Night Owl Cards

In yesterday's post I mentioned that I am no longer interested in Topps Chrome. The removal of borders essentially ruined the brand for me (it hasn't helped much with flagship either). But that doesn't mean I can't buy a pack. I had not been to a card aisle in Target or Walmart in nearly a month. I hadn't even been in any other part of either store. It felt good. There weren't any cravings. I knew what was on the shelves. It didn't interest me. Even the urge to rip wasn't there. Ah, but addiction has its ways. While running around trying to find food that two 19-year-old girls would eat for dinner, this suddenly popped in my brain: "Hey, I haven't bought any cards at the store in awhile." It sounded very logical. Rational even. I've been a good boy. It's been many weeks. Surely a few cards after a month wouldn't be an issue. You could even buy 15 cards for $9.98. Who would care? I was back under the spell. Walmart w

U2's "The Joshua Tree 2017 Tour" is stopping in the Buffalo area next Tuesday. It would have been a prime opportunity to witness in person what I would say is my all-time favorite group and all-time favorite album, if I was forced to name something like that. However, that Tuesday I will be busy. I have a doctor's appointment and then a night of work. Getting old is tremendous. I can't say it's completely heartbreaking as we have access to concerts in our very own home these days and I watched the entire Joshua Tree '17 concert a few months ago (I don't remember where it took place). It was terrific. When I watched the concert, the songs didn't hit me quite the same way as they did in 1987. I am not the same person I was in 1987 -- I was young and ready to change the world as many college-age people are.  But I still felt at one with everything on that album. This is the sweet spot for me in music, in terms of sound, mood and lyrics. I

Awwww, isn't little Corey cwute? I'm still in decompression mode. I'm also in need of clearing a few cards out of the way so I can make room for the growing backlog of cards that I need to send people (the approaching drumbeat of September is just the best). So I've got a few small packages from people here that go nicely together because I say they do. For starters there was a Seager-centric envelope from Not Another Baseball Card Blog . Two of the three cards in it were cards of the Dreamy Corey. (Dodger Twitter folks, almost all of whom are vastly younger than me, are fond of saying "Damn, Corey" when Seager does something well. I will never understand people vastly younger than me -- or at least people vastly younger than me who write Dodger things on Twitter). The main card -- the card that intrigued me -- was something Mike pulled from a repack box, I believe. It is a card with a Beckett Baseball magazine theme. This image was the cover o

I just finished producing the annual high school football special section for the newspaper. It's always a month-long project capped by a day-long finale that's sure to drain from you any will to be productive for the next 48 hours. I have the energy left to show just two cards. Fortunately, when I came home, there was a plain, white envelope sitting on the dining room table that contained -- unbelievable -- just two cards. The cards arrived from Joe , who has sent me many nice cards in the past. It's been awhile since I've heard from him, but I'm glad to learn that he's still collecting. It's some very fancy stuff, by the way. And speaking of fancy, if you're going to send two cards, then this is the way to do it. Here is the first one: This is my first "book" card. It's two mini cards, so that makes it a mini book. But I'm not complaining. What I will complain about is how card companies never see the problem with p