Real World

A CONVENTION of trading card carriers convened on a city street recently, taking both kid and parent beyond frustration to anger and despair. A Pokemon commonplace, it began with proud collectors showing prized acquisitions to friends.They sat on the sidewalk going through their hand-carried archive of cards in ring binders.Not much time passed before one or more of the cards -- the more expensive and rare ones, of course -- went missing. One of the conventioneers was fingered as the likely culprit.

When they married nearly two decades ago, Hans Moravec promised his wife that one day he'd get her a robot to vacuum the house.He's expecting to deliver on that promise one day soon.Moravec, a professor at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University, says the pace of progress in robotics research labs suggests that household robots might become commercially available in five to 10 years."Robots have started doing things all over the place," said Moravec, author of the book, "Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind."

IF THERE'S ONE thing this nation needs, it's bigger cars. That's why I'm excited that Ford is coming out with a new mound o' metal that will offer consumers even more total road-squatting mass than the current leader in the humongous-car category, the popular Chevrolet Suburban Subdivision -- the first passenger automobile designed to be, right off the assembly line, visible from the moon.I don't know what the new Ford will be called. Probably something like the "Ford Untamed Wilderness Adventure."

Wearing a suit, a tie and shiny loafers and clutching a briefcase, Kristofer Mickens is hardly what audiences have come to expect from an MTV "Real World" housemate.Still, the 23-year-old actor -- one of 662 "Real World" wannabes at the Inner Harbor Planet Hollywood yesterday auditioning to become a cast member for the eighth season of the Gen-X documentary -- was pretty sure he would make it."I'm not worried about that at all," he said, standing confidently upright at the front of the line.

Given that MTV's "The Real World," which begins its seventh season tonight, is advertised as the "true story" of its seven strangers, a memoir of the experience may seem redundant.But in "Livin' In Joe's World," the first memoir written by a former cast member, Joe Patane has taken a shot at it.Patane, a member of "The Real World's" Miami cast two years ago, has crafted an unlikely amalgam, a kind of "1984" meets "The Road Less Traveled." In the end, his book reveals more about the short, business-minded mensch with the Amazon girlfriend than it does about the show.

WHEN HER tearful 8-year-old son ambushed her with questions about condoms and AIDS and whether Mommy and Daddy were safe from disease and death, a flustered Catherine Wallace quickly explained that Mommy and Daddy had exclusive rights to each other and were, therefore, safe from infection by someone else."

It can't be real. But it's true: MTV is about to inflict upo viewers a seventh season of its insufferable "The Real World." It starts Tuesday, this time set in Seattle.For six seasons now, audiences have endured the craftily edited "true stories" of seven attractive, strategically stereotypical young people with various personality disorders plunked into luxurious domiciles in one cosmopolitan locale after another. Once there, they proceed to whine incessantly.Enough! What are the spoiled brats complaining about, anyway?

It started with a simple premise that long-ago first season in New York: Take seven twentysomethings with diverse backgrounds, put them in a well-accoutered apartment in a cosmopolitan city, videotape their lives in pseudo-documentary style and condense the experience into 10 hours of TV programming. Call it "The Real World," set it to a slick soundtrack and broadcast it on MTV as a "true" Gen-X soap opera.For about three years, the idea worked. "The Real World" had drama. It had kids with real dreams and talent.

Q.DR. BUSINESS, I'm graduating from college soon and I'm really scared.Dr. B: You should be. Soon you'll be entering a dark period in your life called ''reality.''Q: How long does it last?Dr. B: Only until you die.Q: Wasn't college real?Dr. B: Yes, but not for you. Let's get this straight. Writing checks for amounts that require commas and sending off to college treasurer, real. Weekends that start Wednesday night, unreal. Sleeping late, unreal. Summers off, unreal. Whining about free food you don't even have to cook, unreal.

Peter Sellers is extraordinary as Chauncey Gardiner (he's really Chance, the gardener, and therein lies the tale) in "Being There" (8 p.m.-10: 30 p.m., Comedy Central), as a simpleton whose entire view of the world is based on what he's seen on television. Abruptly thrown into the real world, armed with only a satchel and a remote control, he somehow not only fends for himself but becomes the next big thing in Washington.Director Hal Ashby's take on Jerzy Kosinski's novel is a sly triumph, a biting satire on the role of media in today's society.

The call about Michael Phelps' car accident on Calvert Street crackled over the newsroom police radio as I was about to leave work Thursday night. My first thought was, when I get home, I'll have to go online and see what happened. But then, a moment of clarity, a sense of the absurdity: I was going to get on my computer to see what was happening on a street corner just several blocks from where I was standing? When did the real world become a place for people who can't handle the Internet?

I am a poor, wayfaring stranger traveling through this world of woe, but it's OK, I am well paid for the woe and I enjoy watching my fellow wayfarers, the road guys, the men who fly from town to town, talking on their cell phones, hustling software and industrial carpeting, advising companies on branding issues, guys with pagers, laptops, BlackBerries and voices like drill bits. Road guys tend to be a little grim, which you would be too if you were trying to peddle your widgets these days.

I listened last week to Ravens players telling area fans not to sell their tickets to Steelers fans, and that if they did it was a lack of respect, and that those who did weren't true fans. Sometimes, players live in their own little worlds. Outside the locker room, and in the real world where we live, a lot of people are getting laid off or taking pay cuts. A lot of companies are filing for bankruptcy. So if a fan sold his tickets and made a few bucks for Christmas this year or made some extra money to pay a few bills, good for him or her. ( For more, go to baltimoresun.

A frenzy of golden energy, Michael Phelps exited the pool, shaking water off his lithe and lean body. Onto the pool deck splashed the droplets -- those Baltimore roots, the memories from Greece and the immaculate show he had just put on in China. It all gathered together beautifully and perfectly in a puddle. The swimmer made of gold had made history. In winning his eighth gold medal of these Olympics, Phelps broke Mark Spitz's 36-year-old record, a mark once thought untouchable. "This is all a dream come true," an emotional Phelps said.

BEIJING - A frenzy of golden energy, Michael Phelps exited the pool, shaking water off his lithe and lean body. Onto the pool deck splashed the droplets - those Baltimore roots, the memories from Greece and the immaculate show he'd just put on in China. It all gathered together beautifully and perfectly in a puddle. The swimmer made of gold had made history. In winning his eighth gold medal of these Olympics, Phelps broke Mark Spitz's 36-year-old record, a mark once thought untouchable.

As about 1,500 Johns Hopkins University seniors mark the end of their bright college years today, the school's resurgent men's lacrosse team will be on a chartered jet to Massachusetts, where its seniors will try to extend their collegiate days by knocking off top-ranked Duke University in the NCAA Division I final four. The private Baltimore university held an early commencement ceremony yesterday for the 11 graduating seniors on the varsity lacrosse team, as well as 15 members of the men's baseball team, who are in Appleton, Wis., to play in the NCAA Division III College World Series for the first time since 1989.

I chanced across a Real World: Denver catch-up show this past weekend, and how sad was that? A show that was once (albeit a long time ago now) about social interaction and people from different backgrounds learning to live with one another has degenerated into what feels like a zoo monitored by Webcams. This season seems to be about mating and fighting and screaming and drinking -- with a side of gossiping and back-stabbing that makes the show look like a psychological experiment a la Big Brother.

Quinceanera may be the year's most nonjudgmental film, and therein lies both its greatest strength and most naggingly troublesome weakness. The movie should be admired for embracing all of its characters, all of whom are either seriously flawed or have made some less-than-wise life choices. At the same time, there's the sense that forgiveness comes, perhaps, a little too easily in the world of this film, that its makers see consequences as something that should be endured, not learned from.

In sports, as in politics and business and just about any other endeavor, there is the world the public sees, and then there is another world that exists behind closed doors -- a world of commerce, yearning, process, decision-making and private motivations. The real world. The sports public seldom gets to take a good, hard look at it, but occasionally, and for better or worse, the doors crack open. That is certainly what is happening now in baseball, as the scandal involving performance-enhancing drugs continues to mushroom.

cubefabulous.com What's the point? -- This online-only show is a spot-on satire of every home and personal makeover show you can think of. Two "cube fabricators" ambush an unsuspecting victim and redo his or her work cubicle in the most stereotypical way based on one of the victim's hobbies. The "Ski Bunny" episode ends with a cubicle covered with fake snow and expensive skis, and an unimpressed makeover victim. "Beach Bum" has a worker's cube transformed with a kiddie pool and Speedos.