Night Owl Cards

I was talking to the night shift maintenance man at work last night. We were discussing the World Series opponents and how each of them hadn't won a Series in a looong time, how the two teams had waited a combined 176 years to win a World Series. Then he dropped a heavy thought on me. "I just feel sorry for whoever is going to lose," he said. I hadn't even thought of that. Wow, that's devastating. Somebody is going to this Series after such a long wait and -- dammit -- they're going to wait even longer. I will never be one of those people who says, "it's a shame someone had to lose" but it's a shame someone is going to have to lose. Perhaps I'm feeling so connected to this future loser because my team just lost. It's been pretty difficult I am surprised to admit. It isn't difficult in a "real world" sort of way, but in terms of the teams that I root for and the severity of heartbreak when they do eventually...

Back when I first started this blog, the card blogging atmosphere was a little bit different. There were a lot more "how-to-collect" card blogs, or what I would call "card advice" blogs. They actually came in pretty handy because I was really only a couple of years back into the collecting game and didn't have a full grasp on what the hobby had become. I came away with a lot of great pointers and am now in the position myself to give advice. If you're nuts enough to ask me for some. One of the things that I heard back then related to shipping cards through the mail. Here is the gist of what that advice was: "If you send cards in a plain, white envelope, you get everything you deserve." I took it to heart. And when I actually dared to send out a plain white envelope, or PWE, I accepted the consequences with humility . But then this year I joined Listia. I started shipping out more three-, two- and single-card packages than I ever had be...