends, opened a birthday present he had sent from Iraq. He saw her eyes widen as she pulled a camouflage backpack from the gift bag, and he smiled as her frosting-lined mouth broke into a wide grin at the sight of her new storybooks. After being deployed in October, Joseph, 39, was sure he would have to learn about Evelyn's birthday through e-mail and photos. But from 10,000 miles away at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq, Joseph - a sergeant in the Army Reserve - was able to watch and participate in her birthday party over a live satellite video feed that beamed his image onto a projection screen at the end of the table.