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I was flying out of Chicago yesterday morning and caught something interesting in the Chicago Tribune. We remember all of the talk about the Cubs wanting to trade Mark Prior for Miguel Tejada during the offseason. The Tribune's Fred Mitchell reported yesterday that the deal was a bit more complicated than that, and the Orioles weren't as interested in Prior as you might think. Here's an excerpt: What has not been widely reported is that the Orioles originally wanted Corey Patterson, Ronny Cedeno and Prior from the Cubs.

It's been a busy week in Maryland politics, with the General Assembly session heating up and more news about the possible sale of the state's thoroughbred tracks. Here are some highlights from The Baltimore Sun's Maryland Politics blog, along with selected comments from readers: Shopping center magnate Carl Verstandig plans to bid on Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park and wants to redevelop them into retail centers. His preference, he says, is to raze Pimlico, and he doesn't seem all that enamored of keeping Laurel running, either.

Each week, one of Charlie Conner's stories about life with his wife and four kids in Catonsville appears on the Internet. Flush with their tax refund but unable to find a baby sitter, he and his wife forgo a fancy dinner for two and take the kids out for cheeseburgers. With a tinge of regret, his wife gives up "liquid refreshment" for Lent. Spring comes with erratic weather, but flowers manage to blossom in the yard. "Actually, in a walk around the house Sunday between showers, I could count more than a dozen in various colors and some just coming up," he writes in an entry, adding, "Otherwise, the yard is a soggy mess."

Here are a few final observations from the weekend in College Park and Philadelphia: Connecticut should be booking its flight to Indianapolis, because it's almost impossible to imagine losing to Washington, George Mason or Wichita State. Of course, Illinois, North Carolina and Tennessee probably couldn't imagine it either, but Connecticut simply should not lose to any of the teams coming to D.C. Then again, Connecticut shouldn't have had to sweat out Albany and a Kentucky team that didn't exactly bring back memories of the Goose Givens days, or even Jeff Sheppard.

SpaceCadetz (www.spacecadetz.com) has a lofty mission statement: To sift through the more than 85 million profiles on myspace.com and find the best. "The best" is subjective, of course, and in this case skews heavily toward the hip-hop artists and musicians whom the blog founder favors and feels deserve more recognition. Mixed in with plugs for graffiti/street artists and hip-hop bands are profiles of the well-endowed young women who make MySpace so popular among young men. Q&As with interesting creative types round out the fare.

Unleashed is looking for its next owner (of sorts). Unleashed needs a freelance blogger who can write Baltimore-centric pet news items and features. You'll post about local pets and their people, animal issues (think pit bulls!), cat/dog shows, animal events, helpful tips, amazing images and viral videos. You'll work your social-media contacts to help drive traffic to the blog. And you can gush over your own animal(s) as well, as long as they're cute and/or lovable. Unleashed has standing features but plenty of opportunity for one-off posts; some postings appear in Sun print publications as well.

Five years ago, when someone suggested to Gary Vikan, the director of the Walters Art Museum, that he start a blog, he didn't know what a blog was. Not many people did. Now, inspired by the millions of people who are sounding off on the Internet, Vikan has added his voice to the mix. He thinks he's the first major museum director to do so. In his third posting on thewalters.org/blog late last month, Vikan pulled no punches. He took on his colleagues at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana, Calif.

If Alex P. Keaton were around today, he might have a thing for Amanda Gleason. Keaton, you may recall, was the briefcase-toting teen played by Michael J. Fox in the '80s sitcom Family Ties who ardently read the Wall Street Journal and had a picture of Ronald Reagan on his bedroom wall. Gleason is the founder of Young and Broke (youngandbroke.typepad.com), a personal finance blog for the younger-than-25 crowd. Young and Broke is largely without the eye-glazing chatter about diversified stocks and P/E ratios you often find on other sites.

CHICAGO - Should homosexuals be hired as teachers? One outspoken Internet pundit says no. But his opinion has fueled a controversy over academic freedom of expression because it is posted on a site maintained by the writer's employer, a state university. Hiring gay teachers "puts the fox into the chicken coop," Eric Rasmusen wrote on his Web log, or "blog," on Aug. 26. "Male homosexuals, at least, like boys and are generally promiscuous," he continued. "They should not be given the opportunity to satisfy their desires."