Night Owl Cards

  It's fairly apparent that the world now thinks of the 1980s as "ye olden times." I spent much of the past weekend watching baseball and anyone who grew up in that decade can't help but recognize the 1980s pop songs now passing for commercial jingles. Fleetwood Mac's "Everywhere" is selling Kohl's products, REO Speedwagon's "Can't Fight This Feeling" hawks Tums antacid. This isn't a new phenomenon, it's been going on for years, but it seems rampant now. Businesses are trying to capitalize on the nostalgia factor used so successfully in "Stranger Things," and even people who didn't grow up in the '80s admit that there may have been no other decade with more catchy pop songs than the '80s. How do you explain the retro-appreciation for songs like "Take On Me," "Africa" and "Here I Go Again"? I am proud to have lived through the '80s -- not merely as a kid -- but as a teen...

(Greetings on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year. I tried traveling this weekend about 20 years ago. It was awful. I vowed never to do it again. And I haven't. It's time for Cardboard Appreciation. From the comfort of my home. This is the 306th in a series):   When I last visited this card, I was showing off the 868 versions of it that I had received from Dodgers fan and former 1992 Upper Deck Eric Karros hoarder, Rob . I haven't thought about the card, or how many copies of it that I still own, all that much in the last six years. I did give away a handful not long after receiving them. But the vast majority have been sitting in a couple of long boxes (one won't do the trick) in a closet for all of these years. However, I took them out last week when someone on Twitter asked "what's the most of a single card that you own?" I've met a lot of card hoarders in my time online and I expected a bunch of people to show off entire binders of the...

  I may whine about all of the promoted platforms for obtaining cards -- according to who you talk to, the best place for finding cards is ebay, sportlots, COMC, TCDB, cardbarrel, Facebook, Twitter, or something I don't remember because that's too many places -- but I recognize the importance of staying connected. If you want to trade like we did on the blogs in the old days, you either have to add a platform to your inventory -- something like Facebook or TCDB -- or stay connected to as many bloggers and former bloggers as possible.   The latter can be a lot of work, bloggers aren't as accessible as they once were. Everyone seems to be busy. Fortunately, I've been around for quite awhile with a high-profile blog so bloggers of all sorts -- current ones and former ones -- think of me when distributing cards.   Thanks guys!     You're looking at the first-ever die-cut card. Who knew that Post was offering die-cut parallels in 1962? This homemade jobbie arrived fr...

I just read a story from last year from a writer who said we should be embracing college football's recent trend to schedule games on Fridays because it means more college football viewing for the couch potatoes at home. This is a thinly-veiled excuse for lining TV's pockets and for trampling all over high school football's big night (believe it or not, college football couch potato, there are people around here who would like to go to a high school football game and watch Syracuse University play, but they can't, because college football has to take every day of the week for itself). And I've added it onto the pile of reasons why I can't be bothered with college football. This is the state of angst I enter every year at this time. Football season is beginning this weekend (or already has begun for you Thursday players) and I'm told I need to be ready. I am ready. But I am bracing, not welcoming. Football has become too much of a bother to be truly en...