Mail Call: Dog Sitters Aren't Supposed To Sit On The Dog.

       I recently spent a week dog sitting my brother's dog Stella.  You have seen her here before as this is certainly not the first time I have done the staycation thing with my favorite canine.  A lot of people think this is not a good way to spend your off time but I honestly cannot think of a better way.  I am not big on travel and adventure; the notion of going to Rome to see the Colosseum or to Tokyo to try to figure out a language that is way over my head sound like more trouble than they're worth.  Plus, going to Disney World with two small children, like my brother did this time around, sounds like pure unadulterated torture.  But spending a week of solitude in a large mostly secluded house with a very low maintenance and adorable yellow lab?  Pure heaven.  In fact, part of my motivation to reignite the blog came from my memories of writing curled up on a couch with the dog sleeping at my feet.

       The only really good part about coming home to real life is the big pile of mail waiting for you. Specifically the cards, the bills can go get fucked.

So let's take a look at the goodies inside these envelopes and packages.

       There is one Listia seller that I really enjoy buying from (he also has a dog as his profile pic. Coincidence? I think not...).  When I order a lot of 6 cards from him, there is always 9 or 10 in the envelope.  I like this both for the surprise and for the maximum efficiency of his mailing as this is about as many cards as you can get into a PWE before you have to add extra stamps.

Can you guess which card I bought this lot for?  Hint, it is not the Bobby Bonilla.  Oddly, it is also not the amusingly named Pete LaCock, who has a wonderful family history.  X for the center square if you knew the answer without clicking.

       There were some players I collect in that pile too.  That is a Frank Thomas I needed as well as a couple of Big Papis. Saints vs. Colts? I always like how that turns out. Also, that's Ron Meyer (no relation).

Joe Flacco has officially been categorized, the verdict is not elite.  But also, still not the worst QB to lead the Ravens to a Super Bowl victory. So he has that going for him, which is nice.

This year is an Olympic year so when I saw this lot, I had to have it to make a page.

These are 1996 Collect-A-Card Centennial Olympic Collection cards and I'd be lying if I said I had ever heard of them before.  The photography is nifty but you would expect that since the Olympics are pretty much the Olympics for sports photographers too.

       Speaking of collections, these are from the famous (and infamously overproduced) 1992 Sporting News Conlon Collection.

While this batch seems to make a tidy page, they are actually destined for other things.  A few name collections, a couple photo collections, and one is going with my Babe Ruth cards.  Your rudimentary knowledge of baseball history should tell you which.

       Okay, now things get a little more random.  That 1960 Joe Cunningham All Star card is bound for a small collection of cards that I will reveal, well, around the All Star Break (I bought that one on eBay).  That Rocky IV card is one from a set I never knew existed and captures one of the more ridiculous moments in a most ridiculous movie. Apollo Creed deserved better, dammit, and Rock should have thrown the damn towel.  I got that lot of Piazza cards for the MLB Debut insert that I didn't have but it included that UD Masterpieces which might be my favorite non-Met Piazza card. 

Lastly, I bought a set of cards on eBay that I ran into by accident looking for something else, but seeing it, I just had to have it.

        I am sure they are going for a Where's Waldo thing here, just another example of manufactured whimsy from Topps Opening Day.  While nine card sets are ideal, I don't mind ten when I can pluck one of the cards for a player collection - in this case, David Wright - and use the rest for the page (even if it includes a Chipper Jones card). 

I do love how busy this page looks and it will find a place of honor in my weird insert collection binder.  There was also a 2020 Topps blaster waiting for me, but that will have to be another post.  I needed something to cheer me up from missing that cute damn dog.

Resolute.

       I am not a man who makes New Year's resolutions.  I am the type who is reflective and then active.  Those "resolutions" people throw around - lose 10 pounds, call their mother more, hike the Appalachian trail, etc. etc. - are just a set up for failure.  I say, if you look at your life and see some thing wrong, fix it; if you see something right, keep doing it.  It's not brain surgery.  I have been blogging now for 10 months and I like my blog.  I think I am doing it right and I hope you enjoy it.  I am resolute in this matter.

Oh, and because I should probably post something, here is a scan from the "unused file":

This is a page of Starting Line Up cards featuring Kirby Puckett and Don Mattingly.  I have no idea where the little plastic statues are.  I have no idea why I scanned this page.  But dammit if it isn't pretty cool: two of the best hitters from the 80's on some righteously ugly cards.

Happy 2013 Everyone.

Football Week 7: Random Shiny!

      I have spent the last few months trying to sort out the miasma that is my football binders into something with the appearance of a collection.  The deeper in I get, the more messy everything appears to be.  I want to streamline things the way I have my baseball and (for the most part) my hockey collection.  I want nice nine pocket pages with a single theme.  I want my favorite players and cards well represented.  I want it to look like someone applied a modicum of thought to the whole thing.

That brings us to this couple of pages I found this morning.  They are kooky.  They are full of random cards.  Sure, random can be fun sometimes, but wow, these bring random to a whole new level.  I truly would like to know what I was thinking when these pages were created: "Hey! This one is kinda shiny...this one is die-cut...this one is die-cut and kinda shiny, I think I'll stick it in here!"  That would seem to be the maximum amount of brain power that went into this one:

Ahhhh, the late 90's and early aughts were such a wonderful time.  Cards with a patchwork of foil, cuts, see-thru, reflectors, refractors, and whatever the hell dufex is.  This page is glorious in its representation of that era.  I am almost tempted not to change this one at all.  It is so organically haphazard that it almost seems planned.  I really wish it was.  The scan does not do it justice either.  That Tamarick Vanover (great name alert!) in the upper left is a Trophy Collection card. The Jim Harbaugh (current 49ers coach) in the middle left is a Stadium Club Dot Matrix parallel.  Yeah, maybe those card styles mean nothing to you, but in real life, they are sooooooo shiny.  The scans of the Kevin Greene and Edgerrin James on the right kinda show how shiny these cards are.  I could probably blind drivers from 50 yards with that Greene card.  The bottom row is a a trio of foil drenched die cuts.  Upper Deck really loves that little curved notch they used on the Kerry Collins card; they used it as recently as 2010. 

This page has a companion.  Unfortunately, it is not nearly as connected by its randomness:

It would seem that with this page, I really was just sticking cards in the pages.  The Rocket Ismail in the upper left is a Members Only Stadium Club cards and is very shiny (shouldn't he be wearing a jacket?) and apparently, I went completely 5th grade and put in a couple of Marion Butts cards.  That Joey Harrington card in the center square is just as epic as it would appear.  All foil and lightning bolts, it looks like ol' Joe is getting his comeuppance for years of sucking by being electrocuted.  Too bad that insert set was only 6 cards, because a design that dramatic deserves a page of its own.  Sadly, it is downhill from there for this page.  There is a Rick Mirer card that is 1 out of 90,000 - wow, so limited - and a couple of Raiders cards, though one of them is an Upper Deck hologram card of Fred Biletnikoff.  Then it looks like I just stuck a Tom Jackson card in for no reason, since it is neither shiny nor die cut nor a parallel nor anything that would tie it in with the rest of these.  Last but not least is that Earl Campbell card in the middle bottom, which is from 2005, proving I have looked at this page in the last couple years and did nothing about it.  That said, Earl Campbell was a monster.  Never saw him play?  Go take a look...he was amazing.