Slow, painful, angry death

Since I reach a significant Age next week, I had to go to the DMV and renew my license. My car is also going to require renewal in two months, so I figured, hell, they'll let me do it now, why not kill two birds with one stone! Particularly when those birds are massive, slavering creatures with Adamantium talons who hate me and everything that we as a nation hold dear.

So I snuck out of work for an early lunch hour, thinking I'd beat the crowds. this handy website shows the wait times for various functions, and it was saying I'd wait no more than 5 minutes for my license, and maybe 10 for my registration. Awesome!

I arrived shortly after 11, and got into a short line at the inspection lanes. As I later twittered, I, as always, picked the wrong lane, and watched as 3 or 4 cars who arrived after me got in first. But the joke was on them! I had, completely on accident, picked the one lane that could do all the regular checks (turn signals, lights, horn, etc.) plus the ODBII check (where they plug into your car's computer to see if you've downloaded porn to it)! All the other lanes could do the car checks, but then you had to get into another lane for the computer read-out. This seems like a foolish way to do it, but I grinned happily as I parked and went inside, where I discovered that the South Wilmington DMV, unlike the New Castle one that is technically closer to my house but horribly inconvenient for a lunch hour visit, doesn't actually have "line;" it has a take a number system, so you can sit and read horrific books while you wait! (I went with Dude, Where's My Country? by Michael Moore, a book so painful that I got it at the dollar store. For a dollar.)

They were on number 202 when I sat down; I had number 222. So I read, and occasionally glanced up when the shift supervisor, the Mother Superior of the DMV, would get called over to yell at some poor soul who believed they could renew their car's registration without having the current one, or without an insurance card, or without retrieving their car from the impound lot whence it was towed for unpaid parking tickets. (An aside: some of these people were at least fifty years old. Folks, how do you not know how this works? How do you reach the age of fifty, probably renewing at least one vehicle every two years, and not know what documents you require for this process?)

Finally I was called up to a very polite gentleman who took my documents and money and gave me a new registration and sticker in three minutes flat. I fail to understand why this is such a difficult process for some people.

By that point it was roughly 12:30, and I had to go get another number to wait for my license renewal. I was number #177; they were at #140. I shed a few silent, hot tears and sat down next to some sort of kiosk. After 20 minutes or so, they had gotten only to #150, and a young woman came out and started fiddling with the computer at the little kiosk. In a flash of brilliant insight, I deduced the following:

1. Eventually, this lady was going to open this kiosk for business;
2. It was likely that they intended it to be an express lane, meaning it would most likely be available for people with simple class-D license renewals (no truck licenses, no new licensees, no state IDs, etc.);
3. It was also likely that the line would be first come, first served;
4. The instant they made any sign of opening up, I needed to spring to my feet and sprint to the head of the line, hardly a challenge since the kiosk was approximately three feet to my left.

Sure enough, at about 1:10pm, a supervisor came out and started to announce that they were opening the kiosk for simple license renewals, and before he had said two words I was standing next to the nice young woman running the show. I think I even semi-accidentally butted in front of another fellow, but he sensed that were he to confront me, I might roll up a Driver's Education Manual and beat him to death with it, so he held his tongue.

Because I know how to handle a drive-thru bureaucracy (just like a fast-food drive-thru; no special orders, basic meals only), I was through the line in three minutes, had my picture taken, and handed a literally piping hot new ID by 1:15. A little creative driving had me back at the office at 1:35! I think the word I'm searching for is "WOO!"

In short, the DMV is slow, news at Eleven.

(Nose) Burning Questions

Can someone explain to me why you're not allowed to smoke anywhere but a specially constructed, hermetically sealed, underground iron box, but it's perfectly legal for people to drench themselves in cheap perfume and go out in public?

I went to church yesterday; I didn't have to sing, so for the first time in a while, I sat in the congregation. And it was like a hyacinth was having sex with my sinuses. I thought someone must put a funeral wreath in a blender and then poured it on their clothing. My own clothing I considered burning when I get home, but instead muttered dark incantations as I ran it through the washing machine eighteen times.

Do people really not notice that they smell like a florist's refrigerator? How dead must your olfactory nerves be that you think 7 squirts of Eau de Rabais is necessary? More to the point, why hasn't the government intervened? I'm not normally a fan of intrusive regulation, but it seems to me that it should be illegal for someone to put on so much stinkum that it feels like someone has jabbed a hot poker into each of my nostrils, right?

The worst offenders will actually argue with you about what they're wearing. I knew a wonderful woman who continually came choir rehearsal smelling like a cathouse, and people complained, until the director took her aside and said "You must stop wearing perfume." She replied, "I'm not!" The next day, she once again smelled like she'd bathed in rose petals, and another choir member said, "I thought you were told not to wear perfume anymore!" Again, like Peter, she denied it, and was asked "So why do you smell like a burning rose bush?"

"Oh, that's just my body spray," she replied, and so we had to beat her to death with our hymnals, Your Honor.

Things have been insane this week, so I haven't had time to comment on the fact that, um, I'm old now. So I'll do that now. The big 3-0. Three Zero. MattHearnIsFreakingOld.com. Some of you who are already in your mid-30s are saying, "Old? OLD? Screw you, you youngling!" To which I respond: let me have a moment of glory. I don't get many, other than when Sarah changes Charles's diaper and he takes a moment to point to his penis, yell "WANG!", and giggle; that's as glorious for me as it is mortifying for Sarah.

Anyway, in short, I turned 30 on Monday. I was hoping to have a leisurely day, but of course something broke, so it was just a big ball of stress in my stomach all day. NOT the way I wanted to start my fourth decade, for real reals. We did at least get to go out to dinner, at Walter's, where I drank a sizable amount of alcohol, had a steak that weighed about the same as Charles, and enjoyed a raw bar that feature oysters and clams with flavors that could best be described as "hauntingly pungent." Tuesday was no less stressful, and yesterday things began to ease up but I had 4 hours of rehearsals last night. So today is the first opportunity I've had to sit back and contemplate my ever-increasing age. I've come to some conclusions:

• I am now definitely at the age where it is basically impossible for me to ever get a shot at trying out for left field for the Phillies. Sure, Chris Coste didn't make it to the majors until he was 33, but he had spent something like 12 years toiling in the minors to get his shot. I'm, um, not doing that. Also he has actual baseball talent, and I couldn't hit a major league fastball with a piece of 1x12 white pine.
• I'm probably at the age where, despite taking piano lessons and practicing regularly, I am unlikely to become a concert pianist. I'm also nearing the age where it is unlikely I'll be good enough to even accompany a bad church choir.
• I'm nearing the age where people will start calling me sir instead of "Hey jerk." This is good and bad, I guess.

So tell me, fellow 30-somethings, what's the best part about hidding pre-pre-middle-age? Other than I think I can run for the US Senate now?

Let's chat about humor for a moment. I'd just like to take the time to address a big problem in the world, and that is that a surprising number of people have a misconfigured sense of humor. Oh sure, some things are universally funny:

• Fart jokes
• Actual farts
• Reference to the sex lives of the Amish
• That story your dad tells every time he gets hammered about the time he took a dump in a mailbox
• Any joke involving a priest, a rabbi, and a 300W rainbow-colored marital aid
• Covered wagons, aka Dutch Ovens

The laughs never end, when those topics get broken out at parties. Particularly if the party as at my house, and the participants have drunk between 5 and 17 bottles of homemade Continental Pilsner apiece. But certain topics seem to make certain folks laugh, and other folks whine in great dismay.

For example: my wife is in the business of assisting the differently-abled. (They used to be called "handicapped," and before that, "crippled;" by 2015 they'll be called "Judiciously Improved.") I fully support this, except that the Political Correctness Brigade has now weaseled its way into my very home. During my adolescence, it was perfectly acceptable, when someone did something stupid, to call him "retarded." And mirth would result. Now, I have to expend great amounts of brainpower trying to not say that word in front of my wife and her coworkers. (In a similar vein, we were allowed to call anything we disagreed with "gay," as in "Dude, homework is totally gay," or "Bobby and Jimmy kissing behind the school was so gay." No longer. The internet has invented a substitute word, "ghey," which is totally gay.)

As far as I can tell, the word "retarded" is no less funny than it was in 1993. And yet nowadays people get their undergarments in a SEVERE bunch if you break it out anywhere but a hockey team's locker room. This is a disturbing indicator of the path we're on, in which I won't be able to say things like "Dude, your new subwoofer has a totally fat sound" without some overweight ninny saying "What did you say? Fat? How dare you!" and then attempting to kick me in the nards but failing because her thigh-fat precludes any actual upward motion of her legs. (Note: this would actually be HILARIOUS to witness.)

And lest you think I'm just some completely irreverent buffoon that would laugh at a baby's funeral, let me show you the depth of my intellect: I have seen the other side of the coin, albeit for a totally retarded stupid reason. Last night I was watching David Letterman, something I normally avoid because Paul Shaffer's voice makes my ears bleed, and they were doing the top 10, which was something like "top 10 ways you can tell that gasoline prices are out of hand." #3 was, "Anna Nicole Smith married a Texaco franchisee." My initial response was "Damn, that's cold. Her bloated corpse is barely cold yet." But then I realized that, due to the Writer's Strike, all the late shows are in re-runs until like 2009, and the joke dated from 2005 when Anna Nicole was still barely alive. Why did the fact that she's dead make the joke seem less funny and more mean? It's ridiculous. It should be the other way around; now that she's dead, it's not like she's gonna hear about it and get pissed off. The joke is just as funny as it was in 2005, which is of course to say that it's not funny at all and never was. (Brian will probably have a heart attack, but I've always found Letterman (and all the late-night guys since Johnny quit) to be pretty overrated when it comes to bringing the funny.)

I got to thinking about this, because a few weeks ago I set my Facebook status message to something like "Matt Hearn is wondering how people can confuse 'they're', 'there', and 'their'; is it because they have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome?" Which you have to admit, if you don't have FAS, is pretty funny. I still got some irritated messages about it. If you do have FAS, it might be perceived as insulting, but 1) if you have FAS and know the difference between those three words, then obviously the joke isn't directed at you and 2) if you have FAS and don't know the difference between those three words, then perhaps my little jibe will inspire you to go to school and study hard. It's win-win! And if you don't have FAS, but have a problem with sand in your vagina, just go to the bathroom and rinse it out. Stop annoying me because Uncle Gropey took away your girlish laughter.

It's hard to avoid being insulted by certain jokes. I think the secret is not to flip out about it. If you hear a joke that offends you, just laugh along with the rest and tell your own insulting joke right back. Note: this may only work with minorities.

Thank SSCBJ for sick days, or personal days, or mental health days, or whatever it was I used yesterday to get out of most of my workday so I could get some bloody sleep. Bejeebers, I was exhausted.

Since Sarah's doing the Brandywiners show this year, PLUS taking a class in a subject I don't even begin to comprehend, I'm on Charles duty most of the time, so I'm routinely running a bit ragged. The weekend, which I'll get to momentarily, nearly killed me.

Sarah had to be out of town most of the weekend at a wedding, so of course I made sure that my weekend was as busy as possible to make everything completely complex. I was singing in a benefit concert Saturday night, which included a Friday night rehearsal, so I had to find someone to watch HRB on Saturday; Craig and Mel jumped all over it, and did a bang-up job keeping him from eating nails and/or one of their cats, for which they are owed one ENORMOUS favor from me. That afternoon I took Charles and my parents to the Brandywiners picnic, at which there was frivolity and beer-drinking, and then sprinted home to try and get Charles to nap so I could shower and pack him up to go to C&M's.

Of course, he refused to nap. At least, after a while, he stopped screaming, and busied himself trying to disassemble his crib through the combined efforts of mumbling incoherently while shaking the sides and banging his head into the slats as hard as possible. Since he was calm, I showered and changed, then I got him ready, dropped him off, and headed to Archmere Academy in north Wilmington, the site of the benefit, which went very well. Jenny and I sang "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better," from "Annie, Get Your Gun," which is inspired completely by a GAP commercial containing Claire Danes. Later we performed "No One Is Alone" from "Into The Woods" with two young people, Brooke and Madsy. It was all good times, and since my stuff was all done in the first act, I got to spend the second act eating and drinking in the lobby with the other people. It was fantastic!

After we were done, I returned to pick up Charles, who was a trouper despite the fact that it was 11pm before we got home, and we both passed out like your dad in the alley behind "Buxom."

Sunday, we relaxed in the morning, and then went to a pool party at a BEAUTIFUL home near Hagley Museum. It was awesome; the pool was the size of my house, and instead of a diving board, it was just built into the hillside such that it had a stone wall and a diving ROCK. Charles splashed around and drank chlorinated pool water, and Sarah came back from Long Island in time to fling herself off of the diving rock and make everyone giggle.

Finally, we went home and fell asleep, which was just awesome. It was so completely rad. Nevertheless, I woke up yesterday morning STILL exhausted, and so I called in "dead" and went back to sleep. I awoke to attend a couple meetings, and then had time to run some errands, mow the lawn (untouched in three weeks; the neighbors were thrilled), clean the bathrooms (which had become sentient), and even do some woodworking. Good times! Good times.

Tomorrow: I make beer.

Yay! DelDOT (The Delaware Department O' Transportation) is finally going to do something about the hellish I-95 traffic!

Wait...crap. They're doing the wrong bloody thing! Boo!

Everybody agrees that traffic on I-95, particularly southbound in the afternoons, is ridiculous; apparently the bone of contention is what the actual cause is. DelDOT seems to be of the opinion that the problem is 95 itself not being wide enough, which would appear to be the obvious issue. However, what they are overlooking is the fact that where the worst of the backup on 95 occurs in a three mile stretch where 295 and 495 (souhtbound) rejoin the main interstate, and storied Route 1 exits. And as anyone who has recently driven through there during a high traffic situation, the number of cars decreases dramatically after you pass Route 1. What this says to me is that maybe, just maybe, you might eliminate some traffic on 95 if there was more than a single-lane exit for 1, which is of course the main artery to Middletown and points south, also known as the FASTEST FREAKING GROWING AREA IN THE STATE? Don't you think maybe this warrants an improvement of that particular junction?

Don't believe me? Try going north on Route 1 to 95 north some morning, around 8:15am. You can't. I mean, eventually you'll get through, but it'll be closer to 9am before you're actually on the interstate. Might it perhaps be time to upgrade this route to look more like the 495 exit, which features three lanes for traffic and even during the worst of the rush hour is never clogged up, except by idiots driving in the left lane? Perhaps!

But nay, the State has decided to just add a 5th lane to each side of 95, the biggest waste of money since Paris Hilton got her sex change. (I refuse to believe that she wasn't once a dude. Her jaw is squarer than a ceramic floor tile and her boobs are smaller than mine.)

Argh.

In which I hate technology, and technology hates me right back.(All up in my grill, yo.)

It's heck of warm out today (low 60s), so, being a forward-thinking individual, I thought to myself yesterday "I should TOTALLY go running at work and try to eliminate the enormous amount of fat located between my crotch and my boobs," and brought in running clothes and a towel to store in my locker downstairs in the poop room that has showers. And lo, I took an early lunch, went out, and ran 2.75 miles before the agonizing chest pain and developing foot blister made me stop.

Have I reached my point yet? Not even remotely.

So I came back in, showered, and grabbed lunch, which consisted of a Salisbury "Steak" made of, as far as I can tell, pressed gerbil cremains, along with green beans and cheesy potatoes au gratin (a quality side, to be sure). A few hours later, I realized I was still pretty hungry, so I said to myself, oh man, the SNACK machine will hook me up with FLAVOR.

So I wandered into the snack room, bought a bottle of Diet Coke, and then studied the snack machine for delectables. Sure enough, they had some kind of Apple/Cinnamon-flava'd Danish, all over which I desired to jump. I attempted to stick my dollar into the machine, but was foiled! It would accept no bills. And I had just used the bulk of my change on my drink. Bemused, I pressed a few buttons on the front of the machine, which showed no sign of even being powered on. Argh!

I wandered aimlessly around the halls, looking for another snack machine, and finally found one. Sadly, it had no Apple/Cinnamon-flava'd Danish. It did, however, have a three pack of chocolate cupcakes of the type I subsisted on in high school, so I inserted my dollar and pressed the proper buttons. The machine whirred for a moment, then beeped, and a small light appeared next to some words reading "Please make another selection."

"What?" I replied. "But the other selections are not what I desire. Don't mess with me, machine, I COLD RAN 2.75 MILES EARLIER AND AM NOT ONE WITH WHICH YOU SHOULD TRIFLE." And I pressed the buttons again.

"Please make another selection."

I tried to outwit the machine by requesting my dollar back, which came back in quarters, and inserting exact change, but I came to the conclusion that whoever inserted the latest supply of foodstuffs had improperly loaded the chocolate cupcakes. In the end I realized that the machines were involved in some kind of conspiracy not to sell me anything that might increase the amount of lipids bonded semi-permanently to my stern. I relented, bought a small package of peanut butter crackers, and went back to my desk to weep silently.

I enjoy me some fine pomp and circumstance, with the possible exception of the widely known Pomp and Circumstance March #1 by Edward Elgar, which over the course of my high school career I had to play roughly 483,384 times during graduation ceremonies. (I do like the fast part, which never gets played at graduations, that goes deet deet deedledeedledeedledeedle etc., you know what I mean I'm sure.) Thusly I set my Digital Video Recorder (it's like Tivo, but not as well branded!) to record President Ford's funeral proceedings yesterday, and sat down last night to watch them and enjoy me some egg drop soup and beef with broccoli.

Imagine my frustration: they're showing the National Cathedral, and periodically showing the inside, which is filled to the brim with dignitaries, along with Cathedral officiants, the combined Cathedral choirs, and the Armed Forces Choir, which is singing a Copland anthem; meanwhile, Brian Williams refuses to Shut The F&$# Up. We've always been a bit of an NBC family; we usually watch the Today show, and on Thursday nights Sarah is most frequently found glued to the TV watching the usual prime-time fare. (I personally lost all interest in ER a few years ago when it stopped being a great show about an emergency room and became a left-wing political drama, but it does have its fun moments.) I assumed that NBC would do a nice job of delivering the funeral to me with a minimum of stupid discussion. I was wrong.

The various musicians inside played at least 20 minutes of music that I would really have enjoyed hearing, but unfortunately Williams, along with Tim Russert, Campbell Brown, and some other moron refused to Shut The F*#$ Up. They're babbling about legacies and scandals and strength and blah blah I don't care I want to hear the beautiful music please SHUT THE F@$# UP.

I nearly threw the remote at the TV. At least they did have the good sense not to inject silly little comments once the casket came out of the hearse, or else there's a strong chance I would have driven to New York and kicked Brian Williams in his miniature gonads.

The moral, for any NBC executives who might be reading this, is: when televising a funeral, it is always important to Shut The F#$% Up. Thank you.

This cold is WEIRD, man. You may remember a few weeks ago when I noted that I was sick; that cold followed its normal course of a day of scratchy throat pain, followed by a day of complete sinus blockage, followed by a couple days of drippiness and general malaise. With the help of Zicam (remind me to tell you a story later about how apparently my father-in-law's friends discovered that zinc cures colds), I got over it quickly and sang the Messiah concert the following weekend with great ease.

On Sunday, the cold came back, but it appears to be working in reverse. The past few days I've been clogged up and drippy, and then this morning I awoke with agonizing throat pain, but my sinuses are clear. It's a mixed-up, mashed-up, cuhRAZY world, kids.

More annoying is the fact that Charles seems to be going through the same symptoms; he spent the last few days sniffly, and I think the throat pain hit late last night because he awoke screaming and we had a hard time calming him down. (He's a jolly fellow, but like any baby, once he gets revved up the crying is more for the sake of continuity than actual pain or anguish.) He seems fine this morning, which was good because I was in no mood to deal with his anguish, because apparently Sarah spent the night pouring Comet into my mouth.

Anyway, the interesting story involving my father-in-law's friends: apparently he worked with a couple of guys who were interested in what might kill regular rhinovirus, aka the cause of the common head-cold. Back in the 70s, Their lab had a storage closet where they kept leftover chemicals, so these guys would score some rhinovirus germs (I'm assuming they knew a guy on 32nd street) pour various chemicals on 'em, and watch.

Finally they hit upon something; they had a dirty jar of some kind of acid, I forget exactly what it was because it was a big word, poured it on the germs, and noted that they died in screaming agony. This was a good sign. So they organized a serious study, and one of the guys decided it would be best if they cleaned up the chemical to get the dirty gunk out of the jar, so they ran it through a filter. They ran their test, and nothing happened. The acid wasn't killing anything.

They went back and grabbed the filter they'd used, scraped off some of the mung, put it in the germs, and watched with great glee. Unfortunately, they weren't sure what the mung WAS. They ran a bunch of tests on it and discovered that it was mostly zinc, so they organized a study involving human subjects.

It was a bit of a failure; the sick folks would take a chewy zinc thing, and nothing would happen. The only person that seemed to consistently get better was a little girl who insisted that the tablet tasted really bad and refused to swallow it. She just kept chewing on it. (Personally, if something tastes bad, I want to get it AWAY from my tongue, but miniature females are even more stubborn and immune to logic than the full-size versions.) The scientists realized that folks had to keep the zinc in their mouths so that it would somehow get breathed up into their sinuses and kill the germs in there.

In the end, the company decided that since zinc was widely available (most vitamins contain it, for example), it wasn't something they could patent, so they didn't bother to market it. Still, it's interesting to note that Science knew about the magical healing powers of zinc almost 30 years before Zicam started making their chewables/tablets/sprays/etc.

Picture this scene: you've just purchased a donut and a cup of coffee. You just hit the ATM, so you hand the clerk a twenty, pick up your joe and take a sip. The clerk presses the magic buttons on her register, and the till pops open; she puts your twenty in there and pulls out a ten, a five, three ones, a quarter, and a dime, totaling $18.35. You hold out your hand, and she puts the bills in it and sits the coins on top. You try to put the coins and cash in your pocket, but because she put the coins ATOP the cash, the quarter falls off and rolls under the table of a group of rowdy teenagers who laugh at you and say things like "Loser!" and "Vagrant!"

All of this could have been avoided. And not just by avoiding Dunkin' Donuts, because that would be ridiculous; as we can all agree, donuts are delicious, and a hot cuppa ain't bad neither. No, it could have been avoided if the clerk had simply put the coins in your hand FIRST, and then place the bills on top. The coins, being smaller, are easier to grasp with your palm flesh while you fold the bills up into your pocket. But no clerk does this. Seriously. NONE. EVER.

Why is this? I don't know. I know when I worked at Dunkin' Donuts, I did the same damn thing. Nobody told me to; it just seemed natural. It was as if God had designed my brain to do a thing that trebled the likelihood that the customer would be taunted by delinquents. Why, God, WHY?

Here is what I propose: let's have an International Give Me The Coins First Please Day. We'll print up shirts and bumper stickers! It'll be great! And we'll make the world a much better place for people who have a pathological fear of teenagers.

Two topics today: Politics (duh-UH), and Phillies baseball (Wha-UH?).

Topic one: looks like the Democrats are taking over the House, and possibly the Senate as well. I, for one, welcome our new Democrat blah blah blah. To be honest, I voted largely Democrat, and largely because I hate the Democratic Party slightly less than I hate the Republican Party. At the moment, anyway. This may be a cynical view, but I couldn't be more thrilled (well, perhaps if the government shrank to about 1/10 of its current size, that would be more thrilling, but I do recognize reality on some level) to have a government set up to get absolutely nothing done for 2 years.

I find that the government that spends all its time fighting over stupid crap instead of legislating is the government that I like best.

On the other hand, having Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House is singularly terrifying. It's like having the worst stage mother of all time directing a school play. Hopefully we won't all go deaf. (She's a screamer, I'm told.) Also on the other hand: apparently voters in a variety of states saw fit to enact bans on gay marriage. Good job, voters! Nothing like legalized discrimination. Really gets my hopes up that they might reenact Jim Crow.

Topic two: The Phightin' Phils are apparently looking to land Alfonso Soriano, which is flat-out making me insane. Let's look at the Phillies basic line-up:

• First base: A guy may well hit 800 home runs before he retires.
• Second base: The only guy who can be counted on to bat over .300 in any given year.
• Third base: A rotating gaggle of defensive "specialists" who seem to bobble the ball when it counts.
• Shortstop: A speedy defensive star who might hit .350 in a given month, and might hit .200. Who knows.
• Outfield: An extremely washed up guy in left who's probably leaving and a bunch of medium-hitting young guys.

Soriano's natural position is 2nd base, but he's been playing outfield for the Nationals all year, so the Phils are hoping to put him in left to replace Burrell, which is a pretty damn good move, except that good ol' Alfonso nearly got himself suspended because he refused to play left field. Ah! A character guy! Great times. Meanwhile, here's what the pitching staff looks like:

• Three starters (Wolf, Myers, Lieber) who might combine for 50 wins next season; they might combine for 20. Who knows? It's worth pointing out that Lieber is 347 years old. There are also 2 other starters, but they suck.
• A bunch of middle relievers, none of whose names I can recall, none of whom seem to be able to hold a close lead. One of them is really tall, though.
• A closer who is, like Lieber, 347 years old, and also like Lieber, a Yankees castoff. Great! The Phils have turned into the Yankees AAAA team, a position that had long been held by the Toronto Blue Jays.

While I admit that, from a fantasy perspective, Soriano is a HUGE player to sign, two things are important to note:

1. The Phillies don't need that much hitting. They need more CONSISTENT hitting, which I think they'll start getting as their young players mature. They need pitching, and a lot of it. One quality closer could be enough, if the starters can stay healthy.
2. Alfonso Soriano is a bit of a dick, and I don't want him in the clubhouse doing dick things.

All I'm saying, is that I didn't vote for the man, and you shouldn't either. Wait, I got confused again. Oh well.