Hollywood is back on the Chesapeake.

The Netflix series “House of Cards” commenced filming its second season Monday in Maryland. Its first season created more than 2,200 jobs and an economic engine of $140 million, state economic development officials said. Much of the filming takes place in Baltimore and Harford County, where the production stage is located.

The second-season of the political-based drama, filmed by Media Rights Capital, will feature 13 installments. The series stars Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright, Kata Mara and Michael Kelly and is produced by Beau Willimon.

The General Assembly recently extended the state’s film production activity tax credit to lure the production back to Maryland.

“We’re grateful to Gov. O’Malley and the state legislature for encouraging film and TV production in Maryland,” said Willimon in a statement. “The state’s vendors, crews, diverse locations and government support make it an ideal place to film.”

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Just when you thought you’d prevailed through the diet-sabotaging holiday season (Pumpkin pie! Christmas cookies! Champagne!) and actually made progress on that health-related New Year’s resolution, there’s another temptress in town.

That’s right, it’s Restaurant Week — the irresistible combination of great food and great deals. But Restaurant “Week” is really a misnomer because diners don’t have just a mere seven days to partake. With prix fixe lunch and dinner menus at participating restaurants, it’s the ultimate opportunity to sample new options on the dining scene or finally make a reservation somewhere pricier than your budget usually allows.

First up in the 2013 Winter Restaurant Week season is Baltimore County, where the promotion begins Friday and runs through Jan. 27 with about 45 restaurants offering one, two or three courses for between $10.13 and $35.13. Among this year’s participants are McFaul’s Ironhorse Tavern, The Peppermill Restaurant & Lounge, Mari Luna Latin Grille, Friendly Farm Restaurant and Artful Gourmet Bistro.

If none of Baltimore County’s offerings pique your interest, head on down to Howard County, where about 20 restaurants are participating in their own promotion from Jan. 14 through Jan. 28.

Howard County Tourism & Promotion chose a global theme for the event, asking restaurateurs to incorporate international flavors into their special menus, which may include one to four courses, priced from $10.13 to $40.13.

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After months of incessant droning about ‘the fiscal cliff this, the fiscal cliff that,’ the phrase alone is almost enough to make one just go ahead and jump off.

Because a long-term deal still eludes lawmakers, the quick-fix deal pushed through in the eleventh hour provided no relief — but its effects will be felt immediately.

Sure, the income tax provisions in the agreement won’t affect most people — higher rates were installed only for those earning $400,000 or more ($450,000 for couples) — but every working American will receive smaller paychecks in 2013 than they did last month.

For that, they can thank the expiration of a payroll tax cut. Rates are now 6.2 percent, up from 4.2 percent for the past two years.

About 77 percent of Americans will be have emptier pockets after handing over a collective $115 billion, according to estimates by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

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When I learned Lexington Market would play host to the Greater Baltimore Technology Council’s annual Tech Night on Thursday, I have to admit I was a bit puzzled.

Why, I wondered, did Lexington Market — the 230-year-old tribute to Baltimore’s mercantile past — strike organizers as the ideal site for celebrating the latest technological innovations?

Those troublemakers over at gb.tc must have something up their sleeve, I thought. With an executive director who also goes by the title of “chief instigator,” how could they not?

Well, they couldn’t — of course. So, once the 750 attendees (almost double the number expected) had sufficiently noshed and networked Thursday night, Executive Director Jason Hardebeck and his team, joined by Mayor Stephanie-Rawlings-Blake, took to the makeshift stage.

They applauded the tech community’s achievements, reflected on the growing scene in Baltimore and roused excitement for the future of tech innovation here.

They also delivered a little news nugget that shed partial light on their curious choice of location: Lexington Market will soon offer customers free wireless Internet.

Gb.tc came up with the idea, and Believe Wireless LLC, an Owings-Mills based Internet provider, will donate the necessary equipment and bandwidth.

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Just in time for the Democrats to tout as a sign of economic recovery at their convention comes the news that the Tooth Fairy is leaving kids more cash this year than last.

According to a survey by Visa, the average tooth under the pillow brings $3 in 2012, as opposed to $2.40 in 2011. That’s a 15 percent increase.

“The Tooth Fairy may be the canary in the economic coal mine.  She’s showing signs of life by leaving 40 cents more per tooth this year,” Jason Alderman, senior director of Global Financial Education, Visa Inc., said in a news release.

And because this is obviously too big of a decision to make on your own without technological help, Visa has set up an iPhone and iPad app (available via the iTunes Store) and calculator to tell you how much to slip your youngster after he or she loses a tooth.

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Have you ever gotten in line at 4:30 in the morning to apply for a job?

One person did that Saturday for a chance to work at Maryland Live! Casino, said Lynn Norris, the company’s vice president of human resources.

The casino’s job fair, which was held Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and hosted in conjunction with the Anne Arundel Workforce Development Corporation, drew 1,015 people, she said.

As of Monday evening, there are 69 positions posted on the company’s website.

The casino opens in its first phase in June, at which point it will have 850 employees. At full capacity, which will happen in the fall, the casino will employ 1,500.

So far, the company has filled more than 100 positions, with a few dozen more slated to start soon, and others still who have been sent offer letters, said Carmen Gonzales, Maryland Live! Casino spokeswoman.

The casino has received about 30,000 job applications total, she said.

That’s about 25,000 applications in two months: When the casino opened its Employment Center in January, they had about 5,000 applications.

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A third-quarter survey by the University of Baltimore’s Jacob France Institute has found t Maryland’s economy has been “staggered” by the gridlock in federal spending and the European debt crisis.

The Maryland Business Climate Survey found that stands in marked contrast to its findings in the second quarter, when business owners in Maryland said they were optimistic about the state’s economy.

One bright spot is that overall sales growth continues to hold steady, according to the report, produced every quarter by the institute at UB’s Merrick School of Business.

“It appears that the general improvement in expectations for an economic recovery that we were seeing during the first half of the year have evaporated,” said Richard Clinch, director of economic research at the Jacob France Institute, in a statement.

“Across the board, all over the state, we’re finding that Maryland firms have ratcheted back their expectations for market expansion, with just over half expecting their market to expand in the coming year—that’s down from 63 percent in the first and second quarters,” Clinch said. “About 20 percent of the businesses in our survey are expecting declines, and that’s more than double the level of the previous two quarters.”

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The collective mood of Baltimore’s baseball faithful is off-the-charts positive today with the Orioles off to a 3-0 start after a season-opening sweep of the Tampa Bay Rays.

Those 162-0 tweets and Facebook updates never get old to this long-suffering fan.

The O’s host the Detroit Tigers today in its home opener, which means new life for the businesses and vendors in and around Oriole Park at Camden Yards. To that end, our old friend Daraius Irani at Towson University’s Regional Economic Studies Institute examines what Opening Day means in terms of dollars and cents.

One finding: If a team boosts its winning percentage by 10 percent, its home attendance climbs by about 9.6 percent.

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It’s been an on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand kind of week for anyone trying to get a handle on the state of our economic health.

It started with word from the Cambridge, Mass.-based National Bureau of Economic Research that the recession — the longest the U.S. had endured since World War II — had ended in June 2009.

Oh, really? As the Associated Press dryly pointed out, Americans are still struggling with a 9.6 percent unemployment rate, meager wage gains, struggling home values and sales, and a foreclosure plague that shows little sign of slowing.

And on that note, there was plenty of real estate news this week — none of it very good. Sales of previously occupied homes crept up in August, but not enough to keep the summer from being the slowest for sales in a decade. New home sales were actually worse in August — the second-slowest pace on record. One economist called it “a pitiful performance.”

On the other hand, home construction is up 25 percent from the bottom in April 2009. But on still another hand, it is 74 percent below the peak in January 2006.

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The team’s value may have slipped a little, but the Baltimore Ravens’ overall rank rose in 2009 to the 8th-most valuable NFL franchise according to Forbes.com.

Steve Bisciotti’s Ravens’ total worth fell 1 percent in the past year to $1.07 billion — about two-thirds of Bisciotti’s estimated net worth of $1.5 billion — but the team climbed three places in Forbes’ annual team valuation rankings.

The Dallas Cowboys came in at No. 1 with a $1.8 billion value, followed by the Ravens’ Beltway rival, the Washington Redskins, valued at $1.55 billion. (On a related note, the Ravens pounded the Skins in their preseason game, 23-3 … I guess money isn’t everything. )

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