Night Owl Cards

  My Black Friday COMC order came in yesterday. I'm pleased to say that it showed up more than two weeks earlier than was originally forecast. This order was not as grand as I wanted it to be. When it got time to request shipment, money was a little tighter than I expected, I had to let some cards go. But I didn't let go of the oddball cards, which actually was a good portion of the order. I gravitate toward oddballs -- I think readers know this about me -- and since I've completed so many of the main sets from the '70s and '80s, oddballs are almost all that's left. That's fine with me, because the more I think of it, I like hanging out with the oddballs. When I think of what's the opposite of those kinds of cards, high-end grade specimens of superstars and hot rookies, I know that those cards can bring out my least favorite kind of behavior in collectors, just about the rudest people I've seen in the hobby. But I rarely see that among collectors who...

Earlier this week I went to the DMV to upgrade my driver's license. When it arrives in a couple of weeks, for the first time in quite awhile, I will be able to drive in and out of Canada again. Happy Canada Day, Canada! Watch out! I'm coming back! Per usual when you re-up your license, you must have your picture taken. It never goes well. For anybody. I don't know how they do it, producing a terrible photo of absolutely every single person every single time. Is it the camera? The lighting? DMV demons? The picture-taker always asks "is this one OK?" and shows the photo, which then causes me to go into shock, more so this time because I haven't had a haircut in four months on top of looking five years older plus the usual DMV sorcery. I go through the five stages of grief in about 15 seconds before stopping myself from saying, "It's not going to get any better." Finally, I respond: "Yeah." It makes me think of baseball player...