Put On Your Wednesday Best

All dressed up and you wind up here?

---The baseball winter meetings are underway. I will scream if I hear one more rumor about who's going to wind up with Santana.

---Met GM Omar Minaya is going to go one better. He's negotiating a deal with Procol Harum.

---All these trade and free agent rumors are dizzying. A bunch of stringers tripping over each other trying to get the scoop. And they're always all wrong. I swear I heard that the White Sox had signed Lou Gehrig to be a lefthanded pinch hitter.

---By the way, time stopped on Saturday. Yep, Minaya traded for two guys and neither one of them is Hispanic.

---So, the Mets trade in one Jewish outfielder, Shawn Green, for one Ryan Church who is anti-Semitic.

---Ryan is one more holy roller who can't keep his fundamental mouth shut. The last name is an ideal example of literary irony.

---I guess that means there's at least one vote for that numbskull Huckabee in the Met clubhouse.

---Hillary can tell me all about how she plans to bring our men home from Iraq after she learns how to bring her husband home from the office.

---I am waiting for Barry Bonds' memoirs. "If I Took It."

---I wonder if Fred Goldman gets that money as well.

---Hanukah has started. And that prompts this nagging philosophical question. If the holiday lasts eight days, is that duration built into the shopping time?

---I can hear it now. "There are 8 to 16 shopping days left till Hanukah."

---With former Dodger owner Walter O'Malley going into the Baseball Hall of Fame, that news should effectively kill off the last two old farts in Brooklyn who are still holding this ridiculous grudge.

---The guy created a hugely successful franchise in Los Angeles and changed the game of baseball for the ages. All because he realized that, if he had stayed in Brooklyn, there would be more cops than fans in the stands.

---The longer you stay in one place, the more likely you will be there to watch it turned to poop.

---I hope whoever wins next year's Presidential election comes with a gift receipt. My guess is that it will take less than one month before we all realize we made a big mistake.

---I have to board four different planes with the next ten days. Please send me your guesses on how many hours I will be delayed. Round up to the nearest hundred.

---I am also going to spend Saturday evening in Manhattan with several million of my favorite tourist friends from Arkansas. Please send me your guesses on how many times one of these yokels will piss me off during the course of the night. Round up to the nearest thousand.

---My first Christmas shopping experience of the year. I pick up an item at Macy's. I walk to the counter and pay for it. The clerk writes his name on the receipt and tells me that, if conducted for a survey, I should remember his name and the fact that his service was outstanding.

---Because nobody can run my Macy's card through the machine better than him?

---Outstanding service to me means he gave me the item for nothing.

---I guess the news that Carson Daly has crossed the writers' picket line to do his late night show would be bigger if anybody gave a shit about Carson Daly.

---Carson is another one of those marketing-created mental midgets who considers a decision to urinate as a profound moment in their day.

---The writers may be on strike, but that doesn't mean you can't find good comedy on television. There were tons of laughs for us last night as we watched HSN's two-hour Suzanne Somers Christmas sale. She shamelessly hawked everything from earrings to BBQ sauce.

---It would be a great satire about the stupidity of America.

---But, I guess something isn't satirical if it's really true.

---Suzanne's silky pajamas were a big seller last night. Within ten minutes, both the 2X and 3X sizes were completely sold out. Which gives you a rough idea about the size of Suzanne's audience.

---And I'm not talking about a head count.

Dinner last night: Beef Stroganoff.