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I need subtitles


I am moving my 10th anniversary giveaway, yet again, to Monday. My apologies and feel free to throw rotten tomatoes at me in the comments, but you don't know what I'm doing in the rest of my life. If I appear to be "mopey" on this blog, get back to me when your parents are aging and ailing and hundreds of miles away and tell me how that blog is doing.

Anyway, Monday is a day off and I'm not traveling anywhere -- I think -- and there are no emergencies scheduled, so I'll kick it off then. Life has been so hectic that it's five games into the NLCS featuring my favorite team and I've watched exactly one-and-a-quarter games. During the 13-inning game that ended beyond 2 in the morning, I went to bed at midnight. Night Owl in his nest at midnight.

You can imagine how little time I have for pieces of cardboard. And in this modern era of cardboard in which it's a full-time job to keep track of what Topps is issuing, I laugh at all of the parallels intended to occupy my time. Parallels???? My life has no time for parallels!!!! In fact, I have no idea what parallels are being made or even whether a certain card IS a parallel. I fart in the general direction of parallels!

I definitely need subtitles for stuff like that. There's no time for research or deduction.

Fortunately, Marc at Remember the Astrodome knows this and he provided helpful subtitles on several of the cards that he sent:


Silver Parallels. Yes, thank goodness for this note. The 1990s-type parallels are sometimes impossible to catch and often incapable of making me care. I never would have figured these for cards I need.


There they are. Silver Parallels. This automatically makes me wonder how many Silver Parallels currently reside in my dupes box.



Glossy Parallel. Again, this very flustered night owl appreciates this note because, quite frankly, I had no idea Donruss Team Heroes created glossy parallels.


This is the Glossy Parallel. You and me are just going to have to take the note at its word here. I really can't tell much of a difference between this and the regular Team Heroes card. Again, the dupes box is probably crawling with glossies and I have no time to go through that thing.



Here is a Bronze Parallel. Note or no note, I would like to think I will never be too busy to not know that this is a parallel. However, I always appreciate the extra help.


There it is. Kinda looks burnt orange to me, but I'm just a '70s kid who colored with 64 Crayola crayons with a built-in sharpener.


A Shock Parallel. OK, I didn't know that was a thing and I'm impressed that Marc did. If I hadn't seen the front of the card before the back, this note wouldn't be helping me at all and I might be a bit concerned. "Shock" Parallel??? Do I want to turn it over?



ARE YOU SHOCKED???

This is a fancy-looking card. There is a heartbeat monitor effect on the card. Is that the "shock" Panini is going for in the description? If so, that's kind of serious for a non-serious hobby. I don't think it's referring to "shock waves" as those are circular (or maybe elliptical) in nature. Anyway, I like the card.

Marc added several other parallel needs, but without the subtitles. I was able to carve out a couple of minutes to determine that I needed them, although I still don't know the names of some.


I wasn't around in the hobby to collect 1997 Score but every time I see the abundant and fairly pointless parallels I know the set would've pissed me off.

All right, but what a very busy collector needs are non-parallel cards, right? Were there any regular base cards in this package, or at the very least some inserts? You know, cards that don't need to be deciphered?

Yes, I'm happy there were some of those. And needs, too.


Just about every Dodger fan has written Cody Bellinger off of doing anything in the postseason, so thank goodness for Game 4.

I could probably provide a sentence for each of the above cards that I displayed, but every thought fell out of my head when I saw this "need":


A 1990s-style parallel, issued in 2018, of a card printed 25 years ago, multiple versions of which are without a doubt swimming around in my dupes box.

Yup, I definitely have no time for this.

Although I wish the circumstances were different, I'm pretty proud that I have no time for this kind of dumbness anymore.

Comments

Bru said…
Hooray! Glad you needed some of those. The Shock ones from Optic are actually pretty neat in my opinion. That Pedro is an insert from this year’s Archives, so don’t stress too much about dupes. Although, there are several parallels of it with different color foil stamps - thanks for the bloat Topps.
Jamie Meyers said…
Good luck with the serious stuff going on in your life. We're the same age and yeah I get what you're going through. You are entitled to be grumpy.
bbcardz said…
Of the five NLCS games so far, I've only seen about 1 1/2 games live. Due to my work schedule, I've had to watch the rest via DVR and even then missed the last few innings of the last two because they went longer than I anticipated--D'OH! I'm so hoping the Dodgers clinch the series Friday night because I do have that evening off but not the next night.

Being a low-budget set collector who pretty much collects mostly Topps flagship baseball (and associated inserts/hits), keeping track of parallels/variations is not much of a problem, thank goodness.
I ended up cancelling my cable this year so I haven't watched a single game. Maybe that's why they're doing so well.
Matt said…
Sending positive vibes your way.
Brett Alan said…
Just as well it wasn't tonight...I intended to check in early, but it was a busy night work-wise and it slipped my mind.

A few times bloggers have asked what rules you would impose if you were the commissioner of baseball cards or some such thing. One rule I'd have is: every card needs to be clear about what it is. In most cases, near the card number, it should say "shock" or "refractor" or "foil" or whatever the heck parallel it is.

Hope there is good news coming about your parents and whatever other real-world stuff you're dealing with.
Fuji said…
So sorry to hear about your parents. 2018 has been a rough year for a few of us. My parents did a great job preparing me for the real world... but watching them age (what seems like five years) over the past 10 months isn't something I was ready for.
David said…
Sorry to hear about your parents' trials. I am your age and I think being grumpy at times is one of the perqs! Keep your chin up.
CrazieJoe said…
The grumpy feeling - more than understandable. Hoping that things settle out as nicely as possible for you.

Regarding parallels - having the name in the small print on a card would be a wonderful change.
CaptKirk42 said…
I agree about the parallel thing especially the 1990s "WTH is this? A Parallel? Whatdoyoucallit?".

As to the parents thing. Cherish their ailing elder years. My parents are gone. My dad passed so long ago that now a little more than half my life has been without him and this past Aug was the 11th year since my mom's passing.
AdamE said…
I mark my oddball parallels also. Things like Fleer Glossy would get mixed in with the rest. But no painter's tape for me; I sleeve them and then sharpie right on the sleeve.

Sorry to hear about your parents. Mine are not quite there yet but they have older siblings and I see what is happening with them and know mine can't be far behind. Hopefully you get some extra time for a game and it gives you a couple hours to get so immersed in something else you love and get your mind off of "real life" things. Hopefully we are chearing against each other Tuesday.
Nick said…
"This automatically makes me wonder how many Silver Parallels currently reside in my dupes box." You and me both -- I don't even think I knew '96 Stadium Club silvers existed before this...
Bru said…
I didn't until I was thumbing through the stack at the card shop. Had to pull out my phone and check.
Ana Lu said…
Topps looks like adore the Little Pony or Care Bears...because they seem to want to produce cards in every colour possible. True rainbow but with parallels for all colours of it...
Jafronius said…
Hope things improve with your parents!