Night Owl Cards

  The internet has a great way of providing something you have always wanted, or never even imagined possible ... and then eventually ruining it.   I experienced this great disappointment in duplicate in 2025. Two sites, so entrenched in my entertainment preferences for so many years, had evolved so far away from what I had valued them for that I could no longer ignore it.   I am struggling now to separate myself from one of them, which is Spotify. I have used the streaming site daily for the last four or five years, it has been where I discover new music and how I determine my favorite songs and albums of the year. So getting away from that and finding a new option (I'm trying Tidal right now but it is not cooperating with me) is going to take awhile.   The other site I hope is more of a clean break. In fact, I have already declared in multiple places that I have made my final order on COMC. I hope that remains true.   I have been ordering from COMC since late ...

  I've been tangling with modern inconveniences for the past month. None of it is overwhelming or a real crisis but also all of it was not even a thought 10 years ago.   To review briefly:   * Misunderstandings related to social media (yes, plural) * Getting yelled at work by readers (related to cutbacks and out of my control) * Covid arriving at home for the first time and during the holidays (we're OK) * Contractors who say they'll do the job and then disappear (it's now an epidemic around here)   It does wear on me and I'm sure others have been dealing with their own life issues at this time. It's one of the reasons why I collect -- it gives me my own space to go where I can shut out the drama of everyday existence. I'm not sure what I'd do if I didn't collect and baseball was in its offseason -- whine about my team's transactions, I guess.   But collecting saves me from that. And sometimes you get happy little card convergences that make life...

    I appreciate all the readers that I have and all the reactions I get on this blog. It's been more than a "look what I got" blog for many years now, and I'm pretty proud of that. I work kinda hard for this readership and I don't get paid nearly enough for it.   But at its core, this blog is, and always has been, for me. It's about what I am interested in, what intrigues me at the time, my opinions and allegiances and disgusts and dismissals. All mine. I won't write it unless there's something about me in it. That sounds super-selfish, but that's blogging! (Or that's card blogging anyway, I suppose there's some "Isn't the Earth Wonderful" blog out there that doesn't reference the writer a single time, I don't know, I'm not going to read anything like that).   This blog is about my travels through the hobby and through life, and sometimes I forget that.   Sometimes, I will take new cards that have arrived at my do...

  The main thing that bugs me about the uncertainty of the baseball season in 2022 is whether Clayton Kershaw is going to be back in a Dodgers uniform. The more time there is to think about that, the more I consider him playing for the Texas Rangers or not even at all. And I think I like both of those possibilities even less than than there not being a baseball season next year. To help take my mind off of that unpleasantness, and also perhaps as a farewell to my favorite player for the last dozen years, I went on a COMC Black Friday Kershaw card binge. The timing seemed right, and since I was taking advantage of the savings, almost every card was a buck or less. And the three or four that went over were still $1.25 or less. With 842 total Kershaw cards before this binge, my plan was to get to 900.    But I fell far short. I'm only at 889 now. Not sure what happened. I miscalculated, or ran out of money, or some life crisis knocked me sideways for a couple of days. Possib...

I can hear it now. But I ain't listening. When you're in love it doesn't matter what people say. I received an unexpected-but-long-overdue email in my inbox a couple of days ago from that formerly efficient cardboard shop, COMC. I had placed my order on April 22, fully expecting it to take months to arrive. Ever since the pandemic and COMC's sudden inability to fill and ship orders in a timely fashion, I have either avoided the place or, in times of impatience, shelled out for rushed shipping. But I wanted to see how long a placed order took to arrive "organically." So I pressed "ship" and set my timer. I admit, I kind of fell asleep on my watch because this notice surprised me: Holy crap. A couple of days later it arrived -- today, in fact. So, it took four months, one week and five days to materialize. That's not good, but I've heard of collectors waiting far longer. Maybe I had an advantage because I was ordering just seven cards. Yeah, th...