Ernie

Used to be when Rick Chiricosta, chief financial officer of a Cleveland life insurance company, had a question about IRS regulations or 401(k) plans, he'd call a professional, dig through piles of data to find the answer or perhaps go without the information.Then came Ernie, the Web-based consulting service from Ernst & Young LLP that's run by a native Baltimorean from his Howard County home.The service allows subscribers to send e-mail to consultants with questions about such things as what kind of software to buy and complex tax rules.

The family of longtime Orioles umpires attendant Ernie Tyler is suing a Baltimore nursing home, claiming that a doctor at the facility cut off life-sustaining care to Tyler without authorization. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Baltimore Circuit Court, alleges that a day after Tyler checked into Genesis ElderCare Long Green Center in February 2011, his attending physician, Kenneth Lindyberg, "terminated necessary medical care, including antibiotics, blood products, medical tests, and medications without Mr. Tyler's permission and without the knowledge or permission of his family.

The sound you just heard was the crash of the Sing & Snore Ernie market.In a very 1990s twist on O'Henry's "Gift of the Magi," some pre-Christmas speculators tried to corner the market on this season's putative hot toy, figuring to make a quick profit by selling the $30 doll at grossly inflated prices.Instead, they learned a little lesson about supply and demand: Cornering the supply doesn't mean diddly if there's no demand. As Christmas approached, and newspapers filled with classified ads for the singing, snoring Muppet -- upward of 70 ads a day as the market bottomed out -- sellers who had once hoped to make as much as $500 slashed prices to $300, $200, $150, $60, even $39.Even the day after Christmas, almost two dozen ads appeared in The Sun, many with pie-in-the-sky asking prices.

Cable channel TBS Thursday announced that Cal Ripken will be in the booth Friday night as an analyst when the Baltimore Orioles take on the Texas Rangers in a one-game wild-card showdown in Texas. He will be joined by Ernie Johnson (play-by-play) and John Smoltz (analyst), with Craig Sager on the field. The telecast is scheduled to start at 8:30 p.m. Here's the release from TBS with the playoff lineups: TBS's coverage of the 2012 MLB Postseason will begin with the exclusive presentation of the first-ever, single-elimination Wild Card presented by Budweiser on Friday, Oct. 5, a doubleheader featuring the Atlanta Braves hosting the St. Louis Cardinals at 5 p.m. ET and the Baltimore Orioles visiting the Texas Rangers at 8:30 p.m.  Brian Anderson will provide play-by-play commentary for Cardinals/Braves with analysts Ron Darling and Joe Simpson and reporter Tom Verducci.  Ernie Johnson will call Orioles/Rangers with analysts John Smoltz and Cal Ripken, Jr., and reporter Craig Sager.

Good morning--Ernie Tyler--Enjoy your well-deserved trip to Cooperstown.

Any dietitian could have told Ernesto Mota that he was making a serious mistake. For that matter, any short-order cook would have told him the same thing.But some people are just going to do what they want to do. And Ernie Mota appears to be one of them.What happened to Ernie was this:He was pinched for drunken driving in Oak Forest, a blue-collar Chicago suburb.When the police got him to the station, they asked him what he had in his pockets.It turned out that he had a plastic bag bulging with cocaine.

Fox has another good idea gone bad premiering Sunday night. It's a sitcom set in a funeral home which, as fans of "The Loved One" can testify, is actually a perfect place for black humor and social commentary."

"Good Grief" is bad news.The new Fox sitcom, which premieres at 9:30 Sunday night on WBFF-TV (Channel 45), is not very funny, has no consistent focus and is likely to offend gays and lesbians with all its low-rent homosexual humor. That about cover it? Not quite.Like other disappointing Fox pilots this fall, "Good Grief" looked good on paper.It's about a mortuary business run by brothers-in-law. Warren Pepper (Joel Brooks) is the son of the mortuary's original owner. Warren is conservative and traditional.

On March 18, 2008, DOROTHY EMMA (nee Harris); beloved wife of the late Ernie Saxberg; loving mother of Dolores Parker, James Lee, Herbert Lee, Ernie Saxberg and the late John R. Lee; cherished grandmother of 15 grandchildren, 33 great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren; dear sister of, Ruth Miller, Marie Triabassi and the late Ethel Keifer. A funeral service will be held at the family owned Duda-Ruck Funeral Home, of Dundalk Inc., 7922 Wise Ave. Saturday, 10 A.M. Interment Oak Lawn Cemetery.

Who's ready to leave the white sandy beaches of Lake Malawi? I wouldn't mind hanging out there for a few days, but this show insists on traveling around the entire world, so it's off to Copenhagen, Denmark, for the first time in Race history. The Malawi-Denmark air travel corridor isn't that popular, so production has secured flights for the teams. However, they are allowed to try for something better. For reasons that I blinked and missed, Marcus and Amani do not try for something better.

Ernest R. "Ernie" Crapster III, a retired pressman who enjoyed gardening and boating, died Saturday of lung and heart failure at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis. The longtime Riva resident was 67. The son of a baking company manager and a homemaker, Ernest Ridgley Crapster III was born in Baltimore, and when he was 7 moved with his family to Glen Burnie. After graduating in 1964 from Glen Burnie High School, Mr. Crapster took courses at Anne Arundel Community College.

More than 30 years after playing at Maryland, Ernie Graham was asked Thursday night whether he thought the day would come when his jersey was honored by the school. "Honestly, no," Graham said. On Thursday night, Graham -- who also played for Baltimore's Dunbar --  joined 16 other Terps whose names and numbers appear on banners hanging from the Comcast Center rafters. “It still feels good to be home - finally,” he said. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake attended the pregame ceremony.

It's finale time! I hope most of you are still invested after the tragic Philimination of the Snowboarders last week. Sure, they were the easy favorites, but now you have to dig down and ask yourself who you really want to win. You all know Ernie is my TV boyfriend, so perhaps I didn't have to dig that deep to find a team to cheer. So let's start in Panama, where everyone leaves just after midnight. They're flying to Atlanta. Sandy is mad, you guys, and I couldn't figure out why she hated Atlanta so much until she says that Amani and Marcus are from there.

Are your bellies laden with Thanksgiving leftovers? Would you like to vicariously burn some calories by watching people race around the world? Great! Except tonight, it's not so much racing around the world as it is racing cars and pigeons in Belgium, and it's not so much about burning calories because it's Waffle Time! Quick, someone write me a theme song for Waffle Time. I bet you forgot that last week was a cliffhanger, right? I had a six-hour drive to my Thanksgiving dinner, so it slipped my mind, too. But this isn't [all]

Will the rubber duckie be the best man? The are-they-or-aren't-they gay jokes about Ernie and Bert have a long history. I think an image of them holding hands was carved by early man in the caves at Lascaux. But could the two actually get married? Huffington Post reports today that more than 900 people have signed a petition urging the makers of "Sesame Street" get married. Lair Scott started the petition  which reads, in part, "In this horrific age of LGBT kids taking their own lives, they need to know that they ARE Beautiful and their lives are worth living.

The arrival of the American Ice Co. truck at the corner of Barclay and 29th streets was huge neighborhood news. It signaled open season for the snowball. A nickel cup of ice flavored with root beer, orange, lime or cherry could cut the drudgery of summer and work wonders during July's torture. Made just right, with a good shot of syrup, it remains the Baltimore pleasure of the dog days. Even though it was 1955, the ice truck looked like something out of a 1930s Warner Brothers movie.

LILLIAN DELORES COX, 84, of Glen Burnie, MD went to be with her Lord Jesus Christ on New Year's Day, 2004. She was the devoted wife of Ernest E. Cox, Sr. and would have celebrated 68 years of marital bliss on February 14th. She was the loving mother of two children, Diane Horseman of Glen Burnie, MD and Ernie Cox, Jr. of Chester, VA. "Nana" was a doting grandmother of six, David and Sean Hare, John, Jeff, and Jason Cox and Kimberly Parks. She was blessed to be a great-grandmother of nine all of whom she adored.