Irresistible

With 1996's Fargo (8 p.m., AMC), Joel and Ethan Coen found mass acceptance without sacrificing a scintilla of their indie cred - no small accomplishment in an era when popular and critical tastes were becoming increasingly polarized. This, the brothers' sixth film together (they both write; Joel gets the directing credit), follows the classic Coen formula: a bunch of doofuses get together and try something either illegal or stupid (often both). They find themselves in way over their heads and don't have a clue what to do next.

Ecker doesn't blink an 'I' on question about initialAs Anita Iribe was giving the League of Women Voters a short biography of County Executive Charles I. Ecker recently, she paused in mid-sentence."

Shopping at sale time is irresistible. This year, though, with significant fashion changes in the air, it's necessary to fine tune your antenna for signals about what fashions will last.Look for long skirts. They are here for at least the foreseeable future. So are designer clothes with long, fluid lines; almost anything from Donna Karan to Karl Lagerfeld fits in this category, as do cutting-edge creations from designers like Commes des Garcons or Yohji Yamamoto.The plus ultra nightgown of satin and lace you covet, but wonder when you will ever wear, may become your '93 going out costume.

August is a lot like February. It's one of those months you just get through. Summer's not quite over, but the thrill is gone. School hasn't started yet, but it's on your mind. And there are no official holidays.For me, August has one saving grace. Honeydew melons. True, lots of other summer fruits peak now, but none reach honeydew's flavor perfection.August honeydews are creamy yellow on the outside and so fragrant they tantalize as you walk by. The flesh is medium green, unbelievably sweet and so succulent the juice drips off your chin.

Did you hear the one in Howard County this week about the four cows that broke out of their confines? It took a police tactical response team, several animal control officers, state livestock experts and two helicopters equipped with heat-sensing devices to track down the escapees. Two of the heifers were shot dead, but two others escaped into the woods and haven't been seen since.It would all be that much more laughable it it weren't so scandalously true. Let us state unequivocally from the beginning that we are rooting 100 percent for the surviving cows in this bizarre story.

DOES YOUR blood run cold, friend, when you read about the glories of "cyberspace"? Do you have to repress a shriek of protest every time you hear or read or think about "the information highway"?If so, it means you are an old stick-in-the-mud and are doomed to end up in the dustbin of history unless you surrender immediately and come along quietly into the age of electronics amok.As a devout reactionary, I naturally despise what these zealous engineers propose to do to us, but cruel experience reminds me it is foolish to oppose them when they are in the heat of re-inventing the world.

Terrell Suggs couldn't have flown under the radar yesterday even if he had tried. But anyone who knows him knew he wasn't going to try. And his teammates and coaches made sure Suggs wouldn't end up there, anyway. Suggs' prints were all over the scene of the crime the Ravens committed against the Oakland Raiders, a deceptive 29-10 victory at M&T Bank Stadium. Every plot line ran through him. Even when the Ravens had the ball - especially then. It would have been plain wrong for John Harbaugh to pass up the chance to toy with the living, breathing headline machine Suggs had been all week.

The Bamboo House in Cockeysville is a comfortable, soothing oasis set incongruously in a shopping center off York Road. It is announced, even more incongruously, by a huge, screaming "BAMBOO HOUSE" sign that dominates the center's entrance.The Bamboo House is also a successful oasis, having recently grown from one room to three, all done most soothingly in subtle shades of gray and peach with subdued lighting from large, modernistic fixtures.The feeling of being at ease grows with the treatment afforded customers.

Many of us learn it by bitter experience. Now scientists say it's true. Some people, thanks to their genetics, behavior, diet or some poorly understood combination of factors, have body chemistry that draws mosquitoes like linebackers to a loose football. Others just seem invisible to the bugs. "I am irresistible to mosquitoes," said Michele Karanzalis, 33, a research project manager from Overlea. "I just try to stay inside a lot ... I start to get panic atacks after a while when I feel like I'm getting bit too much."

Lobbyists for Maryland's real estate industry claim a broad network of political friends in the General Assembly, but to pass an important bill this year they needed a dramatic breakthrough -- a legislative champion or an irresistible argument.They got both.At issue was a major effort by the industry to reduce Maryland's notoriously high closing costs by cutting to six months from one year the amount of property taxes buyers have to pay in advance when they buy a home.The bill got its champion when the speaker of the House of Delegates, Casper R. Taylor Jr., agreed to support the measure.