Unpredictable

In a week when Brian Billick compared the New Orleans Saints to Mother Teresa, the Ravens coach turned out to be the miracle worker. With Billick bringing new life to a moribund offense along with an air of unpredictability in his first game as the team's play-caller, the Ravens made their most authoritative statement of the season in hammering the Saints, 35-22, yesterday at a rambunctious Superdome. At one moment, the Ravens were a power running team, handing the ball off to an inspired Jamal Lewis with some old I-formation plays.

The football whistled through the unpredictable wind and turned end over end until it finally split the uprights, eliciting a roar from Ravens players and coaches watching the field-goal attempt from the sideline. Derrick Martin was one of those players who raised his arms in triumph. But Martin wasn't celebrating another successful conversion by 16-year veteran Matt Stover. Ravens@Saints Sunday, 1 p.m., chs. 13, 9, 1090 AM, 97.9 FM Line: Saints by 2

Fayad Kazan brought a bouquet of red and pink roses for his wife. He had five stuffed Mickey Mouse dolls and five American flags, one for each of his young children. From 8:30 a.m., he sat in a cordoned-off section of the international arrival terminal. He waited. An additional 454 U.S. citizens returned home from Lebanon yesterday on two flights from Cyprus that touched down at 9:45 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. Kazan's family members were not among them.

Telecommunications investing is coming back. Resuscitated throughout the world by dramatic acquisitions and rapidly expanding technologies, it has begun to shake off the depression that had overtaken it after the technology bust. Telecom funds are up a solid 11 percent this year and 29 percent the past 12 months, according to Lipper Inc., outpacing the broader market. Yet this complex field that combines advanced technology and traditional telecommunications utilities remains as unpredictable as it was in the last go-round.

Democratic state Sen. Philip C. Jimeno's surprise decision not to seek re-election to his District 31 seat has politicians from both parties taking a fresh look at the race. Del. Donald H. Dwyer Jr., a conservative Republican from Glen Burnie, became yesterday the first candidate to step forward since Jimeno announced his retirement last month. Republicans had labeled the five-term incumbent's seat as vulnerable. Now party leaders predict the open seat might attract more GOP candidates to run in the district that represents the Marley Neck Peninsula, Pasadena, Gibson Island and Glen Burnie.

In Stay, the director, Marc Foster, fresh from Finding Neverland, turns Manhattan into a nightmarish dreamscape and his characters into self-destructive ghosts. Ewan McGregor plays a high-powered shrink who doubles as a university psychiatrist. He's happy in his double professional life and in his private life with a once-suicidal painter (Naomi Watts) until he takes over the treatment of a haunted-looking art student (Ryan Gosling) who intends to kill himself on his 21st birthday. Soon, every aspect of the hero's existence funnels into the patient's psychic vortex.

Hailed as "Japan's premier synth punks" by Alternative Press, Polysics brings its unpredictable live show to the Talking Head Club to day at 9:30 p.m. Known for its unique sound and lyrics combining English, Japanese and its own "space language," Polysics' influences include such bands as Devo and the Ramones. The performance is at the Talking Head, 203 E. Davis St.. Tickets are $8. Call 410-962-5588 or go to talkingheadclub. com or www.polysics.com.

While Hampstead's municipal swimming pool has been reduced to mounds of dirt and busted concrete and Taneytown's has remained closed for another season, pool attendance jumped this summer in Manchester and Westminster. And in Sykesville, officials are looking forward to the 2007 opening of a municipal pool. A 2003 referendum showed about 55 percent of town residents favored the pool project, estimated to cost $500,000. The town will lease the pool site, below market rates, to a developer willing to build and manage the pool.

Joyce Scott is surely one of Baltimore's most inventive artists, and one of its most exuberant as well. Her exhibition of ceramic art at C. Grimaldis Gallery this month is timed to coincide with the city's Tour de Clay festival and, true to form, her contribution to it turns out to be as unpredictable -- and as irrepressible -- as ever. Scott is well-known for her glass-beaded sculptures that often embody bitter truths about race, sex and class, usually served up with a dollop of humor to make their lessons more palatable.

WASHINGTON -- In the gap between President Bush's re-election and his second inauguration, the no man's land where defeated lawmakers hang onto their jobs and the newly elected wait in the wings, an odd but necessary ritual unfolds this week on Capitol Hill: the lame-duck Congress. The House and Senate return to Washington for a brief post-election session to wrap up unfinished business that they left behind last month, including a sweeping overhaul of the nation's intelligence community.