Night Owl Cards

I knew there was a reason that a non-basketball fan kept this card in his collection. I have about 2 billion reasons to be excited right now. Good riddance, Frank! Welcome, Magic! Welcome, Stan! Welcome, Mr. Guggenheim! The Dodgers are now even cooler than they've ever been. Let's hope no one mucks it up. (We now need a Dodger card of Magic).

Time is not my own today, so all I could do was grasp at some cards that had something in common and declare it a post. Viola! You're reading it! Mission accomplished. I've noticed a flurry of Matt Kemps entering my collection lately. This is very good, because when players start to reach star status, people begin to hold onto their cards for reasons I don't entirely understand. I'm certainly not clinging to Robinson Cano or Albert Pujols cards. Give me all your Kemps! But, fortunately, some have escaped into my clutches. I grabbed the latest Kemps that I've acquired to show here. Two apiece come from various pleasant collectors. The last card comes from ... me. I'm so generous. First, we have the 2012 Topps Heritage NL(TM) Home Run Leaders card. Go out and purchase your official National League memorabilia NOW! Aside from that big of ugliness, you'll notice that Kemp is not in the center of the card even though he led the league in home runs an...

Topps' overdose on the gold theme this year has led to a pile of pointless, unattractive and repetitive inserts. I'd have to take a closer look at the inserts offered in 2008, but I think this might be the worst insert class since 2007. But there is one insert with which Topps really did strike gold. These things are phenomenal. The Gold Rush cards are available through a redemption-type deal. If you bought so many hobby packs and sent back the garbage, they'd send you these cards. Something like that anyway. I don't have the time to pay attention and my hobby shop isn't convenient. Fortunately, other bloggers don't have such problems and did obtain these cards. I was able to land all four of the Dodgers from Community Gum . And, once again, they are super-cool (both the cards and CG). Even the backs are cool. I love the Old West Gold Rush theme. Well-executed. The cards are thinner than I thought they would be, about the thickness of an ave...

I received this card from jacob mrley of Starting Nine last week. It's from this year's Heritage set, of course, and it's flat-out ugly. Here, I'll show you the original Dodgers Big Three card from the 1963 Topps set for comparison. Isn't that much more purty? Now, you may not notice much of a difference -- or maybe you think I'm whining again -- but I'm not talking about the unnecessary italicizing of "Dodgers" on the Heritage card; the lack of an apostrophe on the Heritage card; or the relegation of Clayton Kershaw's name to the second row, when there was none of that nonsense with the original card. No, I'm talking about something much more apparent. It's the registered trademark symbol. Yup, it looks just about that big when I view the card. In fact, it's about all I see. Part of this is because the fonts used with 1963 Topps were rather large, leading to large trademark symbols. Obviously, trademarks ...

The One-Card Challenge is still going strong and there's been a slew of requests and completions since the last update . So I'll try to get everyone as up to the minute as I can. For those who don't know, the One-Card Challenge's purpose is for collectors to get the word out about the one card that they need to finish off a set. That set could be your average base set, or a team set or even an insert set. The collector leaves a comment on the original post (it's linked over on the sidebar), and then the collecting community goes to work. As usual, if there is a set you completed through the OCC that isn't featured here in one of these updates, or I've mistakenly completed a set that is not finished, let me know. I'll update the update. As far as I can tell, the number of successful OCC completions is now up to 18. With a few others in progress. And I know I'm missing some. On with the update: Challenge: 1995 Topps Stadium Club Hideo ...

You might recall that I went through a bit of a funk a few weeks back. Things were not going well and it was affecting everything in my life, including the blog. Well, as you may have surmised from the last post, the reasons were medical. Since the calendar turned from 2011 to 2012, I have basically felt like crap. In January I was the sickest I've been in years. That was disturbing enough because I just don't get sick. But even after getting better, I didn't really feel better. That went on for a couple of weeks until I decided to call in the doctors. And that led to further medical visits. And tests. And more tests. And more tests. All of this went on over the last couple of months. For a long time I thought there might be something desperately wrong. That's how ominous the symptoms were. When the diagnosis was finally revealed, it's nothing I would want to wish on anyone. But it's something that I can handle relatively easily, although it involves a...

I recently overhauled my diet. A major, sweeping change. It was out of necessity. Doctor's orders. Considering that I am healthy in just about every measurement that the general public uses to judge tip-top shape, I'm still dealing with the emotional resentment that comes with this new direction. But I agree, it's for the best. This means, when I go out to a restaurant -- and this has happened already -- I do not order what other people order. I order something that appears "less fun," or "sad," even. But, really, I'm OK with it. I'll have to get used to other people's reactions to what I'm eating (that's OK, sir, just keep pounding down those cheeseburgers). But that won't be much of an issue either. That's because I'm used to being an oddball. I've always had oddball tastes. Not VASTLY oddball -- as today's alternative and extreme lifestyles have demonstrated -- but out of the mainstream just enough. I...