Party

When Stacey Barich turned the modest dining room of her Parkville home into a tiki bar inspired by the 1930s, it became a project of passion for the 40-year-old photographer. Pairing her love of vintage culture with a growing obsession with authenticity, Barich quickly found herself on eBay, searching and bidding for additions to the new favorite room in her house. The research and collecting quickly led Barich to the world of handcrafted cocktails. "Once that happens, you're picking up old vintage books on how to make things," Barich said.

Maryland's Fire Marshall has banned sky lanterns, the increasingly popular paper balloons that are sent aloft by the heat of a candle or fuel cell suspended from the bottom. "They're made with oiled rice paper and bamboo - it's almost kindling," said Deputy State Fire Marshal Bruce D. Bouch. "They have to land somewhere, and sometimes they're still partly on fire when they hit the ground. They've been known to ignite dry vegetation. " Bouch said the fire marshal's office frequently gets calls from people interested in using sky lanterns in weddings or other celebrations who want to know if they are legal in Maryland.

Last week, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal called on his fellow Republicans to stop being "the stupid party" Yet in his recent column, commentator Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. made it clear that if he got the memo, he chose to ignore it ("The vast left-wing conspiracy," Feb. 3). There's not enough space in your entire Sunday edition to point out all the things Mr. Ehrlich routinely gets wrong. But this time there was one thing that stood out as an especially excellent example of the "stupid" Governor Jindal was referring to. The "you didn't build that" remark, which Mr. Ehrlich erroneously referred to as President Obama's "rhetoric" from the 2012 campaign, was actually part of a longer quote that the GOP took completely out of context, then used as their theme at the Republican National Convention in what may be the lamest move in presidential campaign history.

In the Republican Party's developing effort to put on a new face after November's presidential defeat, the latest gesture is trotting out freshman Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida to deliver the GOP response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address before Congress next week. The 41-year-old Rubio, the American-born son of naturalized Cuban-American parents, will deliver his speech in English and Spanish -- in case anyone might miss the political significance in a country with a rapidly surging Hispanic population that gave 73 percent of its votes to Mr. Obama.

Three in every 10 Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. customers are buying their electricity through third-party suppliers, continuing a steady trend of increases in recent years, the company said Wednesday. About 30 percent of electricity customers don't purchase their energy from BGE, up from 25 percent at the end of 2011 and 18 percent at the end of 2010, the company said. BGE's natural-gas customers are less likely to switch to third-party providers, though more have done so in the last few years - 22 percent, up from 13 percent at the end of 2010.

This was a city pouring out its heart to its football team, a city with a perennial chip on its shoulder telling the world how proud it was of what the Ravens accomplished in one of the greatest playoff runs in NFL history. This was the biggest and loudest and most boisterous victory parade you've ever seen, a two-hour party through downtown Baltimore. It ended the way they'd script it in Hollywood, with the great Ray Lewis holding up the silver Vince Lombardi Trophy in front of a packed house at M&T Bank Stadium, doing that crazy "Squirrel" dance one last time and ending his glorious "last ride" after 17 seasons in a Ravens uniform.

Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti doesn't go half-stepping when he puts on a party. The Ravens' postgame celebration for friends and family featured a live performance by Mary J. Blige, who invited Ray Lewis up to the stage to teach her his famous “squirrel dance.” The bash continued well into the early morning and Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco said at today's MVP news conference that he got maybe an hour of sleep. He and coach John Harbaugh looked pretty sharp under the circumstances, as they took another round of questions about Sunday night's game.

The National Weather Service says there's a chance of some light snow during the late afternoon on Sunday throughout the Baltimore area, including neighboring counties of Howard, Carroll and Anne Arundel, with a slightly less chance to the north in Harford County. Total snow accumulation of less than a half-inch are expected. Tonight will be mostly cloudy with snow showers in the evening, then partly cloudy after midnight. The State Highway Administration is reminding motorists to take it slow and leave plenty of following distance when driving on potentially slippery roadways as they go to and from Super Bowl gatherings.

I'm not trolling for any sympathy, since I got to spend the whole week in New Orleans covering the buildup to the Super Bowl, but it hasn't been all happy hours and fancy "Hurricane" drinks for this former party animal. The only party I got invited to was the media party last Tuesday night, and every fool with a credential gets invited to that. Some of my friends got into the Rolling Stone (Magazine) party, which must have been rockin'. The Playboy and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit parties also are very hot tickets.

As the hosts of one of the most coveted annual Super Bowl parties in Maryland, Steve and Zivah Ring have obligations to uphold. So what if they had planned on spending much of the winter in sunny Florida? After the Ravens secured the AFC championship two weeks ago, the Rings hopped a plane back to frigid Baltimore. "We came into town just to throw this party," said Zivah Ring of Stevenson. "And we're leaving again right afterwards. " Over the past 47 years, Super Bowl Sunday has morphed from just another blah winter weekend day into an unofficial national holiday.