Oh, and before I forget...

Last spring, at the Phan Club banquet, Neil talked to Mark and me about
the bobblehead doll promo that had recently gone off. I'd asked him how
it felt to be a bobblehead, and he wanted to know if Mark and I had
gotten one (yes: we each got one as season ticket holders).

I told him that I had his doll right next to Maxime Ouellet's
bobblehead, and he grinned widely. "Maxy has a bobblehead?". This was,
apparently, the first he'd heard of it.

"Yeah. I keep patting him on the head and he keeps getting shutouts."
(Which was true -- Max set a new team record with 10 shutouts for
Portland last season.) "Now I'll pat you both on the head".

"Oh, pat away, pat away", Neil agreed. It must have worked -- both he
and Nitty broke the PHANTOMS club record for shutouts (5) -- Nitty had
7 and Neil had 6 by the time the season was over.

So, anyhow, I needed a hockey fix over the summer, and took this
picture with my camera phone:


It's still the wallpaper on my phone, and it occurred to me to show it
to Neil.

"Remember I told you I had your bobblehead and Max's together? Here
they are", and handed him the phone.

Great big grin. "Is that Maxy's doll?"

"Yeah. Every morning I pat them on the head as I walk by. It must have
worked yesterday, you both won last night".

"Maxy won? Good. How's he doing this season? Who were they playing?"

At which point I launched into who Portland's opponents were on Friday
and Saturday, the fact that Max won both games, and that he's 4-1 so
far this season. It never seems to take long for people to figure out
that I'm a walking font of minutiae for details like favorite players'
stats, does it? ;o) Then again, what good is being a geek if you can't
memorize the important minutiae like that?

Ah, well. Back to the grind -- I have some letters to print.



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