Night Owl Cards

I spent three days researching yesterday's post and it received about as many clicks as one of those awesome night card posts that takes me 20 minutes to do. I know it shouldn't matter and that the only rule on this blog is to write about what I think is interesting. I know all that and have known it for years. But this is the continuation of a trend in readership that I've seen over the last month or two, and I'm coming to the conclusion that readership -- I'm not talking solely numbers here -- is not the same as it was four or five years ago. But that's a topic for another time. Tonight, in my cranky state, instead of occupying all of my time (and yours) on research that only I find fascinating, I'm going to rely on what everyone finds fascinating -- baseball cards!!!! In other words, cards that people sent to me! The truth is I'm spent. Yesterday's post only took some of my time. The vast majority has been occupied by work. For exampl...

I have a list of bloggers that deserve card packages from me sitting on my card desk. It is 15 names long. It is 15 names long because I can't fit 20 on there. This list also doesn't include any "I trade with this person all the time so I guess it's time to send him some cards" packages. I can't wait for the day when I get to that point. Nope, all of the folks on the list have sent me something days, weeks, months ago and in my current "I can get 4 packages out a week" frame of mind, I am way behind. Meanwhile, March is still tossing lit firecrackers at me as I juggle card packages while peddling a unicycle. Evil, evil month. I have no way of stopping March. And I have no way of stopping cards from coming to my house (we all have our problems, don't we?) But I do have a way of preventing the "INCOMING" stack from spilling over and forming a giant pile of cardboard in the living room, the combustible materials interminglin...

All of my Christmas shopping is done. Even more impressively, all of my Christmas wrapping is done. The latter is a four-hour marathon of incompetence, so to actually rid myself of that whole embarrassment is something to celebrate. But I'm not as impressive as some of you people out there. You know who you are. The ones who send me cards that arrive immediately before the holiday, as if they're Christmas gifts or something. Some of you even write festive things on the notes with the package, like "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays." You're all so on top of everything. Meanwhile, I've halted card shipping because of a Pre-Christmas Post Office Phobia. There won't be any "Merry Christmas, You Wonderful Blogger" notes from me because I can't get out from under the holiday. But please note that I think you're all terrific. And, much, much, much better shoppers than I. So let's see what arrived amid all the ribbons ...

I've been on Twitter for three weeks now, and I have to say the second time around is going a little better than the first. Twitter can still be annoying as hell, but I think my approach to it is better this time. I've kept to my "rule" of only tweeting about cards -- for the most part -- and I've chosen to emphasize the usefulness of the tool, rather than the crap that's too easy to obsess over. One thing that Twitter is useful for is trades. That's not the reason I got back on there again. I'm not searching for new trade partners by any means -- I'm perfectly happy with the many that I have now and I can barely keep up with them as it is. But I've been involved in three or four transactions since my return to Twitter. Two of the fellow tweeters have card blogs. Two don't. The first Twitter trade (or #TwitterTrade, as the kids are saying) involved @SWLVguy , who charmed me with his friendliness and enthusiasm for cards right away....