Night Owl Cards

   About a month ago (geez, time flies), I said that I wanted to get 1987 Fleer finished without going through the slog of buying 200-plus cards card-by-card or purchasing the whole set and ending up with 300-plus dupes.   The readers and bloggers heard and responded instantly. In less than a week I received four card packages that contained 1987 Fleer. My want list went from the hundreds to a handful in nothing flat and that is exactly what I wanted to happen.   The last of the '87 Fleer envelopes I'm showing came from Johnny's Trading Spot . He sent a stack of almost 50 1987 Fleer cards, many of which I still needed.   That's all the ones I needed.   So after that ice-blue whirlwind last month I'm down to just 18 needs from the set. Here they are:   4 - Gary Carter 23 - Darryl Strawberry 29 - Wade Boggs 45 - Tom Seaver 84 - Reggie Jackson 86 - Wally Joyner 191 - Milt Thompson 198 - Eric Davis 208 - Dave Parker 247 - Ernie Camacho 254 - Phil Niekro 2...

  This time of year is always a cold realization for this baseball fan.   Especially on the weekend, I'm at a loss. There are no baseball games to watch. College football means nothing to me and I'm only a casual NHL and college basketball fan so I can't get into those games until much later in the season. I like to watch the NFL, but for the most part that's only on Sunday.   So, it's tough. On Saturdays, I wander aimlessly, around the house, through the card aisle, and ... huh ... what's this? Topps is doing Heritage football? Maybe I'll try a pack of that.   Actually, this purchase was more deliberate than that. I saw the hanger packs when I was in Target a couple weeks ago when picking up the Topps Update I wrote about . Heritage football is using the 1976 Topps football design, and I've mentioned I love that set and that the first football pack I ever bought was from that set.   It would be foolish not to try a pack.   But by the time I was done I w...

   This card showed up in a package from Sportscards From The Dollar Store on Oct. 24, I think. I'm not positive on that date, but I know it was close to the weekend and it wasn't last weekend.   The date is important to me because of the date on this card. It's the first time I owned a card that notes a famous moment that occurred on my birthday. And it took receiving this card to realize that Apollo 11 -- well-known for the first moon landing -- rocketed into space on my fourth birthday! Mark it on the calendar!   I've always known that the moon landing was on July 20th, close to my birthday but I never tracked back to the blast-off date. So that's a pretty cool card to have. It's from a five-card set commemorating the 25th anniversary of Apollo 11, issued by Citgo gas stations in 1994.   Thanks to buckstorecards I've accumulated several cards of athletes who share my birthday but never an event that shares my birthday. I've finally dedicated a couple...

  I am a member of Generation X. Known for being independent, cynical, loyal and less career-oriented, that mostly describes me.   But I often feel out-of-kilter with those in my generation. Many times Gen X memes focus on growing up with '80s and '90s music, 1980s movies and late '80s/early '90s TV shows. That's not me. While I generally enjoy the grunge era of music from the '90s, it's not my preferred listening and I grew up with '70s variety shows on the TV. I like 1980s cards a lot. But I prefer the '70s.   That might be explained by being an older Gen X guy, just one year away from being a "boomer". But I don't relate to them either from a pop culture standpoint. I don't think Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd are the be-all of rock music. I have never liked progressive music, that meandering, way-too-damn-long style. I gravitated instead to short, sharp, new wave tunes. Even today I prefer that. Any song from a new album that cross...