March 22, 1982

''As I see it, the bird is ready, the weather's great, we're ready, the entire team is ready.

Despite an advertising blitz by the nation's financial institutions, investment in Individual Retirement Accounts since the beginning of the year has been slower than hoped, if not disappointing. ''It's not that I'm discouraged,'' said Michael Evans of Evans Economics Inc., a Washington-based consulting firm. ''There just hasn't been a groundswell of enthusiasm I would have expected initially. As far as I can tell, I.R.A.'s haven't had any effect at all on savings.''

After a string of upsets, Boston College, the team some said had no right to be in the national collegiate tournament, was finally eliminated this afternoon. The Eagles were defeated by Houston, 99-92, before 15,627 fans in the final of the Midwest Regional at the Checkerdome. The 191 total points were the most in any tournament game this season. ''We did score a few baskets,'' said Houston's coach, Guy Lewis, in his best aw-shucks style. ''But we just did what we had to do.'' The Cougars (25-7) advanced to the Final Four in New Orleans, where they will meet top-ranked North Carolina on Saturday. It is their first appearance in the national semifinals since 1968. North Carolina qualified by defeating Villanova at Raleigh, N.C., 70-60.

Five years after a threat by the Nestle Company to leave New York State galvanized officials into helping it with a planned move to Harrison, the company has sold the halfcompleted building that was to have become its new headquarters. The state's assistance to Nestle in 1977 - given after Governor Carey intervened personally - included the construction of a special exit on nearby Interstate 684. But now, Nestle, citing changed financial projections, has decided to remain in White Plains, where it has about 1,000 employees.

New York City officials and neighborhood activists say they are witnessing a marked slowing of the wholesale devastation that plagued the Bronx in the 1970's. The burning and abandonment that cut a wide swath from south to north through the borough have not stopped. But the neighborhoods that are now on the northern edges of the devastated areas show new signs of stability, officials say. Among the encouraging factors, they say, are that hundreds of buildings are being rehabilitated, that private money has been successfully enlisted in the effort and that tenants and whole communities have organized to fight on behalf of their buildings and neighborhoods.