Night Owl Cards

  I fall into this trap of unspoken moping about the length of time that it takes me to complete sets. Sometimes I whine publicly: Ebay shoppers are snapping up all my cards. The prices online are increasingly ridiculous. Waah! Waah!   But objectively, when emotion is taken out of the conversation, we've got it pretty good in a lot of ways. Do you ever think about how it used to be? Before the internet? If you wanted to collect a set 30 years ago, you relied on card shows, mail-order catalogs and magazines or trades with friends, relatives or acquaintances. You also bought lots and lots and lots of packs in hopes that 1 of the 12 cards inside would be one you needed. Twenty years ago, I was not online. I had just gotten back into the hobby a little. I discovered there was a person downstairs in my work office that collected 1970s cards like I did. And I knew another person in my office who had cards, but he was more interested in selling what he had. That was it. But I wasn't ...

It's good to be back. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to get away. I enjoyed the food (absolutely love my mother's turkey stuffing), the family (my three-year-old niece is destined to have her name in lights), and staying as far away from shopping malls as possible (I was scarred for life as a department store worker many years ago, and I'll never join the crowd on Black Friday). But my hobby and my blog suffered over the last few days. Without stores to go to or a fairly usable computer (the one that was available allowed me only to comment on a blog here or there), my card-viewing abilities were limited. And, much to my surprise, quite a few bloggers were updating their sites over the holiday, so I'm scrambling to keep up on what I missed since early Wednesday. I'm sure readers of this blog have seen many of the following posts, but in case they haven't, here's what drew my interest during a manic hour-plus of catching up on the card blogging univers...

I probably should explain the title of this blog a little. It might seem obvious, considering the "about me" profile along the right rail. And if you've been paying attention, almost all of my posts so far have been after midnight. Yes, I'm a night owl. I have been since I was a teenager. I work a job that requires me to toil at night, and I find that it suits me. I am most unpleasant in the morning (the few mornings that I see), but when 9 p.m. hits, the switch is on. Let's go, let's party. Now add the fact that I am an East Coast guy who is a fan of a West Coast team. After years of living through, "San Francisco at Los Angeles (n.)" in the newspaper, I fully appreciate being able to find the score of the Dodger game with a few simple key strokes. Waiting until 2 a.m. is no price to pay at all. Hell, I'm up already anyway. But that's only half of it. The other half is I've always enjoyed the night time more than the day. I love it...