Night Owl Cards

For awhile there, I was a bit miffed over the reaction to Tuesday's post. I'm aware that there aren't as many set collectors as there once was and especially on the blogs it seems to be a very rare breed -- much rarer than it once was. But I expected more than one person to be at least a little amazed by the different path to putting a set in order by card number, especially since all I ever heard from set collectors prior was there's just that one way to skin a cat. I should know by now that there is no guarantee when it comes to blog comments. But I think this is the new normal. Everything on the blogs is down these days: comments, views, number of posts by other bloggers, trades, cards arriving in the mail from other bloggers, just general enthusiasm for the card blogging life, down, down, down, down. The interesting thing is that I've noticed the latest downturn (there have been several over the last eight years or so) within the last year. If you go ...

I've been home the last couple of days from various vacation jaunts but it's still a bit difficult -- even for me -- to get back into a blogging state of mind. Although I live to write, and what else better to write about than baseball cards, the weather is just too nice to sit in a chair and type away at a laptop. I will never be a beach person or a rock-climbing person or a ride-my-motorcycle person, but the summertime definitely does call when it's 75 degrees with no humidity and that sun -- oh, that sun -- is so, so, shiny. Just take a look at my blog stats over the last eight years or so: If you are to believe Blogger, July isn't the greatest month for readership. It's definitely not the worst (I'm going to credit the annual release of Allen & Ginter for that), but it's rarely one of the peak months. May and October seem to be when readership climbs. Looking at the July 2019 stats is a bit alarming -- fewest views in years -- but keep ...

Just a short post this particular wee hour because I'm really tired and not feeling it. Here is a graphic for your perusal: This is a chart of my hits from the last month. I'm pretty lax on following my blog stats. I mean, I'll check them a lot, but as for scouring every number, looking for insight, that doesn't interest me. No one's paying me for this, you know. What I have noticed -- only because it's difficult to ignore -- are the rhythmic spikes in the graph. Once a week, with disturbing regularity, the graph spikes. After digging around for -- oh, 30 seconds -- I figured out the reason for the spikes. Those are the times when I publish the Cardboard Appreciation posts. Now, I enjoy the Cardboard Appreciation posts -- when I can figure out a reason to write about a card. But I have to admit, the series is a hit-and-miss exercise for me. Some of the posts I like. Others are giant, noisy, please-God-make-it-stop clunkers. I have to exercise every le...