Ya know, sometimes it just doesn't pay to examine things too closely. For example, let's discuss the candy hearts I saw this afternoon.

These sugar candy Valentine hearts have been on the market every year since forever. I mean the little multi-colored ones that have brief sayings written on them. Someone at work had a bunch of them prominently placed outside her cubicle this afternoon, so as I picked up a few I thought, "Gee, it's nice to know some things never change. I ate these as a kid and they're still making them today".

Well, before I actually ate the candy hearts, I decided to read all the little sayings first. "Love you", said one. "Be mine", said another. Ah, memories. Just like when I was a kid. I kept reading... and then I found two with sayings that most certainly DID NOT fit that description.

"Page me"? "Fax me"? What the heck? There were no such things as pagers and fax machines when I was a kid. So much for my feeling that some things never change. I didn't realize until I started reading the inscriptions, but apparently Candy Hearts Version 2.0 is what's on sale these days. Sheesh, even junk food undergoes upgrades to stay compatible with the latest technology.

In other news, congrats to Antero Nifty-maki... oops, Niittymaki... for earning his 4th shutout of the season. In the process, he helped the Phantoms break our franchise record for shutouts in a season. The previous record was 5. He matched that last week with his third shutout (Neil Little has the other two). Now the team has SIX shutouts, and the season's just a little more than half over. Hey, I'm impressed! :o) Way to make this goalie junkie proud of you, Nitty!

Even better, he blanked the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, meaning we're only one point behind them in the standings. If we continue to play well, we could actually pass them and take the lead in our division soon. That would be great, especially considering how hard we had to work to improve and reach this point. Plus, we've already had key guys missing from the lineup because they were called up or injured; instead of falling apart, we kept finding ways to win. This entire team should be proud of what they've accomplished so far this season. May we keep it up!