Night Owl Cards

  I've mentioned before that work has been even more of a time-suck than previously. It's infringing on blog posting and I don't think I can go to my bosses and say this is the reason why something's got to change, but something's got to change!   The first three days this week I worked more than the usual eight hours (plus a couple hours on Sunday) and I was prepared to do the same Thursday. I had a story interview arranged before I started my shift and I thought, "welp, I just added more hours that I won't get paid for!"   But it didn't turn out that way. Thanks to some general panicking about the weather, every single sports event in our area was canceled last night. So I ended leaving work at 10:45 p.m! That never happens. Usually I'm there until 12-12:30 and on busier nights (like tonight), I'll close up shop around 1:30 a.m.   So I got to leave work early. That's a red-letter day around here! (I don't have much). But I should...

  I've been pretty lax on writing about Shohei Ohtani's unreal run to 50-50 and beyond in the last week. Some Dodgers fan I am. But I'd like you to know that I've watched the highlights of the 50-50 game five times now. It's one of the great things about being a baseball fan -- seeing something you've never seen before even after 40-plus years of watching the sport. Obviously, Ohtani blowing past 40-40 like it was an every year occurrence has had an effect on the hobby, specifically hiking the price on everything Ohtani.   I am still in need of an extra 2024 Topps flagship Ohtani base card for my complete-set chase, but for anyone with a similar need, don't bother going on COMC for it.   Amazingly, the card is sold out. That's difficult to believe. Meanwhile, there are about 196 copies available of one of his 2024 flagship combo cards. I don't have very many Ohtani Dodgers cards, maybe a dozen, and apparently now isn't the time to look to add to ...

  When I first started blogging way back when, I was amazed not just by the size of my new blogging buddies' collections, but also their ability to continue acquiring cards and also distributing those cards at will to fellow collectors. I knew only my tiny card world, which mostly remained the same since I was a child. I never had that much money to spend on cards. At first, it was whatever I could save up from my allowance, then it was whatever I could save up from my newspaper route, later it was spill-over cash from part-time jobs. I then took on a career that is renowned for paying squat and that's how I've survived in the hobby, carefully budgeting what I can spend on cards. I perhaps have more money now than ever to spend on cards at this stage of my life. But I behave as if I'm still counting quarters before biking to the drug store a couple miles away. And I remain amazed at what other collectors seem to have available. Without being able to view their collectio...

  Well ... not exactly. Cards are always on my mind, even if I'm not physically present with them or writing about them. I traded cardboard success for family bonding success over the weekend. That's an even swap but you don't want to read about ducks and piggies. So I'll reveal the ugly card details and show some shoulder-shrug cards before getting out of here and refocused on hobby things.   I managed to skip not one but two large card shows near me over the weekend. This isn't my fault or anyone else's except for whoever decided that schools in this area would get this week off instead the first week in April like what usually happens (my personal vacations are often tied to school vacations -- and I cannot wait until that's no longer a thing).   To compensate, I stopped by a hobby shop in a nearby mall where I was staying and then a flea market on the way home. I managed two cards for my collection, one from each place. Two Panini-themed Dodgers, which i...

    This is post No. 5500 on the blog. Not that the number means all that much, unless you tell someone outside the hobby that you've written 5,500 blog posts about accumulating cards. That will probably draw some sort of reaction.   To them -- most of them anyway -- it's all just mindless accumulation. It's all stuff for the throw-out man eventually. But to me, and the people who read this -- this blog isn't FOR YOU, people who think cards are dumb -- every card added has meaning. It fits into a specific category that pays tribute to whatever thing -- baseball, player, year, hobby -- that means something to that collector.   There's probably no more appropriate time than to go through some recent pickups -- wildly unconnected -- that have been occupying space on my card desk for too long. Yeah it's another show-off post. I'm 5500 posts in now, I can't change.   This will illustrate exactly how many kinds of cards I think are important and also that I ...