Happy Halloween!

Much like the last few years, I had planned on doing some fun stuff (fun for me) here on the blog leading up to Halloween, but once again, ended up doing none of it (insert sad face emoji here). I have my usual excuses, which I'll touch on at the end of the post -- before that though, here's a few last second Halloween-ish items that I've thrown together to try and salvage some semblance of holiday spirit around here 👻.

I can't recall exactly when it was, but sometime earlier this year I bought a few items from a German seller on eBay. I think I bought four celebrity tobacco cards (German tobacco cards), and two old Ross Verlag photos/postcards, one of which featured this great image of Ida Lupino holding a jack-o-lantern. I'm assuming that most people clicking on this post either don't know who Ida Lupino is and/or don't care who she was -- so no long diatribe about her career is forthcoming. She was a fairly big star in her prime, and then had quite a bit of success on the other side of the camera later in her career. And if her with the jack-o-lantern isn't enough to be included in a Halloween post, she did appear in two horror films, The Devil's Rain, and The Food of the Gods; as well as a few horror-esque television programs, namely Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller, and The Twilight Zone.

I needed a card of Clive Barker (famous writer, and occasional director, of horror) for a binder page that I'm working on. To my knowledge he's only appeared on two cards, both coming from the rarely mentioned 1992 Eclipse Hellraiser set. For page purposes, a vertical card would've been preferred, but both of his are horizontal, so this one was chosen because I think it's the better of the two. I bought a few more choice cards from this set (among other cards from this seller), which thankfully just arrived yesterday, but only felt like scanning this one for now. [Note: technically speaking, Clive had three cards in that set, two were base cards, and the third is a crazy-rare autographed chase card. Since the auto can fetch hundreds of dollars, it wasn't, and likely never will be, an option for this particular blogger; hence my only mentioning two cards during the write-up]

And finally, a recently unearthed photo of yours truly, circa Halloween 1986. This is four-year old me all ready to head out trick or treating in my Lion-O costume. I don't recall ever having seen this photo before, but I was big Thundercats fan for a few years there, and as such, am not surprised to see myself sporting one of those old Ben Cooper costumes of the lead Thundercat himself. It's too bad my bag is in the way, as it would've been nice to have a full shot of that plastic smock, especially the midsection with it's printed belt that says "Lion-O", lest anyone not know who the wearer is supposed to be. I'm guessing that I would've played in this outfit long after Halloween, or at least until the eggshell-thin plastic mask would've broke, so there's no way that I could've hung onto the ensemble for very long, but still, it would've been a fun thing to still have after all of these years. And without even looking, I'm gonna go ahead and say that packaged examples probably sell for more then I'd be willing (or able) to pay.

So there you have it, Halloween stuff! This is one of two days during the year (Christmas being the other) that I kind of wish I had little ones around, I think it would be a lot of fun for all parties involved. Aside from decorating, I don't do very much anymore and I'm a bit isolated now out here in the country from all of the festivities, but this is still my favorite day of the year, and I can't imagine it ever not being so. Hopefully if anyone reading this is doing something tonight, you'll have a spooky good time.

Now, if anyone's made it this far...

It's been a few weeks since I last posted again (seven to be exact), and much like my previous couple of few and far between posts, the usual combination of too busy/tired/depressed have been the main culprits for keeping me away. I'm starting to sound like a broken record, always leading off posts by saying the exact same thing (I don't think it counts as change if I switch things up by closing a post with the same excuses). While always true, it's growing tiresome to always be spouting off the same reasons for not being able to produce the more occasional public missive or two, and I would have to think that it's growing even more tiresome for those of you that still come around here.

Aside from the same old song, I also seem to be quite burned out on sports cards at the moment. This has made keeping up with the blogs very difficult, and commenting on said blogs even more so. I've still been doing card stuff though, including purchasing quite a few, they've just all been of the non-sport variety. Knowing that non-sport cards are like the kiss of the death for a card blog, I'm not sure how many of my recent purchases will make it into future posts. It doesn't help too that a lot of them have been a bit on the older side, so I'm not sure how much interest there'll be in paper squares featuring the likes of Rex Harrison and James Mason.

Has anyone else noticed how many of our bloggers have been calling it a day as of late? I think that fellow from Sports Cards Ate My Brain was the last one, but he was like number five or six in the last 2-3 months. And that's just those that have officially called it quits, I'm sure there's been a few more who have made the decision without saying goodbye. It seems like that boom that the blogs experienced during the early days of the rona has ended, and rather then leveling off, is now trending in the opposite direction. I've seen a lot of folks mention that readership is down as well, and obviously I haven't been posting enough lately to add any validity to that, but if true, that combined with everyone closing up shop is only adding to my lack of desire to keep going on, blogwise that is. The prospect of typing into a void isn't my idea of a good time.

Oh, and if all of that hadn't been enough to keep me away, my printer/scanner crapped out too. It took a few weeks to get a new one, but I didn't have hardly any scans squirreled away for a rainy day, and my phone does not take very good pictures of cards. I got another cheap one, but from the couple of scans I've done already (the Clive Barker card and photo of me up above), it seems to be slightly better then my old one, which, if true, would be a nice surprise; especially given it's price.

Anyways, that's what's up, and yeah, I guess that's all I've got for today.