Night Owl Cards

As a few of you know, COMC is holding several "challenges" to help recatalog their inventory of cards. I'm more than happy to help COMC because, from the beginning, I've found it the easiest way for me to obtain cards online. Also, I get the feeling that Beckett doesn't like COMC very much, so that's more inspiration for me. The challenges are pretty tedious -- name the team, name the card number, etc. -- but if I have the time, and I turn on my tunes, I can whip through a handful of challenges in a single sitting until insane boredom hits me. The best part of the challenges is you accumulate store credit by doing them. Before I knew it, I had a healthy amount of "found money," and I decided to go shopping. I spent a little bit on my still unannounced card contest winner and then determined how I'd divide up the rest. I decided I would devote them to Dodger cards that I'd never think of to buy online, or cards that I didn't eve...

More than two months ago I "celebrated" a birthday. "Celebrated" is in quotes because you don't really celebrate birthdays at my age. You mark them grudgingly and take solace that it should be a 24-hour time block free of irritation. But beyond that, I wasn't in the mood for celebrating because I knew by that time that the cash I usually receive for my birthday, that I would normally spend on cards, would have to be saved for the possibility that it would be spent on bills. Oh, that's ugly. So, yes, there was cake and ice cream and people and presents and a night out and songs and all that. But what's a birthday without being able to buy cards? That's not really a birthday to me. If I was younger I would've thrown a tantrum and shut myself in my room the whole day. But those days are long gone and I grimly accepted my fate. I held on to that birthday money for two months. Some days I was just a pen stroke or keyboard stroke away fr...

A few weeks ago I decided to separate my Check Out My Cards purchases into categories. That means buying nothing but Dodgers one time, then nothing but vintage another time, then nothing but oddballs another time, etc., etc. I collect so many different items that I didn't want to deprive one aspect of my collection for another, which is what I felt like I was doing. I was pretty happy with that arrangement and had loaded up my cart with a bunch of Dodgers for when I was ready to hit the old "ship" button. But those cards never made it to me. I panicked. My favorite current player, as you know, is Clayton Kershaw. His cards are starting to go for prices that make me uncomfortable. Some collectors say he's still undervalued. I say, "I want to travel in the cash circles that you do, bud." The cards I see aren't undervalued. Then Kershaw pitched a shutout on opening day and hit a home run. I started to get a little concerned. The second game he ...