Your Divided We Fall Quizo Update

Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed the show from Pat Burrell yesterday, since it’s pretty likely his time as a Phillie is rapidly nearing its end. They’re sure as hell not going to pay him no 15 million bucks next year, and unless he’s willing to return for a lot less money he’ll be plying his slow-footed trade elsewhere come 2009. The Phillies re-signing The Bat certainly isn’t out of the realm of possibility – the numbers I most commonly hear bandied about are that the Phillies would be happy in the 5-7 million range – but I wouldn’t exactly ratchet my hopes all the way up.

For some inexplicable reason I have been a large fan of Pat the Bat ever since he arrived in Philadelphia. No one is quite sure why, although it might have been because I finally found a Phillies starter I could beat in a footrace. It certainly wasn’t for his, er, shall we say, extracurricular activities, which anyone who has been to a bar in the tri-state area the last 10 years can tell you a detailed story about. It’s interesting to note that since his engagement and marriage the Bat’s form has gotten much more consistent. Since the Bat had spent his previous years prosecuting… how to put this… an extremely exhaustive search for his one-and-only it makes perfect sense that his newfound contentment should provide such a soothing influence.

I, for one, am pleased by the fact that Pat the Bat has actually expressed a desire to stay in Philadelphia. I hope he does. They might replace him with someone who has actual speed, and that would make me sad.

Prior to the series I had predicted Phillies in 4 – I’m always right, in case you hadn’t heard – and I like the Phillies over the Dodgers and ManRam in 6. Beyond that, I shall not speculate.

While the Pat the Bat show and the attendant series-clinching goodness was going on, however, there was some OTHER sports stuff that involved a word just a single vowel away from “clinching” going down at the Linc. My thoughts on that debacle are documented elsewhere on the tubes (I’ll point you to it if you’re really interested), but suffice it to say that prospects are not looking good on the American football side of things. However, when one considers that Chelsea beat a very talented Aston Villa squad yesterday and the Phillies moved on to the NLCS, the Eagles’ buffoonery aside yesterday still has to count as a positive sporting day.

Moving on.

Last week while the House and Senate dithered over which version of the atrocious bank bailout bill to pass, this little exchange went on amongst the countries of the EU:

EU: The US banking crisis is going to spread over here! Sacre bleu! We must do something!

Ireland: Okay, we’re going to fully guarantee all deposits in our banks. That way our citizenry won’t run on them and cause a massive depression. Jesus fucking Christ are we sick of depressions in this country.

Greece: Hey, that’s not a bad idea. We’re gonna do that too!

Germany: What? What? You cannot do such a thing! This plan will destroy European banking! Nein! Achtung! Guten morgen!

Ireland: Okay, have you READ a history book? We really don’t handle hard times very well. We have this bad habit of “everyone dying” when this sort of shit goes on, and the United States isn’t exactly the “cheap starving refugee labor” market that it used to be.

Germany: You cannot! Ich bin ein Berliner! Mein lamen!

France: Perhaps if all the great nations of Europe got together and talked about this we could figure out a way to fix le market terrible!

Germany: Ja!

Italy: Si!

UK: I say, capital idea.

Spain: Hello? Hellloooo? Is anyone home? Hellllllooooooooooooooooooooo? (no answer) Fucking France.

France: So, how shall we prevent les disaster economique?

Germany: Well, we’re going to… er… (mumbles) have our federal government fully guarantee all bank deposits.

Ireland: I’m sorry, what was that?

Germany: Hm? What? We didn’t say anything.

Spain: (pounding on door) HELLO?! WE’RE STANDING RIGHT OUTSIDE, WILL YOU PLEASE LET US IN? HELLLLOOOOOOOOO?! (muttering) Fucking France.

It’s like a soap, only if Erica Kane had nuclear weapons. (And I spoke more German.)

Two more things to note before we go: one, Quizo attendance the last few weeks has moved past “just short of disastrous” into “actually disastrous.” I don’t know what the story is there, but we need to get some more bodies back on a regular basis and pronto. On a similar note, Alias Pseudonym Undercover is once again going for their third win in a row tonight, so please show up and stop them. It is a statistically-proven fact that the more teams there are the less likely it is that one specific team will win, or something. I don’t actually really know a single goddamn thing about statistics, but it sure sounds plausible.

JLK