Ticks

With 13 former Pro Bowl players on the roster, there's no doubt that the Ravens have talent. With 18 returning starters, there's no concern about cohesion. When debating whether the Ravens will end their two-year absence from the playoffs, the question that has to be asked inside the locker room is this: Do the Ravens have a strong enough sense of urgency to return to the postseason? Despite high expectations every year since 2003, the Ravens have made the playoffs just once since then and have yet to capture a postseason victory.

The tension was almost unbearable. Emotionally, you go from the lowest lows to the highest highs and back again, howling and cursing at a glowing 19-inch monitor, palms sweating, wondering why you put yourself through all this. That's right, I just made my first buy on eBay. How do I feel? I'll tell you how I feel. I feel like I need a drink. And it's only 10 in the morning. The item purchased, by the way, was a gently used 460-cc Nike driver. I was looking for a new driver because, like many other golfers, I am delusional.

Eighth-grader Terry Williams can take apart a computer and put it back together in minutes, naming each piece and explaining its function. He and four classmates completed the task in six minutes yesterday. Today, the pupils are scheduled to graduate from Dell TechKnow, a two-week course sponsored by Dell and Baltimore County public schools that aims to teach basic computer skills to children from low-income families. "My father loves to put together computers," Williams, 13, said at a desk inside the library of Lansdowne Middle School in Halethorpe.

The financially imperiled Teen Time after-school program at the east Columbia library has raised enough money for another year's operation and is making progress on funding for a five-year financing plan, library officials said. "We're all set for year one," said a jubilant library director Valerie J. Gross, who this week got word of a $20,000 one-time grant from the Howard County Children's Board. Gross said the library has $17,100 more in annual pledges toward the five-year goal from a variety of donors.

With time running out before elections, Howard County officials believe the descendants of Declaration of Independence signer Charles Carroll of Carrollton will wait until after a new county government takes office in December to reveal plans for nearly 900 acres of their historic Doughoregan Manor estate. Doughoregan is the only home of a signer of the Declaration of Independence still in family hands - the result of a single-minded effort over generations to preserve the property while keeping such a low profile that many residents don't know it is there.

Ticks are a big fan of global warming." - DR. MICHAEL DRYDEN, veterinary parasitologist at Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine, Manhattan, on the fact that ticks usually enjoy mild winter temperatures and moist springs

Exhaustion could be measured in myriad ways in Annapolis during the last of the General Assembly's 90-day session. Del. Anthony G. Brown's BlackBerry posted an outgoing message to those who send him e-mails starting today: "Family vacation (not Maryland)." Lobbyist Gary Alexander, former speaker pro tem of the Maryland House of Delegates, lifted a tired foot off the ground yesterday to show the sole of a worn dress shoe. The lobbyist with an office on State Circle said he's gone through three pairs since January.

People are always yakking about all the pressure in their lives, and how they need the weekend to decompress or else their heads will explode. But you want pressure? Pressure is standing in line in a busy bagel store on a Sunday morning, and suddenly it's your turn to order. I say this because the people behind the counter in these stores don't seem to have a whole lot of patience on Sundays. See, Sunday morning is like the Super Bowl for bagel stores. The stores are always packed and the people behind the counter are always revved up, like they're on some kind of bagel-worker steroids.

Case closed: 24 is the best drama on network TV. That pronouncement may sound overblown given the existence of such higher-rated, quality dramas as ABC's Lost or CBS' CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, or even the over-extended Law & Order on NBC. But after seeing the first four hours of the new season of Fox's 24 -- airing tonight and tomorrow night at 8 -- calling the show anything but the best simply fails to do it justice. Set in Los Angeles, this tightly scripted thriller offers some of the most imaginative and heart-stopping plot twists on television as it tells the tale of a terrorist attack on the United States.