Night Owl Cards

  I realize that I am fortunate to have a card room. Not every collector has one, in fact I didn't have one until three years ago, and I've been at this collecting thing for a long, long time. (My first packs weren't in '97 or in '87 or even in '77. Try 1975).   Inside that card room I have a card table and a card desk. I'm fortunate to have those, too. I have two binder shelves and a separate shelf cabinet for some card boxes. All very fortunate developments.   That's why I've been a bit concerned about my treatment of my room recently. Sure, some of the resulting mess was because I was upgrading some shelving (see photo above) and also launched a time-consuming giveaway.     But there's really no excuse for the clutter-fest on my card desk. I need to treat it better.   I know it doesn't look that messy. But that's deceptive. I'm losing cards, you guys, because of the way it looks. The bottom left third of the card desk is reserved f...

When I turned the TV on this afternoon, the first play of the NFL season that I saw was the quarterback for my Buffalo Bills enjoying his initial taste of Orchard Park grass. Patriots were ahead 10-0. The Bills proceeded to lose in typically heartbreaking fashion. I am not ready for football. Haven't been for years. Wrote about that a few times. But, Hank Williams Jr. wannabes, you keep asking me if I'm ready. So here is why I am not, in the ever popular reverse top-10 format: 10. Chris Berman 9. They took away the Oilers 8. "The National Football League" 7. Military and war references 6. My Bills 5. For the 900th time, I do not want to watch your "all-new" TV show 4. One of those horrible commercials is going to invade my brain, latch on, and game-day-bucket-go-boom me until I drive over a cliff on Super Bowl Sunday 3. The NFL is fully invested in shortening the lifespan of its players 2. Criminals everywhere 1. IT'S STILL BASEBALL SEASO...

I absolutely love my card desk. I've loved it from the moment it arrived . It's useful, it's functional and it keeps the peace. It never lets me down and is always faithful. But, I regret to inform you that outside forces are bringing it down. It's not performing its duties as well as it once did. I'm starting to lose things and I get this feeling that certain people are looking at it in that "will you please pull the roll-top thingy DOWN so we don't have to see all that clutter?" The problem is that the roll-top thingy won't come down because of all the clutter. Now there are a few suspects to blame for my desk's sudden inefficiency, but the real source of this problem is basically a good thing: baseball is back. The return of baseball means a lot of things: going to games, watching games on TV, following your favorite players, snagging autographs, great weather, great food, all that stuff. But it also can mean stupid stuff like ...

I just finished transferring the stacks of cards that sat out brazenly in the living room, in full view of everyone for the last two-plus years, to a new roll-top desk, where they can be hidden from anyone who might be offended by them. Now, I don't know whether they have offended anyone. Nobody has told me that to my face. Yet the desk is of the roll-top variety. So, you know, the cards can't be SEEN. Take from that what you may. My wife's influence is all over this, as you might have guessed. The home and garden shows are popular in my home. I don't watch them very often because they're agonizing. But every once in awhile I catch a couple going through a home and commenting about what they like or don't like about the house. I giggle when I hear the guy mention that he doesn't like the color of the drapes or the wall pattern in the kitchen. I giggle because: 1. You shouldn't have an opinion, buddy. Why do you care about wall patterns? It...