He's got my vote

I know that there's a couple of websites out there that do awards for various things, including blog of the year, at the end of each year. And I seem to recall that right around the time I started blogging myself, that there was a blog, or blogs, that gave out individual awards, but I don't think I ever actually saw any of those results, and have never heard anyone even mention winning one of those categories.

I'm not too keen on the idea of crowning any particular blog, "The Blog of the Year", or best blog, or whatever you want to call it. There are an awful lot of great blogs, most of which are unique in their own way, which is of course what makes them so great. I would argue that no blog is "better" than another, as that's very subjective, and plays on favoritism for my liking. By saying a blog is the "best", also makes me think that the voter is implying that if they could only read one blog, it would be that "best" blog. How one dimensional of you! If I could only read one blog, I'd choose no blog. I need variety. I need personalities, lots of personalities! I need multiple viewpoints. I'm not looking to replicate the China experience, where we have just one state sponsored blog, and you shouldn't be either. Being involved with the blogs (as a "writer" or reader) is great because you become part of a community, not an individual.

Now don't get me wrong, I may be opposed to saying that any one blog is "the blog of the year", but that doesn't mean that I'm opposed to awards in general, on the contrary, I actually really like the idea of handing out individual awards. Not only does it give a number of people a chance to "win" something, but more importantly, it recognizes many blogs, as well as their owners. Anyone is capable of writing an awesome post, or creating a memorable series, so why shouldn't they be recognized with a "Post of the Year" or "Series of the Year" award? If someone was willing to undertake such an affair, and put together some sort of Blogger awards (I don't think that anyone is going to volunteer to do so though), any number of categories could be created, from the silly to the serious, but at least when all was said and done, many people would end up being celebrated, not just one.

I'm sure a few of you might be wondering where I'm going with all of this, so let me tell you.

I started thinking about this subject while looking through my most recent purchase, which just so happens to have been 167 cards from the BASEBALLCARDSTORE.CA, a site that pretty much everyone involved with the blogs only knows about because of Trevor, from the Bump and Run Football Card Blog. He was the first to purchase from them, as well as the first to post about them, which has led to a countless number of other bloggers, and blog readers, to buy from them as well. So with that in mind, I couldn't help but think that if we were giving out awards, Trevor would surely be a shoo-in for "Assist of the Year", I know he'd have my vote. In a year where card shows have been scarce, card shops have been shuttered, COMC has been a hot mess, and eBay has devolved into a radioactive dumpster fire; the baseballcardstore has been a beacon of light for card collectors, and a lot of us have Trevor to thank for that beacon. [I'm thinking that the owners of the site should be compensating Trevor in some way as well, at least give him a discount, or free shipping, something!]

I fully admit to not being overly impressed on my first trip to the site after Trevor's initial post, and had much difficulty with the search feature. I found a couple of cards, but not enough to warrant an order. I was happy to celebrate everyone else's purchases, but had pretty much given up hope of me ever buying anything from them. That was until a few weeks back, when I decided to try and give the site another go. I ended up having less difficulty using their search feature, and started finding cards, lots of cards!

Given how many problems I've had in buying from places where you can't see the cards (I'm looking at you, Sportlots), I was a little hesitant to buy anything lest the cards ended up being in terrible condition. Thankfully I know of a fellow who I could trust to give me an honest answer about such things, so I sent off a quick email to Chris, who promptly vouched for the site, and the overall condition of their cards -- which was all I needed to start buying!

They've got a new layaway feature, which is really nice, it's basically like COMC, where you can just buy a bunch of crap, have them hold it, rinse and repeat, and then have all of your stuff shipped together when your ready. I did this over about a week, which gave me plenty of time to find a lot of really need things. Things like Panini stickers from '94 and '96, neither of which I had ever seen before, as I had stopped buying stickers by that point.

If you're buying from a site based out of Canada, it only makes sense to get some O-Pee-Chee (you'll have to trust me on the '91).

Having finished with my year long sort a few months ago, and finding that I'm mostly interested in only player collecting at this point, I pretty much just focused on certain players for the first purchase. The only problem I had was that I had finished sorting the baseball keepers first, so all of those binders and boxes are at the bottom of the card piles, and I've since unpacked a number of toy boxes, the contents of which are mostly piled up in front of said said binders and boxes, which has made them almost impossible to get to. So I had to go off of memory for the most part, which didn't work out so well, because I couldn't remember sh*t. I did the best I could, but still ended up with a lot less baseball than I had planned.

Is it just me, or do these two cards look really good side-by-side?

I told myself that I wasn't going spend more than $20 on this first order, I ended up spending $21.70 overall, which I guess is close enough.

I also told myself that I wasn't going to scan everything, and subject all of you to multiple posts worth of stuff... that didn't work out either! Seeing as how this was my largest card purchase of the year (strange year), and unless I hit up a show sometime soon (they start back up next month), may end up being my largest card purchase of the year, so you're just gonna have to indulge me in couple of "look what I got" posts (although this ones getting pretty wordy for a "look" post). Although for the record, I didn't scan everything for the coming basketball and football posts, just most of it :)

Why is it that sometimes Metal scans really well, and other times it doesn't? And I couldn't get it to show up very well, but the UD Boone is one of those gold hologram ones, which if I remember from the blogs correctly, were exclusive to the box sets. This site seems to have introduced the existence of these to a lot of people, myself included.

I wasn't collecting cards when UD Vintage came out, which is probably a good thing, because as far as the throwback sets go, it may be one of the weaker entries. The extreme closeup of this oft used Lou Boudreau photo didn't help their cause, it's an ugly card, but it's a Lou that I didn't have, and it was only a dime, so...

It's a stretch to refer to this as a Junior card, but that's what the site called it, and that's what I'll call it. I suspect that pretty much all of the Junior cards have been gotten by this point, provided of course they ever had any to begin with.

And that does it for the baseball portion of the order, like I said, I didn't get very far on that front. Since were already here, and I've got a little bit of time to kill, I might as well tuck a couple of non-sport cards in here at the end, minus the ALF sticker that led off the last post (I wish that they would've had more of those).

I decided sometime last year that I wanted to start a few non-sport "player" collections, since Venom and Carnage are two of my favorite comic baddies of all time (Carnage might be my absolute favorite), they seemed like obvious choices to collect. As usual though, I picked the worst possible time to do so, as it was just a few months later that the announcement was made that Carnage would appear in the Venom sequel, and people doing what they do, started buying all the Carnage cards in sight. Apparently those same people did this when the first Venom film came out, and even though it's almost universally disliked, they haven't slowed down much with their buying.

I put together the Marvel Universe series 2 set (technically speaking it's the sixth series, as most people seem to ignore the first four series' that started in 1987) back in 1991 when it was released. At one time I had almost a couple more sets of duplicates, but have given away pretty much all of them over the years, so when it came time to this Venom collection, the only one I had left was in my set, and I wasn't about to pull it out -- thankfully the site took care of my dilemma.

I used some of my birthday money to buy a box of Marvel Universe series 3 back in '92, and have had a complete set since then. And just like the previous series, had lots of duplicates, but have given them all away.

Here's one for the liars, drunks, and loonies binder; aka the Barrymore family binder. I don't really have such a binder, but am now intrigued by the idea. I have no affinity for Batman Forever, but do like this card. Shout out to Spyda-Man, if he hadn't shown a few of the BF holograms from his order, I would've never thought to check the site for them (or any other holograms).

And finally, the only card that I've ever wanted from the Fangoria set, but have never been able to find cheap. Thanks go out to dayf for this one, like the Barrymore hologram above, I would've never thought to check for this had the Cardboard Junkie not mentioned it while recapping his purchase from the site. For the record too, outside of the first couple of issues, Fangoria is my least favorite monster magazine, Rue Morgue is high up on that list too, but at least Rue has done a few interesting history-based articles over the years, Fangoria is just blood and guts, with a heavy emphasis on the guts.

If you're still here, I'd like to mention that I'll be doing a "thing" here on the blog a week from today, since it'll be a Friday, you should probably be able to guess what kind of "thing" it's going to be, although this "thing" will be a tad different from previous similar "things". So if you like "things", you might want to try and be here around 5:30pm (Central Time) next Friday.

And as far as the rest of this baseballcardstore stuff goes, I'm going to try and have the basketball portion up on Sunday, and then close it out with the football some time next week. Neither sport is very popular with blog readers, so it'll be interesting to me to see which one does better, I'm thinking that the football will, but I could be wrong.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Things

I've got a few things that I'd like to talk about, none of which would be worth doing individual posts for, so... looks like you're gonna be getting a bit of a potpourri today!

Thing #1:

I already shared this on Twitter, but since I know that everybody isn't on there, I'm gonna give it a quick show on here as well. I've mentioned the "copy/print/cards on the side" shop on here a few times before, it's the source for the packs in my "One Random Pack" series, of which I still have plenty of unopened packs (and a couple of cheap boxes) for -- but it's been awhile since I last stopped in there, so since I had to go through town last week, I decided I'd stop in and see if I could pick up a few more $0.25 packs.

I don't think that the bins are being added to anymore, so there wasn't anything too terribly exciting to choose from, but I did find a buck's worth, including what was my first ever soccer related purchase (it was the only pack in there). I've since found out that Vinnie Jones' (the actor) rookie card is the only real thing of interest that could come from that pack (fingers crossed).

Unfortunately, I couldn't get out of there with just these four packs...

Damn cheap boxes, they get me almost every single time I go in there! And I definitely wasn't looking for a box of Super Stars, but how was I supposed to pass up entire box of something for two dollars? The other two were $8 apiece, just in case you were wondering. I'll probably wait until winter to open them, I'm hoping they'll be able provide a little bit of joy during what is usually the most depressing time of the year for me.

Thing #2:

The last couple of weeks have seen me trying to put together a few RAK packages, which means that I've been looking through all of my card boxes, and of course inevitably that means that I will be coming across things that I didn't know I had, or things that I knew that I had, but had forgotten about.

This 1992 Action Packed gold Lou Boudreau falls into the category of not knowing that I had, I don't recall seeing it before, and I have no idea where it came from?

I've mentioned before about wanting, because we a share a birthday, to start a collection of his, a collection of the vintage variety. Now after seeing this card, which I think is pretty neat BTW, I'm starting to wonder if I'd enjoy collecting his newer cards as well? I wonder how many post-retirement cards he has?

Thing #3: Speaking of collections, I've been fortunate enough to have had three people, in as many weeks, inquire into what I collect. No longer having any want lists up on the blog has made my return emails to these generous souls much longer than they needed to be.

I took the want lists down earlier this year, primarily because they were terribly outdated, but also because I trying to dissuade people from sending anything. Don't get me wrong, I love getting mail (who doesn't?), and I'm very grateful for all of the things that have been sent my way since starting this blog -- but I knew that I wouldn't be going to as many shows this year (only one so far), which meant that I would have much less to send people in return (no one's going to want any of that overproduced wax at the top of the post). So since I'm not comfortable with receiving things, and then not reciprocating the kindness, well, that just gave me more reason to take down the lists.

These last couple of inquiries though have made me rethink my decision to remove the lists, so I will be adding some back to the blog, might take me a bit to do so, but at least people won't have to wonder anymore. My collecting interests continue to change, so these lists will probably be quite a bit different than before, but on the plus side, they'll probably contain a lot more cards that are of the easier to find variety, which I'm assuming will be a good thing.

Oh, and for the record, I did try to talk those three people out of sending anything, but I guess time will only tell if I was successful or not.

Thing #4:

I found a piece of coal last week! I'm sure that this isn't all that exciting to anyone but me, but it's still a thing that happened, so it makes into the "Things" post. This part of the state used to be a big coal mining area, so one might expect to find some coal here and there, but I've spent an awful lot of time out in the woods over the course of the last 4 1/2 years, and have never seen any coal! The most surprising thing was that I found it right next to the house, and it hadn't been there the day before. We did have a thunderstorm roll through the night before, the heavy rain from which was responsible for exposing just enough of it for me to notice a black edge protruding from the ground the the following day. Like I said, it's probably not very interesting to you, but I thought it was kind of neat.

Thing #5: Did you see last week's "COMC Shuffle" post? No? That's the problem, nobody else seems to be reading them either. Those posts have become my lowest viewed, and often receive the fewest comments, heck, posts about videos from the thrift store are more popular then the Shuffle posts. I thought folks would like the variety, especially since the items are being chosen by a randomizer, but it would appear that I was wrong. I will continue to do them until the COMC folder runs dry, but I won't be bringing it back once I get this year's COMC hoard, I'll just have to figure out another way to show that stuff on the blog.

Thing #6: In other COMC news, I added $10 to my account the other day. Now I'm sure that everybody's like "And? People add money to their account all the time!", and this is true, but I haven't added any money to my account since the Challenges started, which was like 5 or 6 years ago. I have spent a lot of time doing the Challenges since they opened, and have earned quite a bit of credit for doing so, at least up until late last year. The appeal seems to have worn off, and I just haven't wanted to waste all of my free time doing them, as a result, there's been a lot less money/credit in my account to play with. This hasn't been much of a problem though as there hasn't been a lot of cards that I'm interested in being added to the site, and where this, they're usually priced at 10-25 times more than they should be. Then July showed up, and everybody seems to be adding all this great, and reasonably priced, stuff to the site... and guess who has next to know credit left?

I've been trying to do some Challenges again, but the times that they've been open haven't been conducive to me doing them. A couple of cards that I really wanted were on sale the other day, and priced much lower than they should've been, so since my hobby spending stayed under budget last month, I had a few extra bucks this month, hence the $10 being added to my account (that felt so weird to do). Although, between this, the boxes that I led the post off with, and my trip to Goodwill and Hobby Lobby the week before, I am now pretty much tapped out for the rest of the month -- save for a few bucks to mail out a package or two.

Thing #7:

I won a small item on eBay last month, an item that was going to be coming from Israel, meaning that I would likely be getting a most interesting looking piece of mail, and I did! Obviously I've covered up the juicy parts, but that doesn't take away from the overall appeal. As for the item, you'll have to wait to see that, as it's destined for a future blog post -- a really long, and difficult to write, future blog post.

Thing #8: Anybody who's familiar with the blogs should know that there are some very talented folks out there when it comes to making customs. I have admired all of these talented individuals for many years now, and have longed for the day when I could try my hand at making customs, well, I'm happy to report that the long awaited day seems to have come.

Since I didn't know if I would be sticking with it, I wasn't about to shell out a bunch of dough for Photoshop, but I will spring for a free download! I recently found out about an editing program called GIMP (I'm sure that I'm the last to find out about it), which from what I've been able to gather, is like a poor man's Photoshop. Computers have never been my thing, because of that, I wondered initially if I would ever even be able to figure out how to use it -- but after watching a few tutorials on YouTube, and just messing around with it for a bit, I was very pleased to find that I was kind of actually understanding what was going on. And while I still have much to learn, I'm slightly excited to see what the future might bring, at least as far making customs goes.

Thing #9:

I am a fairly healthy eater, at least by American standards, and have been for quite awhile now. However, in recent years I seem to have developed a bit of a vice come summertime, that being popsicles! My want for them tends to show up right around the time that the weather starts warming up, although it doesn't seem to last until the warm weather begins to fade, I just seem to get tired of all of the extra, and honestly, unnecessary, sugar. For example, as of this writing, my "vice" has already come and gone, and there is still plenty of summer heat to be had, at least around these parts.

Anyways, some of the popsicles still come with jokes, most of which are wonderfully cheesy. Every year one or two seem to stand out from the rest, with the one above being my favorite from this past summers crop, so I figured why not share it with everyone else!

Any guesses yet? I'll give you another second to think about it before revealing the answer...
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Good show! Not only was the joke clever, but finding it on a cherry flavored popsicle made it just that much better. And for anyone who may be wondering, the answer is yes, I will be keeping it.


Thing #10: Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page :)

A new collection is afoot

I share a birthday (July 17th) with a Lou Boudreau, because of this minor connection, I have been meaning to start a collection of his for what seems like forever now -- best intentions and so forth...

A few months ago though, this wannabe collection finally got a jump start courtesy of the great Mark Hoyle.

It's not very often that I'm able to join in on a Twitter baseball discussion, mostly because I don't really follow the current happenings anymore, and I don't really care who the hot rookie of the moment is, or who it'll be next week. But some months back when Mark was showing off a recently acquired lot of signed index cards, I decided to butt in - Mark's got himself a clique on Twitter, so trying to enter one of those conversations isn't always easy either) - and compliment him on the purchase, the Boudreau in particular.

After a brief back and forth, Mark mentioned that he might already have another Lou Boudreau autograph, and if he did, I could have the index card from the lot. Turns out that he did indeed have another auto, so within a week, I had a signed Lou Boudreau index card show up in my mailbox (insert smiling emoji here).

I'm thinking that this auto would look good framed with a few of Lou's cards (from his playing days) surrounding it. I have some experience with matting and framing, so it shouldn't be too difficult to put together, I just need to stop procrastinating and start trying to get some of his cards. I see his '55 Bowman on a fairly regular basis, but the prices never seem to match the condition, so I have yet to pull the trigger on one. I guess there's no real hurry, but I don't like getting something like this, and then just putting in a drawer to never be seen again, so even if there is no to need to rush, it feels like I should try to push it along as quick as possible (hopefully that makes sense to at least one person out there).


Image pilfered from Google

Even though everyone reading this has access to the internet, I should probably still add a few Lou Boudreau facts to the post, so here goes: Lou was best known for his thirteen season with the Cleveland Indians, eight of which were spent as a player/manager, a position he took on in 1942 at the age of 25 (can anyone imagine a 25 year-old player managing a team these days?). As a player/manager, he led the Indians to a championship in 1948 (won the AL MVP that year as well). Lou was an 8-time all star, who also led the AL in doubles on three separate occasions, and his .327 won him the AL batting title in 1944. He is also credited with inventing the infield shift (to try and stymy Ted Williams). Later he would play a couple of seasons with the Red Sox (acting as a player/manger during the 1952 season), before going on to manage the Athletics and the Cubs. And finally, Lou was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1970 (what took them so long?).

It may have taken me a while to publicly say so, but I do very much appreciate the autograph, Mark. Thank you!


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.