Plastic sheet modification time!

So Night Owl loves 1975 Topps Mini cards. He doesn't love that there are no plastic pages designed to hold them tight. That can be remedied! You can make your own custom sheets that hold '75s snug as a bug in a rug! Let's make some now!

I already had my craft stuff out for a different project so this took hardly any time at all. You just need some normal 9 pocket pages and a little ingenuity and elbow grease!

Also: a ruler, an X-Acto knife, some useless cardboard to protect the pages and some scotch tape. I don't actually have any scotch tape, so I'm using blue painters tape instead. Actually I have about 47 rolls of scotch tape, I just can't find any of it. That stuff always seems to disappear whenever you need it! Especially when you're trying to wrap a birthday present 5 minutes before you go to the party. Thankfully I keep some duct tape around at all times for that. I'm using a Fleer Genuine JD Drew card for the plastic page protector. you can't get any more useless cardboard than that.

NOW KIDS - PAY ATTENTION. Using sharp objects is dangerous! 9 billion people in the US were injured by improperly using Xacto kinves last week alone! You need to stay focused while doing this so you don't hurt yourselves! NO distractions! NO Alcohol! (No more at least) NO Ponies! NO staring at your cheap lamp that looks oddly like a robot boob! Pay attention to what you're doing you idiot!

Figure out how wide the new pocket on the page needs to be. By eyeballing both cards in the pocket we can see that the incision needs to be cut right at the team name for the pocket to safely hold the mini card. Or you could carefully measure using the ruler but screw that noise. Are you saying I have inferior eyeballing skills?

Ok, the card is in the pocket. I'm cutting from the back to make the plastic surgery less noticeable. If you put two cards per pocket that's really your problem at this point. Put down the ruler where you need to make the cut. Hold it down firmly and make a cut from just above the seam to just under the top of the sheet. Be careful! The card will want to slide around in there! Don't slip and ruin the page! Or, you know, slice your finger or something.

The slice is in, and thanks to JD it didn't go all the way through the sheet! Now get the tape.

This is a little tricky, but take a strip of tape and get it underneath the little flap on the side. Then stick it on the back back of the sheet. Now the new pocket is sealed, If you're anal, you can put another piece of tape on the back to seal down the flap.

Here's the view from the front. That dark part is where the tape is stuck. You can't see it because my camera sucks.

THIS IS VERY TEDIOUS WORK THAT REQUIRES FOCUS AND CONCENTRATION.
To keep your energy levels up, take a break to have a snack if necessary. I like Blue Diamond Wasabi & Soy Almonds. The Wasabi dust gets all over my fingers, and then I forget and rub my eyes and then I cry for an hour. To avoid this, I'm using some pencils as makeshift chopsticks. Yes, I stole this idea from Wondermark. Too bad I forgot about that pair of actual chopsticks visible at the top of the photo. My erasers taste good when I chew them now though!

Hooray! One pocket is done! You'll just have to take my word for it because this photo is awful! Now I just have to do that EIGHT MORE TIMES! Time to focus!

Oh man, this scene is hilarious! "AS CELESTIA (ouch) AS MY WITNESS, I (ow!) WILL NEVER GO SISTER (oooch!) LESS AGA(OW!!!)IN!" Oh yeah, that's gonna leave a mark.

Four episodes, three beers and a couple band-aids later we have the completed product! It looks better with scotch tape. And less blood. For a team set you just need to do that three more times! For the entire '75 set, just 76 more times! Happy crafting, you plastic page modders!

Transmogrified into being: 1958-1972

This post puts the 2010 Transmogrifier to bed. There's a couple of cards I redeemed that I never showed like a 2005 Brian Jordan card, but I don't think anyone's going to miss not seeing that one. Here's the good stuff. The oldy moldy stuff! The stuff I couldn't get to save my life this year! I redeemed three die-cuts, but not one damn card older than 1967. I could trade the die cuts for random commons from 1960, but I'm still trying to get my J-Hey that I foolishly passed up due to greed. Other than the die-cuts (which I admit, are nice) out of 43 cards I've gotten exactly 7 that I actually need. I'm trying to trade some off for needs but it's going very poorly right now. I might need to do a "Take my cards - please" post in the near future. Here's last year's goodies.

I'm pretty much an iconoclast when it comes to card tastes, but I still don't understand why no one seems to like this set. Ok, so it's extremely low-fi and looks like it was created by a 5 year old for a kindergarten art project. That's why it's awesome! DIY! Outsider art! Punk rock, baby*! Besides, it has a bunch of pretty colors and you know how I like those.

This card back reminds me that I need to restart the Cartoon posts. Maybe tonight. This week is gonna be rough.

Rookie star! Me likey 1960 Topps. I think the fact that my financial situation in 2009 prevented me from getting several boxes of Heritage that year might have started my slow card collecting decline. It certainly broke me of the habit of buying up random blasters and repack boxes.

This card was in pretty decent shape for a 1960 Topps card but the back is kinda faded. I've seen this on several other cards from this series though. The cards with white card stock are usually pretty bright with strong ink, but the graybacks get fadey like this. Heritage got this right too. 

1969 Topps. One day I will appreciate this set. That day is not today. Give me the Burlap '68s anyday. 

The backs are really nice though . Strong black with a good  shade of pink (unlike '64 Topps - eeeccch) with white in all the right places so you can read everything. This back is a little waxy, but that just lends some authenticity.

'72 Semi-high number! W00t! This card inspired my Ted Zoolander mashup that I would link to if I had any time this morning.

So classy. Best set ever. Other than 1953 Topps. The cartoon is a little small. '53's got 'em beat there. 

This card I was really excited about when I redeemed it. When I got it delivered, it looked like the UPS truck ran over it a few times. Some of you think I'm about to go into a rant about the condition of the cards Topps sent out as redemption, but I'm not. This card is perfect. It accurately represents just what Major League Baseball did to Curt's career. And Bowie Kuhn is in the Hall of Fame. Curt is not. Neither is Marvin Miller for that matter. Yep, this card is perfect and I love it. 

I think in 1952 Topps bought a billion gallons of red ink and spent the better part of four decades trying to get rid of it. In the Sixties, they got cheap and tried to make it last longer by diluting it. PINK. PINK EVERYWHERE.

Ok, here's the crown Jewel of the entire Transmogifier process:

DON MOSSI. 

Only he can make the 1961 Topps set look good.

Now that's a hell of a cartoon. Stealth perfect game by Don! Because he throws a small ball! I have nothing more to say about this cardboard perfection.

Now back to the drudgery that is the Transmogrifier Mark 2. Someone accept a trade! PLEASE!

*You can't get much more DIY than an 8-bit version of a Minuteman song.

The lousiest pack rip video you will see all year

The good news:
I now have the technology to do videos whenever I please and not just when my family is out of the house and I'm not working and it's daytime and really sunny.

The bad news:
I'm now videoing in my basement instead of my kitchen
I now look like a loser who lives in his mom's basement
I really need to clean up this basement like, right now
The new camera has a wider range of focus so everyone can see just how fat I really am
The sound isn't going to be as good as before
I'm still opening random garbage packs

But hey, now I can vlog (did I really just use that word?) at 2:00am when I'm hammered so hilarity will likely ensue.

BUT THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW.

WHAT IS IMPORTANT IS THAT I NEED ADVICE ON WHAT TO DO WITH THIS:

This might be my best pull all year - nay, DECADE As God as my witness, I don't know what to do with it. I need suggestions! Here's what I've come up with so far:

• Put it in the Non-Sport Awesome Binder in a place of honor.
• Stick it to the front bumper of my car
• Stick it on my son's school binder when he's not looking
• Mail it to a random blogger who will then mail it to another blogger and repeat the process hot potato style until on a pre-determined date the blogger stuck holding the Montana has to make it their blog background for an entire month

Any other ideas?

Transmogrified into being: 1973-1980

I'm just about at the point where I'm going to give up on the Transmogrifier Mark 2. I should have not been greedy and taken the offer with the J-Hey card in it for my Strasburg. I'm not buying any more packs now that I have the Diamond Factory set so no more codes for me. I can't even get into the site unless I'm surfing in incognito mode for some reason. I open the site in Chrome and I get the Be Back Soon message. Incognito, I can log right in. Methinks it's time to do some maintenance on the ol' laptop tonight.

I waited until the last possible minute to have my stuff shipped last year and I'll probably do the same this year. I still haven't shown off all the cards I redeemed from 2010, so let's get that out of the way before getting some new cards shipped. The original plan was to show these off individually with condition commentary on each, but that went out the window six months ago. Time to post 'em and move on with our lives.

I might have redeemed this one even if I didn't already need it. Behold the exquisite brilliance of this card.

Astros Orange Rainbow uni - check

'70s hair with sideburns - check

Flapless catcher batting helmet - check

Blue sky with fluffy clouds - check

Bonus unshaved chin - check

Epic 'stache - check.

One of these days I have got to complete this set. I'm not even close right now. Maybe if I took all the money I blow ripping Topps packs trying to pull code cards I would be able to buy a complete set or five. 

I redeemed all the Braves in my collection whether I needed them or not so they wouldn't be lost in the Aether forever. That ain't happenin' this year. I'm half tempted to offer up everything in my portfolio for a '87 Wade Boggs just so I can abandon it. 

Mexican League stats on the back! Gotta love that. This card wasn't in bad shape if I remember correctly. 

La Grande Orange! 1980 Topps is another set I just need to buy outright and quit fussing around with trying to pick up commons here and there. Along with 1981 Topps. And 2012 Topps. 

Colt .45's in the stat lines! Fantastic. I can't believe the Colt .45s are going to be an American League team. So, here are Bud Selig's accomplishments as commissioner in summary:

• Turning an interim Commish job into a two decade gig - Nice one
• Cancelling the World Series - Bad
• Restoring goodwill with the fans after the cancellation - Good
• Doing so by ignoring players getting juiced to the gills inside brand new ballparks with little league dimensions - Bad
• Allowing hallowed records to get ruined in the process - Really Bad
• Letting Congress browbeat you into cleaning up the sport when they had better shit to do - Bad
• Taking it too far with this HGH testing crap - Bad
• Wild Card - Good
• Expanding the Wild Card to two teams one year too late - $@%#!!
• Screwing up the All Star game - Ppppphhhbbbbbttt
• Interleague Play - Good
• Effed up unbalanced schedules thanks to Interleague Play - Bad
• Playing musical Leagues with franchises to position the Brewers in the NL because you're still sore the Braves moved to Atlanta - Eff Ewe, Bud

Fun fact - Barry Bonnell introduced Dale Murphy to Mormonism. If the Hall of Fame won't take Murph, maybe Romney will pick him as his running mate. It'd be better than the last one they picked, that's for damn sure...

Omigosh, is this Barry's rookie card? Hey, he was drafted by the Phillies! I'M LEARNING SO MUCH TODAY!

This one might be better than the Ferguson. 

Horrible red uni with no name on the back- check

'70s hair with sideburns - check

Flapless catcher batting helmet - check

Sea of abandoned stands - check

Glasses! - check

No 'stache. - You were so close, Joe.

Memphis was in the Texas League? Ok, sounds good to me. I wonder who we traded to the Mets for ol' Joe. I'm too lazy to look it up on B-R. You guys do it and report back.

ROWLAND OFFICE ROOKIE CARD!!!!! I need to get on the Diamond site and trade for a couple dozen more of these. 

Red and green back remind me how angry it has made me to see Christmas crap in every single store for the past month. Since before Halloween! Some places before Labor Day!

Best glasses on a baseball card ever. With all respect to Lowell Palmer. I have to get new glasses before the end of the year before my bennies expire, and I'd really like to get a pair like this. They would need to come with a free apartment though because I would get kicked out of the house. Might be worth it. 

"Jim is backup 1st baseman to Hank Aaron"

BUT FIRST IN OUR HEARTS

MLP:FIM Season 2 Ep 7

Getting this out of the way early.



Ok, Episode 7. Rainbow Douche adopts a pet. Not gonna lie, I've got a Pony hangover right now. Last week's episode was cool. It had Lebowski in it. It was an homage to The Red Shoes. It was funny and silly and my daughter watched it over 9000 times this week. Combine this with a highly stressful week, back pain brought about by stress and a general feeling of ennui and I kinda got a little sick of Pony. Now we got a Rainbow Dash episode. Oy Gevalt. This might be a Strawberry Shortcake blog by tomorrow.

Streams here. I usually go to the Reddit one if I can find it and don't get bumped two minutes before air.

Episode 7 in 30 seconds:

(The girls play at the park with their pets) 

Rainbow Dash: "Howcome you losers all have pets and I don't have nothin?" 

Twilight Sparkle: "Perhaps because you're a selfish lazy slob who could kill a pet rock through neglect?" 

(Pinkie Pie does something random) 

Rainbow Dash: "Ok bitches, which one of you dumb animals is COOOOoooOOOL enough to hang with the D?" 

Animals: "Derp." 

(Fluttershy gets two seconds of screentime and steals the episode) 

Rainbow Dash: "I know! Let's have a race! Because that's the only thing I'm good at!" 

(Race is run) 

(Animal Hasbro wants to sell the most toys of wins)  

Rainbow Dash: "Ohmygosh! I totally did not expect this outcome! I learned a lot about friendship today!" 

(Spike sends a letter to Princess Celestia, exeunt) 

Scootaloo: (runs in after credits wearing a chicken costume and racing shoes) "FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU....."

Ok, I need cawfee bad, so here's a drawing of squinchy face Rainbow Dash and Plastic Man I drew like, a month and a half ago.

I really need to color Plas, don't I?

Spoilers & Nonsense later now.

FLUTTERSHY SIIIIIIIIIIIINGS!!!!!!!!!


YYEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(so does Rainbow Dash)

Story of my fukkin' life. The Falcon finally wins something and it doesn't matter. I shall adopt that poor rejected Falcon and name him Jesse. Let's go, Hammer! Forget Rainbow Dash!

Jeez, I pretty much nailed the summary of the episode, didn't I?

Rainbow's new pet:



How to choose your pet: put them through a grueling ordeal and the one who lives becomes your property. Oh wait, never mind, I like this critter better. Rainbow Douche in full effect!


Oh and there was Wagner. In My Little Pony. WAGNER. Yeah, this show is for little girls.

Sketch Card #6 - Chief Wahoo

I have at least five sketch cards I need to draw, so obviously I'm going to post on the blog instead of drawing. I know! I'll post... a drawing! That will simultaneously procrastinate and make me feel bad about procrastinating! Here's a sketch card sent to Baseball Dad over at All Tribe Baseball.

TribeDad has a bunch of trade packages cluttering up his desk too! We're like soul brothas. I sent this one over along with some Topps stickers and a bunch of Indians I needed out of my house. I needed a break from drawing actual people after my sketch card of Billy Madison so I went with the classic Indians logo Chief Wahoo. Yes, I know. The logo is horrible and terrible and should be banned forever. The first person who invents a time machine should forget about Hitler and go back and murder Louis Soxalexis as a child so we can have something wholesome as a logo instead. Like Spiders. Or Napoleon. It's a bad logo and I should feel bad for drawing it. Fine. I'm not arguing with people who think like this anymore. If your method for improving the world is shaming sports fans whose favorite team picked the wrong mascot a hundred years ago then more power to ya. I hope you're also donating to a charity that helps Native Americans in need as well. And putting in the legwork to find one that's not a scam. I'll take the shame, hell, I'm a Braves fan, I double deserve it.

I copied the design off of the sign that originally perched on Municipal Stadium. If nothing else it's a neat pose with that high leg kick. One thing that strikes you when you sit down and actually draw the Chief Wahoo logo is just how utterly ludicrous that face is. I've seen that thing for decades and knew in my heart that it was kinda freaky at best and horribly offensive at worst, but when you're forced to sit down and examine it the weirdness envelops you. I'm not saying I don't like it anymore, I'm just saying it's downright bizarre. I don't understand the pointy eyebrows. And that is a big dang mouth.Steven Tyler would have to get the "Why so serious" treatment to get a mouth like that in real life.  The face actually reminds me a bit of Robert Crumb's The Snoid, which is WAY more offensive than the Chief could ever hope to be. As far as drawing the thing goes, there was more learning how to use colored pencils, The foreshortening on the leg was neat to do and I discovered pinstripes are fun.

Here's the back. I'm basically referencing the fact that Cleveland beat Boston in 1948, and Atlanta got revenge in 1995. We should have done the tiebreaker series in 1997 seven but Eric Gregg accidentally the strike zone. This is another example of "I don't like lettering, I'm not good at it and I refuse to put any time into it". Baseball Dad sent some other stuff back my way including some stickahs you will hopefully get to eyeball tomorrow. Thanks Dad-dad-daddy-o!

1956 Topps Hank Thompson

It's draft folder Friday! Check out this awesome 1956 Topps Hank Thompson card!

I got this card for a BUCK! How the heck can you get a great looking card like this for only a buck??

OH. That's how.

October Card Show - Dime Box

You just knew I had to hit a dime box at the card show. It's something I just can't not do. So I did. Did any of that make sense?

I probably shouldn't have though. I hit these dime boxes on the way out of the show. I spent my last two dollars, and I haven't touched folding money since. Scrounging through these boxes got me home later than I wanted. And the dealer was Freedom Cardboard in Alpharetta, which I could go shop at anytime I please. But I did it! I have no regrets! Ok, maybe a few. But I did it my way. Here's a representative sample of the dime box goodies.

I'm sure glad this isn't a sad post.  Most of the stuff I snagged from the box was Topps Updates parallels and inserts. Mostly parallels, including a few Golds. I spent a good fifteen minutes looking for a Wilson Ramos card at the time of the unfortunate incident and this card was sitting on my desk less than a foot away from me the whole time.

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiny! I likey teh shiny. Not enough to rotate the image after scanning it though. I kinda rushed on this post. Fun fact: I bought a few packs of Update at the card shop last month and let my son pick out one of the packs. A shinky Ankiel was in the pack. Ok, not that fun, but it was a fact.

LIQUORFRACTORS! I'm not as think as you card I am.

I hate these things (unless they have a Brave on them) but I still snagged 4 of the durn things. Unrotated, this reminds me of the Master Control Program from Tron for some reason*.

Topps 60! Another dumb insert! I think I've pulled/acquired the complete Dodger set from Update somehow.

Ok, enough Topps. I don't know if Chris Masters is any good or not but since I avoid Bowman like the Black Death, I do feel compelled to pick up the prospects when I come across them. Just in case.

I really should have rotated this one. I got this card because: clear plastic card, serial numbered, Real Football, girl on a card, I know at least one Philadelphia Phootball Phan.

Ok, last one. I do not give a Phlying Phook if the NBA cancels their season. The owners are all greedy fools, the players are also overpaid douches. The owners will still make money hand over fist in thier other businesses and the players will go play overseas, often for the same or more money and the NBA will wither and die. Golden Goose in action. That being said, even though I have not missed the NBA one whit, and even if they came back tomorrow I wouldn't watch a single game because I am boycotting them until the goddamn asshole Atlanta Spirit Group no longer owns the Hawks, and the whole friggin league can go right down the toilet for all I care, Al Horford is still my favorite player. And I still like his cards, even if they are ugly Panini cards.

*That reason is that I really am insane. Please send help.