Euro 2012

Euro 2012 is underway and while I am not going to pretend that I know what the hell is going on, I enjoy watching football played at a high level and this is about as high as you can get without being a World Cup. Being a filthy heathen Yank meself, I don't have a direct tie to any of these teams in the tourney, BUT I am an American Euro-mutt so I have a host of teams I can pledge allegiance to. I have ancestors from four nations in Euro '12, here's my teams in order of preference: ITALIA!!!! Ireland! Deutschland, England. Scotland and the Cherokee Nation sadly did not make the tournament.

Even though I don't know much at all about football and I can't even watch the games unless I go to a sports bar or a friend's house since I don't have cable and I'm American for Christ's sake why the hell am I watching soccer like some kinda dirty communiss I like it dammit and I'm going to commemorate it with some packets of football cards/stickers over the next few days/weeks. Packets I got from a dude in England because we sure as hell don't have any over here. First up is a Packet of Panini Euro 2012 Adrenalyn XL.

DISCLAIMER: I don't know who most of these guys are. So sue me.

Eduardo - Hrvatska

I don't even know what country Hrvatska is and I'm not going to Google it to give the appearance that I are smart. I do know who Eduardo is though. I'm not completely ignorant. He's an imaginary friend who loves potatoes.

Erik Pieters - Nederland

Oh, here's something I know about Euro football. The Netherlands' kits are orange. See? I'm not completely dim, am I?

...

WELL I KNEW ENOUGH TO CALL IT A KIT DIDN'T I.

Christian Maggio - ITALIA!!!!!!!

Yes, it is necessary to spell ITALIA!!!!! in all caps and with multiple exclamation points every time. It is also necessary to post Frank Zappa right now.



(only one vowel off - close enough to post Zappa)

Oleksandr Shovkovskiy - Ukrajina

Ukraine is one of the Euro Cup hosts along with Poland. I was very surprised to learn that the actual Ukraine is much smaller than the Ukraine territory on a Risk board. I've attacked that damn territory enough times that I see it in my sleep. Dammit! You already have Australia and most of Asia, quit taking Ukraine and screwing up my Europe, you jerk! What I'm trying to say here is that goalkeeper football cards are not as interesting as goalie hockey cards.

Aleksandr Anyukov - Rossija

I wonder if Oleksandr and Aleksander and fundamentally different names or if it's just a regional spelling thing. You laugh, but there's a difference between Bob and Rob or Rick and Dick or Bill and Will isn't there? Aleksandr looks like he's missing the tip of his left index finger. I'm guessing it's either bent and not visible, is a victim of a bad cropping job or was lost in a terrible threshing accident back on the family farm. I guess if you did actually lose fingers in an accident, soccer would be a good sport to go into as long as you're not a keeper. I could think of worse things to do, Jerry Garcia lost a finger when he was four and ended up becoming a great guitar player. Can you imagine playing guitar with a finger missing? Well, it was his right middle finger so it didn't affect him with holding the frets or anything but still. I got all my fingers and I can't get the frets right for nothin'. Then again I only try to play guitar when I'm really drunk and I've never really practiced or even taken a lesson or anything. Honestly, I'm more of a horn player. I wish I could find a tuba to play, I still have my mouthpiece from high school. I should have joined the marching band at the University of Georgia. Man, that would have been fun. Probably too fun, I had enough problems passing my classes freshman year, I might have flunked out altogether. That's assuming I was accepted to the marching band at all, I wasn't all that great a tuba player and I was completely out of shape when I started college my freshman year. I lost 75 pounds my first year at Georgia just because I didn't have a car and had to walk everywhere! I miss those days of being able to walk everywhere you needed to go. Now I live out in the boonies and I have to drive all over the goddamn place just to get anywhere. How's this for stupid: the closest park to me with a track where I can safely walk without having to worry about some kid in a ricer or drunk redneck in a pickemup truck running me down on the side of the road is 20 minutes away. I have to drive 40 minutes roundtrip just to walk! Not that I ever get the chance, what with work and kids. Don't have time to walk at work due to carpool and team lunch outings. Can't walk with the kids because if I left them at the playground at the park while I walked around the track I'd be arrested for child neglect and I'd be thrown in prison and they'd be thrown in foster homes and we'd all get molested. Just because I wanted to get some goddamn exercise. Oh but if I'm fat I should just put down the fork! Oh ho ho! Screw you, it's all about exercise. I ate like a college student in college and still lost weight because I got exercise. And had a better metabolism because I was a kid. Now I'm old and I'm sitting on my ass right now in front of a computer so what can I say. It's hard writing about a Russian football defenseman.

Gianluigi Buffon - ITALIA!!!!!!!!!!!

Two ITALIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!ns in the same packet! And this one is all shiny! Even though it's impossible to tell from the scan! And it's an excuse to post this!



More Football packets soon. Soon meaning before Euro 2016 at least.

Apparently Topps Brought Back American Pie

There was a mild kerfuffle on the bloggerwebs yesterday as there were at least a half a dozen posts about 2011 Topps American Pie being an actual thing. Knowing that I have not been paying attention to new products at all lately The Dean of Card Bloggery was kind enough to inform me of this fact.

Wow, this has totally broken my formatting. Lemme, um, hold up a sec.










Ah, here we go. With all due respect to the Dean, my answer is:



You see, while American Pie May have a Frank Zappa card and a Ramones card and maybe even a Frank Black card it doesn't have the best Frank Zappa card ever in it. I've got that one.

Now if there's a Don Van Vliet card in there, I'm on it.

Happy Frank Zappa day

Ok, so Frank Zappa day was actually August 9th 2007. I'm not three years late, I'm just trying to create a new holiday. It's not like there's a decent holiday in August anyway. So what if such a holiday has no commercial potential, you don't need greeting cards or presents or candy or a gigantic feast with all the family over to sit around in your underwear all day drinking coffee and listening to all six volumes of You Cant Do That on Stage Anymore.

This is also a good time to share a card I got from the Dean of card bloggers, Chris Harris. Back in April, he did a bad, bad thing. Something I still can't bring myself to write about. But mixed amongst the horrors was something beautiful.

A Stale Gum original Relic. What could this be???

FRANK ZAPPA'S VISAGE LOVINGLY PRESSED INTO A DISC OF UNITED STATES CURRENCY AND SUBSEQUENTLY EMBEDDED INTO A CARD!

There's even card back legalese!

Congratulations!
You have received an authentic Frank Zappa squished penny. This penny was squished on a% a& authentic I-95 rest stop in Maryland. 
                                                                                                 1/1

It's 100% real, yo!

I considered MSPainting a Zappa card for this post, but really, the unique squished penny relic stands on its own. In honor of the best relic card I've seen this year here's my favorite Zappa song, featuring Don Van Vliet on growls.


That's the best guitar solo you will ever hear right there, folks. Enjoy the third anniversary of Zappa Day and celebrate this day as is the custom of your people.

FRUNOBULAX HAS BEEN SIGHTED IN CARLSBAD CALIFORNIA

GO TO THE SHELTER MY BABY MY BABY
GO TO THE SHELTER
GO TO THE SHELTER

Poodle Portuguese Water Dog bites...
Poodle Portuguese Water Dog chews it...



Baby I'm sorry, but that's all I wanna know, I need a little more cheepnis please...

Pimpmasta D back in action

One of these days writing a card blog using joking references to substance addiction and despicable criminals who sell women's bodies for money is going to come back to really bite me in the ass hard. While I will never cop out and rename the blog Card Junk (at least not until I sell out and get a big, fat check from some corporate entity), if anyone can give me a good gag to promote other people's blogs while not associating myself with people like these I'd appreciate it. Or, if you prefer I can go whole hog, get my pimp name, have PunkRockPaint design a pimped out Junkie logo and go all in on the joke, consequences be damned. Since this might be the end of the pimpin', I'm going to go out with my favorite Frank Zappa song and the absolute best guitar solo of all time.



Aaaah, beautiful. Now on to the blogs.

Houston Card Collector

Box breaks, hi-res card pr0n and of course, Astros cards. Gotta love those team collectors. Again, I'm bewildered how it took me so long to find this blog.

The #5 Baseball Card Type Collection

At one point in time I wanted to do something like this with Card #13. In a particularly evil moment I thought I might do #666. I was always t0o lazy and unfocused to follow through though. THIS GUY FOLLOWED THROUGH. Every card is card #5. And not 1988 Donruss #5 and 2007 Topps #5 either. ALL KINDS OF CRAZY OLD ODDBALL NUMBER FIVES. This is one of those blogs where you have to puck your jaw off the floor after reading.

Cardboard Addict

Here's another one where I probably linked or maybe even posted the blog at some point in the past, but what the hell, here it is again for the first time. Old cards, new cards, Yaz cards, sets of cards, hockey cards, and an '87 Topps project that has thankfully allowed me to put a crazy idea I had on the back burner. I have to stick up for my fellow addicts, you know.

The Pursuit of '80s

This is that guy from England that trades with everybody. I didn't know he had a blog! I need to send this guy some stuff. Of course I need to send about two dozen other people some stuff too, but this guy's from England. The fact that he resides on the same island as Rik Mayall means he should probably get bumped up a few spots on the list. Now I have some new want lists to go over!

Dropped Third Strike

I don't know if I had this site open in a Firefox tab to pimp, or to inquire about a trade. There's a fantastic story about former Braves broadcaster Don Sutton, so maybe I'll do both.

vottoTRON

A subsidiary of OMGREDS.com, this is a blog wholly dedicated to Joey Votto. While I'm fairly neutral about Joey (Jurrjens for ROY, dammit!!!) the title vottoTRON is freaking superawesome. Just say it out loud. vottoTRON. vottoTRON vottoTRON vottoTRON! Teh shinies are nice too.

Ok, I think that's it for the week. More (pimpin'/not pimpin') next week, but with something new... Don't fear the new, I'm pretty sure you'll like it.

Oh bugger! I almost forgot

78 Topps Cards

Andy's follow up to 88 Topps Cards has launched. He zips back one decade and reviews the entire 1978 Topps card set. Cards 1-6 and 7-12 are already posted. I'm dead serious about printing up a Play Ball game set, so if anyone wants to play after the set is posted, just let me know.