A cure for thorzul's insomnia

That's right, I'm throwing a big, wet, sloppy, juicy trade post up on the old blog. No Ambien for Thorzul tonight. He doesn't need those nasty side effects anyway. All he has to do is look here and he'll slip into la-la land.

Ever since Thorzul mentioned on his blog that he found trade posts coma-inducing, some folks have been tiptoeing around their listing of transactions. Well, I ain't gonna do dat. I've got a nice, gargantuan trade post lined up and I'm going to take my time with it. I might even throw in some tangents about my collecting goals and aspirations. I plan to begin a few sentences with "When I was a kid ..." and end a few sentences with "which reminds me of another card."

Yup, I'm going to do this trade post up right.

All right. Is Thorzul asleep?

Good, let's see what I got.

First, here are some cards from Lonestarr of Behind These Hazel Eyes. He makes a lot of noise about falling behind in getting his cards out, but he always does follow through. And the cards are always good.

This is a common variety 1993 Topps Stadium Club card. I still need so many Dodgers from this set. It's infuriating. Really. I literally rage through the streets of my neighborhood screaming, "WHY DON'T I HAVE THE MIKE SHARPERSON CARD????" It's on those days that the crazy ex-librarian living in the condemned house with overgrown foliage in his front yard is NOT the most insane person on the block.

Here is a gold version of Mr. Sherrill. Did you know he had his nickname "Brim Reaper" copyrighted? Wikipedia said so. So I half believe it. Also, if you look closely, there's a cookie crumb on the scan. Yeah, I'm a pig, but I think it goes with Sherrill's overall look.

Here is some Pack Wars card of Shawn Green. I know nothing about this card game thing and I don't want to know. And if you try to tell me anything about it, I'll be sleeping right beside Thorzul in a second. Nobody wants that.

Oooh, a super shiny Finest card of Kaz Ishii. I sure like the Early-Aught Ishii cards. But sometimes I don't get Finest. What is that pattern on the bottom? "Greater than, greater than, question mark"? Some strange amalgamation of math and grammar apparently. (EDIT: Upon a basic re-examination, it is merely arrows pointing to Ishii's uniform number, 17 -- the "1" is obscured by Ishii's leg).

The best card from Lonestarr. A first-day issue card of Clayton Kershaw from 2008 Stadium Club. I got stupid and completely forgot about this card. It's so nice for collectors to look out for each other.

Thanks, Lonestarr. I've got some Cubs set aside for you. They'll be en route soon.

All right. Still with me? I don't hear any snoring yet. The next batch of cards are from Ed of Roll Out the Barrel.

Ed was looking to get rid of some of his unwanted cards. He didn't have any of my set needs, but he did convince me to take some 2008 Heritage High Numbers off his hands. (Warning: I'm about to start talking about my collecting aspirations). Even though I'm still trying to finish off the '08 Heritage base set, I haven't placed a priority on the high numbers from the set. Someday, I may finish it off. So that's why I took the cards.

But for now, the high numbers are pretty boring to me. A bunch of after-thought players and some key rookies. Next to the Cueto card, the most exciting thing were these team cards:

The fences almost kill the cards, but they sure are colorful. The Marlins card is awesome.

As usual, Ed had some Dodgers that I needed. This is the gold variation of the '06 U&H Julio Lugo card. Lugo wasn't too golden with the Dodgers.

Here's Manny and his die-cut buddy from '09 Upper Deck X. What will happen to Upper Deck after the Yu-Gi-Oh counterfeit debacle? They're sweethearts at UD, aren't they?

The very last 2001 Fleer EX Dodgers card that I needed. Oops, there I go with my collecting aspirations again.

Awesome! An '09 Sweet Spot Kershaw card! I'm surprised by all the people that end up buying these Sweet Spot cards. Surprised but grateful. My wallet thanks you.

Ed and I have talked about this card a couple of times, and now it's mine. My first Chin-Lung Hu relic card. And another Hu card to add to the great 2008 total. I've lost track of the total count now. But it's reaching comic proportions.

Ed, your cards should be arriving any day now. Thanks as always. And thanks for being the Brewers fan who stayed awake for this.

Here we go with Noah. Is the coffee pot going? Good. You won't need too many cups for this portion. Noah always has some fancy cards.

He sent a few of the '06 Greats of the Game cards, which I like a lot. I'm showing Dusty just because Reds fans give him so much grief. Personally, I'm happy he's not in the broadcast studio anymore. So, please, Dusty, DON'T GET FIRED.

Another Sweet Spot offering. Here Manny pokes himself in the eye with his own hair, and proceeds to run toward the pitcher's mound because he can't see where first base is anymore. Hilarity ensues.

Here come the pretty, numbered parallels. This is from the Topps Rookie Cup series. The best part of these colored parallels is that the color is on the back, too. I think that's cool anyway.

Noah already sent me the red parallel of Nomo. Now I've got the orange and yellow ones, too. I'm assuming all the colors of the rainbow are represented here? I hope Topps limited it to that anyway.

Noah finds parallels I didn't know existed. Here's a parallel of the 2006 Co-Signers set.

And this is a numbered parallel of the '05 Upper Deck Classics set. This set was pretty damn dull for featuring old-timers.

Final card from Noah. It's a numbered card from that same Upper Deck Classics set featuring the one and only Penguin. Unfortunately he has to share it with an inferior player from a sickening team. I wouldn't put it past me to cut this card in half during a specific moment of rage.

Noah, I need to scrape together some more Mets for you.

Almost done here. One more group of cards. And as luck would have it (OK, there's no luck involved) these cards are from ... Thorzul!

Too bad he's asleep. These actually aren't from a trade. I paid cold, hard cash for these as Thorzul was kind enough to run a cheapie break (he just ran a second one recently) on his blog. I received a couple of late '90s Stadium Club Dodgers like Beltre here.

And one of the biggest pitching busts ever, Darren Dreifort. I really wanted this guy to do well. He was my late 1990s Clayton Kershaw. Oh well.

A nice quartet of Dodger sluggers from 1999 UD MVP. Speaking of MVP, I'm still in the middle of updating my want list (yes, more aspirations). I'm almost done with 2003. Card companies should be ashamed of the number of sets they put out that year.

Some parallel from 1996 Score of another Dodger flop, Billy Ashley. I'm also getting the base '96 Score Billy Ashley from Thorzul. He looks just as goofy. Ashley, not Thorzul.

Final card. It's one of those cool bobbleheads from '98 Collector's Choice. I'm still trying to get a double of one of these cards so I can set one up at my desk at work. I may get so desperate that I'll put one of these cards on my Nebulous 9 list.

OK, I'm bringing this post to a merciful end. For the two of you who made it through, thanks. Nudge Thorzul awake and drive safely. See you next time.

How about that? I didn't use "when I was a kid" once.