I'm using the Phoenix miner @ ~ 162Mhash/sec
With current difficulty it may take about 4 weeks, 5 days, 15 hours, 39 minutes, and 50 seconds to find a block if mining solo. It's not guaranted, may be less and may be much longer. (Difficulty will jump ~40% up in less than a week).
1) I realize my chances of finding a block are pretty small, but lets just assume I do. What happens? Does my wallet just go up by 50 btc one day and I'm like WTF I R rich!?
Yes, you will see a generation transaction in your wallet. Then you'll have to wait ~20 hours for 120 confirmations and if it's not failed then your balance will go 50 (+fees) BTC up.
2) I saw a btc video shortly after the /. story about some guy running a mining rig and he said something like "transaction fees are almost more profitable these days." How do I get paid these transaction fees? Again, do they just randomly show up in my balance? What's up with that?
He is wrong, transaction fees are about 0-0.05 BTC per block, rarely up to 0.1.
They will be added to your +50 at the time when block is found.
3) Phoenix miner shows my Mhash/sec, but shows 0 accepted/rejected. I assume that's there cause I'm not mining with a pool and there's no one to accept or reject my stuff. I just crunch numbers and hope I hit the jackpot. Do I have this configured correctly?
You will see "1 accepted" if you hit the block.
PPS- Thanks for your helpful responses in advance :)
Welcome to my pool :)