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Match the song title: A Christmas Gift for You

  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, readers. May this find you well and at least somewhat in the holiday spirit. Things are looking up for me, as I was once prepared for a quiet holiday with just the two of us but now it seems the youngster will be arriving with boyfriend in tow! I try to write a post on Christmas Eve every year and this is my gift for you this time -- a Match the Song Title post about an album titled "A Christmas Gift for You". This well-known Christmas album was originally issued in November 1963 and created by the since-disgraced (and deceased) Phil Spector. The CD pictured is from the 1989 re-release, which I bought probably in 1989 as one of the first Christmas CDs I ever owned. My girlfriend (now wife) loves this CD and many of the songs. 1960s music and pop culture was retro king in the late 1980s and as difficult it is to believe now there wasn't a ton of pop Christmas music piped into every store until the '80s. The re-re-re-re-release of ...
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The most efficient use of my time ever

  On Saturday I got up knowing that the monthly card show was taking place on the other side of town. I looked out the window. It had snowed steadily the day before, very lightly but with the wind the inch or two stuck to everything and it had grown colder, too. It was maybe 10 degrees out and the cars were coated. It was my day off. Ugh, I don't know if I want to go across town. This is a terrible attitude for someone who was once willing to drive through less-than-ideal weather for more than an hour to get to one of two shows a year. So I showered, got dressed and had a bite to eat while the car warmed up. The plows had been through a few times, most of the roads should be fairly clear. I stopped at the ATM for some cash and wondered when all dealers would take nothing but cards or a cash app and then drove the rest of the way to the show. The parking lot was pretty full. I walked down the hallway and to the check-in table and paid my five bucks (still too much). I knew what I wa...

Yes, he was the best

  You are going to see, or you have already read, many tributes to Rickey Henderson today.  A lot will discuss his mind-blowing skill on the base paths and how he changed the game in the 1980s. Many will discuss his entertaining personality and how he referred to himself in the third person. Some, like us card bloggers, will talk about his cards -- his rookie card in particular -- and how he became their favorite player. All of those tributes will seem to lack something in attempting to sum up the man. This one also will fall short. That's because Rickey Henderson, who passed at age 65, was the greatest I ever saw play. I am always uncertain when people ask me to come up with the best of whatever, musician, artist, designer, inventor, etc. How can you settle on just one? But with Henderson there is no doubt. He was it. I saw it and instantly knew. He's the best damn player I've ever seen. And how do you explain why he was so great and why he captivated collectors without mi...

I prefer hanging out with oddballs

  My Black Friday COMC order came in yesterday. I'm pleased to say that it showed up more than two weeks earlier than was originally forecast. This order was not as grand as I wanted it to be. When it got time to request shipment, money was a little tighter than I expected, I had to let some cards go. But I didn't let go of the oddball cards, which actually was a good portion of the order. I gravitate toward oddballs -- I think readers know this about me -- and since I've completed so many of the main sets from the '70s and '80s, oddballs are almost all that's left. That's fine with me, because the more I think of it, I like hanging out with the oddballs. When I think of what's the opposite of those kinds of cards, high-end grade specimens of superstars and hot rookies, I know that those cards can bring out my least favorite kind of behavior in collectors, just about the rudest people I've seen in the hobby. But I rarely see that among collectors who...

Here come the aqua-men!

  My favorite parallel cards have always been the border color parallels. In the first few years of the blog, I'd gush over the Topps Chrome parallels, particularly the blue ones. There actually weren't a ton of border parallels around at the time -- the gold parallels were ... uh ... the gold standard, of course -- and you mostly had to go to Chrome or some high-end set to find something other than that.   That eventually changed about 12 years ago and now there are so many color border parallels in your basic flagship set that it's impossible to focus on them all. It's overkill and some of them I don't care about at all. As an example, that gold foil thing that started a couple years ago is really pointless.   But give Topps credit for still trying because sometimes it stumbles across something I love, like this year's aqua parallels.   I love these things -- not the Chrome ones -- just the flagship ones. I didn't realize that these were Fanatics exclusive...

Joy of a team set, chapter 28 (*sigh*)

  I went to a work Christmas party over the weekend. It was my wife's work, so I didn't know a lot of people there. That's always difficult for an introvert but at least there was good food! Often you're forced into small talk (eww) about mindless things. My wife knew almost everyone and was introducing a lot of them to me (really not necessary). Across the table sat a young man, maybe 23-25. My wife said he looked like actor Sean Penn. I'm not good at making famous people comparisons but this jumped right out at me, he definitely did look like Sean Penn. The young man, who I'm sure lives in one of the many rural towns in this area, said he didn't know who Sean Penn was. To help things along, I said Penn was once married to Madonna -- a pretty famous thing that happened in 1985. Almost no flicker of recognition. Certainly no response. OK. First, good for him for not caring. But second, HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW WHO THESE PEOPLE ARE? Was 1985 that long ago?   Mayb...