Night Owl Cards

We're in the final month of 2020 and already I'm sick of the "hang on, one more month" online memes and sentiments. I'm not against encouragement, but has it ever rang so hollow?   It's just numbers, you guys. It don't mean anything. That big, electric ball they drop in Times Square each year (well, most years) just moves the fourth digit up one. We'll still be dealing with the same crap in January 2021.   Actually, I've had worse years. It's all relative, of course. But if you asked me to choose between 2020 and 2019, I would say, "can't it be something other than those two years?" And then I'd say, "2020." 2019 was a disaster for me. That's the closest I've come to a nervous breakdown. I never want to go back to 2019.   And, in 2020, my favorite team won the world championship. That's a place I get to go when someone says, "find something happy in 2020 to talk about." The Dodgers won the Worl...

One thing that I fail to do when trading in this hobby is make the best use of my PWEs and my extra pages. When sending out a PWE, I usually pack maybe 3 or 4 cards into penny sleeves and fold some paper around it so the cards don't move around and then ship it off. Meanwhile, people are stuffing up to 12 cards into one-third of a nine-pocket page and shipping it in that same PWE. What's wrong with me? I don't know, I guess I don't have a lot of extra pages around right now. But that's not the main reason. The main reason is I don't think of it. And when someone sends me one of those cut-up pages, I don't keep them so I can be just as efficient when I send out PWEs. Yup, those cut-up pages just get chucked. I'm the place where pages go to die. I've got to stop that. I have a card room and a card desk and a card drawers full of supplies. I love my card drawer full of supplies. All I need to do is add those cut-up pages to the drawers an...

A week or so ago I mentioned the baseball card release calendar and how we're currently in a period where I redouble my efforts toward vintage or my team collection or oddballs. There's simply nothing new on the shelves that grabs my interest. You may wonder why I keep going back to the shelves if I'm disappointed so often. Why not just devote all my efforts to past cards? I ask myself that question, too. Why? Why do I keep going back when I know there are cards -- old cards -- that I will enjoy so much more? Why? I had to sit -- with hands off the keyboard -- and think about that for a few minutes. Why? Well, aside from the tradition, so ingrained in my collecting soul, of traveling to the store to purchase packs of cards -- something I've done for over 40 years and do not want to give up -- there is the hope. I go because of hope. I hope that there will be cards that I like. I hope that there will be new cards that I like. Something never before seen. I...

I am convinced that if you want to be a successful children's book author all you need to do is come up with a noun that would make sense when written after the words "too many". Here is a quick rundown of children's books with that construction in their title. And I didn't try very hard to find these: Too Many Rabbits Too Many Toys Too Many Frogs Too Many Dogs Too Many Monsters Too Many Mangos Too Many Tutus Too Many Hats Too Many Cats Too Many Kittens Too Many Mittens Too Many Pumpkins Too Many Tomatoes Too Many Carrots Too Many Cherries Too Many Tamales Too Many Bananas Too Many Lollipops Too Many Leprechauns Too Many Teddies Too Many Kisses Too Many Ducklings Too Many Daves Too Many Moose Too Many Cheeky Dogs Too Many Trolls Too Many Animals And the all inclusive ... Too Many Things Makes you want to go on a cleaning spree doesn't it? Well, I have one more story to add to the pile. It's called "Too Many M...