Kat

Phat Kat feels my pain. We agree that it's time for the hip-hop game to change. "Man, I'm a rapper. This is what I do, but I can't stand listening to hip-hop these days," he says. "Too much stupid [stuff] on the radio, trying to be the real thing. It's not, man." No doubt. On his new album, Carte Blanche, the East Detroit rapper makes no concessions to the self-aggrandizing, blackfaced-blinged-out inanity passing as hip-hop these days. Which means you won't hear this record on commercial radio, and Phat Kat (real name: Ronnie Watts)

This episode made me happy. There may be hope for this season yet. At camp, in night cam after Tribal Council, Sabrina now has a big ol' target painted on her back because she's smart, straightforward, people like her, and she's articulate enough to convince a jury to see things her way. Alicia think she's in a pretty good position right now because she's none of those things. For once, I agree with her. Treemail is product placed, and leads me to believe that reward will be calls to home, but as always, the family and friends are already on the island.

Kat McIntosh was 2 years old the first time she saw her mother dive in the big tank at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. Nose pressed to the glass, she watched her mother, a volunteer diver, float into a rainbow of hundreds of fancy fish. At first, the scene fascinated the toddler. "And then the food came out and the fish just swarmed," said Kat, laughing. "I banged on the glass, `Don't hurt my mommy.' " Nowadays, it's Kat McIntosh who's getting swarmed in the water and her mom, Linda McIntosh, who watches a bit nervously from the pool deck.

Can Troyzan manage to stick around for another week, or will this be the most predictable season of "Survivor" ever? Back from Tribal Council, Tarzan has figured out that the numbers are not in his favor, but he's wrong if he thinks sticking with the women and keeping his head down is the way to go. If Troy gets immunity (which could easily happen), Tarzan is going home. Kim is disturbed that she's been outed as a target -- umm, you've been pulling the strings for a couple of weeks now (out of a total 4)

SUN SCORE * 1/2 The Wedding Date is the perfect movie for those whose only desire is to see Debra Messing look winsome or Dermot Mulroney appear hunky. The rest of us are going to find this inert romantic comedy seriously wanting. While attempting to be equal parts Pretty Woman and My Best Friend's Wedding, this movie manages to make both of those earlier efforts seem like stunning cinematic achievements - at least they were put together with some forethought, offered a few honest laughs and contained natural chemistry between their stars.

Engineer for Koffel certified to examine building plans Clay P. Aler, a senior fire protection engineer with Koffel Associates Inc. of Ellicott City, has earned designation as Building Plans Examiner, bestowed in a joint certification program by Building Officials Code Administrators and Southern Building Code Congress International. Aler's qualification allows him to certify that construction documents submitted to the state as part of the permit process comply with the 2000 International Building Code and certain National Fire Protection Association Standards.

This episode made me happy. There may be hope for this season yet. At camp, in night cam after Tribal Council, Sabrina now has a big ol' target painted on her back because she's smart, straightforward, people like her, and she's articulate enough to convince a jury to see things her way. Alicia think she's in a pretty good position right now because she's none of those things. For once, I agree with her. Treemail is product placed, and leads me to believe that reward will be calls to home, but as always, the family and friends are already on the island.

Can Troyzan manage to stick around for another week, or will this be the most predictable season of "Survivor" ever? Back from Tribal Council, Tarzan has figured out that the numbers are not in his favor, but he's wrong if he thinks sticking with the women and keeping his head down is the way to go. If Troy gets immunity (which could easily happen), Tarzan is going home. Kim is disturbed that she's been outed as a target -- umm, you've been pulling the strings for a couple of weeks now (out of a total 4)

The History Book By Humphrey Hawksley Warner Books / 330 pages / $24.95 Too many international thrillers suffer from a lack of believability - or at least, a lack of visceral knowledge of the many worlds and fields covered. BBC World Affairs correspondent Hawksley certainly has the latter qualification covered, having been to dozens of countries and war zones as part of his reporting duties, and if The History Book could use a healthy dose of plausibility, it doesn't skimp on entertainment value.

The Sun's Live section invited four bloggers to tell readers about the ultimate Baltimore Cheap Eats weekend. The Ultimate Cheap Weekend includes Cara Ober of Bmoreart on affordable arts events , Will Morton of the B-More-Dad blog on favorite inexpensive family activities and Evan Siple of City That Breeds on his cheap-drinking favorites . The cheap-eats food coverage was done by Kit Pollard of...

The Sun's Live section invited four bloggers to tell readers about the ultimate Baltimore Cheap Eats weekend. The Ultimate Cheap Weekend includes Cara Ober of Bmoreart on affordable arts events , Will Morton of the B-More-Dad blog on favorite inexpensive family activities and Evan Siple of City That Breeds on his cheap-drinking favorites . The cheap-eats food coverage was done by Kit Pollard of...

Baltimore Pro Boxing Heavyweights Byarm, Johnson to clash Dec. 11 in Pikesville Heavyweight Maurice "Freight Train" Byarm will take on Theron Johnson on Dec. 11 in the main event of Baltimore Pro Boxing's "Season's Beatings" live from the Pikesville Armory. Tickets start at $35 and can be ordered by calling 410-675-6900, logging onto Baltimoreboxing.com or going to the Armory's box office. Byarm and Johnson will battle it out over eight rounds for the East Coast Heavyweight Championship.

Kat Nicholson, 12, helped fry 22 pounds of bacon and scramble 20 dozen eggs well before dawn yesterday so that a Howard County food shelter could serve breakfast. Hours later, she was making dozens of bag lunches to distribute to the homeless in Baltimore. The smell and the feel of food heightened her hunger, but she didn't so much as take a taste. She had promised to fast for 30 hours. About 250 Howard County teens from more than a dozen different churches participated in the 2009 World Vision 30 Hour Famine, an event that meant forgoing food from midday Friday to 6 p.m. yesterday.

Toby Devens knows firsthand that being over 50 doesn't make a woman over the hill. The Clarksville resident is a successful author, a widow twice over, and mother to an adult daughter. The characters in Devens' first novel, My Favorite Midlife Crisis (Yet), could be her own circle of friends. They are three women juggling love lives, aging parents, relationships with grown children, and their own careers. Devens said an "ability to find humor, except in the most difficult circumstances, is probably what buoys up most women."

One of the best things about going out in Baltimore is that anything can happen. Spend a few hours on the town -- even on a weeknight -- and there's no telling what you could run into. A few friends and I went to the Kitty Kat Bar in Remington on a Tuesday, when it offered $3 Guinness and Bass drafts. Sounds simple enough, right? The Kitty Kat doesn't have a neon marquee -- just a black-and-white sign in a side window, which is puzzling, considering that the bar has been open since late last year.

The History Book By Humphrey Hawksley Warner Books / 330 pages / $24.95 Too many international thrillers suffer from a lack of believability - or at least, a lack of visceral knowledge of the many worlds and fields covered. BBC World Affairs correspondent Hawksley certainly has the latter qualification covered, having been to dozens of countries and war zones as part of his reporting duties, and if The History Book could use a healthy dose of plausibility, it doesn't skimp on entertainment value.

Where other people see wondrously detailed depictions of birds, Rolf Kat sees rips, stains and grimy fingerprints marring valuable art. Kat, a conservator from Philadelphia, has seen four volumes of blemished artwork in the Maryland State Law Library, where he spent several days this month examining bound volumes of James J. Audubon's 19th- century "Birds of America" subscription series prints. He's methodically scanned each print, touching worn edges, assessing damage before typing notes into a laptop computer.

Hot on the heels of the stunning success of "Shakespeare in Love" comes "Ten Things I Hate About You," a teen comedy that contemporizes "The Taming of the Shrew" with enough sprightly wit and winning performances to engage its teen audience and even provide adults with a surprising amount of genuine laughs.The Shakespeare play seems ideally suited for a "Clueless"-style brush-up, which "Ten Things" pulls off with flair, thanks to a bright screenplay and a cast of gifted young actors. Chief among the latter is Julia Stiles, who plays Kat, a temperamental high school senior who eschews the company of her classmates for the more lugubriously satisfying prose of Sylvia Plath and Ani DiFranco.

They weren't caught with their hands in the candy jar, police say, but the woman smeared with fudge and the teenagers' trail of Kit Kat wrappers came mighty close. Twice in one week in Anne Arundel County, authorities have arrested people who allegedly became burglars to satisfy a late-night sweet tooth. Annapolis police say a 35-year-old Greenbelt woman broke into a downtown fudge store last week and was found at a nearby hotel crying and bewildered, with sticky fudge coating her arms and shirt and unwrapped bricks of fudge spilling out of her pockets.