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For Comcast Cablevision customers in Baltimore County, there were two ways to see Monday night's Mike Tyson-Donovan "Razor" Ruddock heavyweight fight -- spend $34.95 for the pay-per-view telecast, or watch it free.Because of computer problems brought on by an unexpected volume of orders for the fight, Comcast was unable to scramble its transmission of the fight telecast, leaving it available to some customers who found it on channels 14 or 61. The pay-per-view telecast was on channel 43.But those who ordered the pay-per-view package aren't so lucky -- they're stuck with the $34.95 bill.

The Pay-Per-View Unlimited is rolling out of the station, starting to build up steam. But look up ahead, there's a car on the tracks and a man waving at the train to stop.That man is U.S. Representative William Lipinski, D-Ill., and he has some words for those engineers: "Casey, you better watch your speed."Lipinski, upset after the Notre Dame-Penn State football game nearly went to pay-per-view earlier this season, is introducing legislation that would prohibit pay-per-view telecasts from facilities built with public funds.

Q: Do I have to use curtains on the windows? We have a lovely view of the woods and a mountain beyond, and I'd rather throw an extra log on the fire (it does get breezy in the living room in dead winter) and keep the view open.Now even my brother-in-law has asked when I'm going to "finish decorating" -- by which he means hang curtains. What do you think?A: What with all of us getting back to nature in the '90s, undressed windows are very much in vogue -- and a great relief, to my eye at least, from the overwrought Victorianesque layers we began seeing in the '80s.

After living in a split-level home in Parkville, Bryan and Bonnie Mooney knew they wanted a contemporary interior.But when they moved two years ago into their Cromwell Valley home, they got more than just that. They got the view.Their home, perched on a wooded hill above Cromwell Bridge Road, has a view that extends across parkland to the hills of the Loch Raven watershed and finishes with vistas of the Towson skyline.The brick front is Colonial in style, but, upon entering, one immediately sees that "it is oriented to the rear, because of the view," said Bryan, who owns a marketing consulting and Web site design business.

Any real estate agent will tell you the key to the sale of a good property is simply: Location, location, location.Anne Grieves would alter the maxim somewhat to: View, view, view.When she lived in her house on Lake Roland, she looked out her kitchen window and saw a beautiful waterfall. These days she can stand at the kitchen sink and enjoy a view of the city that only a few privileged Baltimoreans have the good fortune to experience. The southern and eastern views from the 15th floor of the St. James condominium on North Charles Street in Guilford could easily be a scene from a New York condo facing Central Park or a Paris apartment on the Champs Elysees.

On most days the world is a complicated place, filled with mitigating factors and complex considerations. Not today. The Steelers are in town, and things gets real simple. The populace cries out with one voice: Beat Pittsburgh. The football rivalry between the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers is storied and bitter. At stake tonight is not just first place in the division and a favorable slot in the post-season playoffs, but also bragging rights. These are two of the better teams in the National Football League, and the victor will likely be hailed as a Super Bowl contender, a major accolade in the competitive landscape of civic pride.

It all started 85 years ago when Isaac H. Taylor, then a 20-year-old from Baltimore aiming to make his fortune, bought a modest building on Ellicott City's Main Street.Taylor and his son Irving S. Taylor went on to quietly purchase about 450 acres in and around Ellicott City's historic district and build two local institutions, the defunct Taylor's Furniture store on Main Street and the nationally known Taylor Manor psychiatric hospital on College Avenue.Now, the Taylors are developing part of their land holdings known as the Autumn View development near Bonnie Branch Road, stirring accusations from a coalition representing about 1,000 neighbors that the Taylor family is insensitive to their interests.

They are the three little words that dance in the heads of NFL executives like visions of sugar plums: per pay view.It has been easy for them to imagine that per pay view could be a bonanza down the road.The arithmetic is easy. Say 10 million fans were willing to pay $40 to watch the Super Bowl. That'd be $400 million for one game.There's no trouble coming up with pie-in-the-sky numbers. The trouble is, if NBC's Olympic TripleCast is any indication, it may be all pie in the sky.The flop of the TripleCast has raised new doubts about the future of pay per view.

Wearing badge and gun, Barry Sweitzer strides into the classroom at Joppa View Elementary School, a man with a mission.Sweitzer, a strapping Baltimore County policeman, has come to read nursery rhymes. He squeezes into a chair, opens a book and greets Donna Dillon's fascinated first-grade class."Mary had a little goat. . .""LAMB!" the children shout in unison.Sweitzer feigns disbelief."Are you sure?" he asks.The room explodes in laughter."Officer Barry" is a hit at Joppa View, a regular stop on the policeman's beat during his difficult recovery from a gunshot wound nearly three years ago. Sweitzer is part of a program designed to develop a closer and more cooperative relationship between young people and the police.

By any conventional measure, Rosie O'Donnell does not seem like someone who would succeed on television. She doesn't conform with traditional ideas of beauty. She's a lesbian mother of four. She's blunt and fearless and opinionated in a medium where it seems only men can get away with that. She picks fights with Donald Trump. But O'Donnell's announcement yesterday that she's leaving the daytime gabfest The View after less than a year as a co-host left many fans shocked and in tears. Executives at ABC, which airs the program, also had reason to cry: Since O'Donnell joined the show in September, viewership of The View is up 17 percent, to 3.5 million.