Night Owl Cards

  For the last year-plus, my Wednesday workload has been what used to be the job of 4-5 people.   That meant that virtually my entire day was devoted to the job, even the so-called "off-hours" of the day. And many weeks work tasks bled into Tuesday, too. Writing a blog post on Wednesday was usually impossible.   However, finally, after wondering how long I would put up with this, yet another downsizing has meant that I'm getting my Wednesdays back. Beginning next week, Wednesday will be just like any other day of the work week.    I'm really happy about this, even though I have to get through this Wednesday first. As a bit of a pre-celebration with (checks clock) very little time, I'm squeezing in a short post. I received some cards yesterday from a stack sale over on Bluesky. After directing some of the cards to fellow collectors' stacks, I have eight cards left for my collection that I will count down.   Nothing exciting -- except to me, of course. Here t...

  A couple weeks ago, I noticed yet another downturn in card blogging, and I went through my blog reading list to determine how many card bloggers posted at least once a week for the previous week.   It was around 40. That seemed like an all-time low ... or at least since the early days of my blog when I'm sure there weren't even 40 card blogs.   I just checked again, and the numbers were still low, but better this time at just over 50 posting at least once a week.   I'm grateful for anyone who writes about cards at least once a week. Reading card blogs has been a daily ritual for me for more than 17 years and I would hate to move on from that. I don't know how the people who used to regularly read card blogs stopped, frankly. Don't they feel like there's a hole in their day every day?   The amount of card bloggers who write at least once a week and trade through the mail regularly is even less. Much less. But two who still do both just sent me some cards. That ...

  It's pretty apparent to me that the number of parallels in every card product has vaulted into another level of ridiculousness in the last year or two.   Counting parallels has been crazy for at least the last 10 years but somewhere around when Panini started Chronicles and then now with what Topps is doing in its main sets, it's almost impossible to keep tabs on all of them, and I don't know what to think of any collector who is trying to collect them all for one player. Pity? Admiration? Concern for Their Financial and Mental Health?  As I've said many times, despite the over-the-top number, I still like a good parallel. Colorful ones are the best. But I almost never chase them anymore. They've jumped the shark and I've stopped watching.   But also they're still a good way to find cards that are new to my collection and if they are Dodgers, I'm going to welcome most of them even while wishing we could go back to the days when there were just gold par...

  A couple of housekeeping things before I get to the topic tonight. First, I've figured out the issues I've had with commenting on some other blogs as well as, probably, why others sometimes can't comment on mine.   It comes down to Google being extra particular/unhelpful and requiring the Google Chrome browser for some blogs. I don't know why it's just some and not all. But it explains why I can comment on those difficult blogs at work because I use Chrome at work. Should've made that connection earlier.   Also, I'm still building stacks of Dodger cards for those who said they were interested. It's going to take a minute. March has slowed things down as it likes to do (its final kiss-off is really sucky weather this weekend). Hopefully next month I'll be sending packages out.   One of those collectors getting a gift of Dodgers is Jason, a.k.a., Heavy J , who recently took up the challenge of sending me Dodger cards I don't have already. This is...

  We're getting our first snow of the season today. The good news is November is almost over before we saw snow, which is pretty unusual. The bad news is it's lake-effect snow, on the holiday, and why couldn't it have snowed on Nov. 15th when no one was visiting anything? But we'll get over it, we always do. It's nice to be inside with no responsibilities and cards to pass the time. Today I've been sorting the bunches of cards I received from Johnny's Trading Spot a couple of weeks ago. That always demands some open time in my schedule so I can squint at the copyrights on the back for the cards I don't know. He's always unearthing something I've never heard of. The box arrival was actually signaled a few days earlier with a thank you note and three cards for playing one of Johnny's guessing games recently. I was mystified by the envelope because I didn't remember participating, but it turns out I had, just poorly and wanted to forget abo...