Dangit, I coulda had a blaster - part 2

After squandering my chance to get a Lineage blaster with that pile of vintage stuff I posted yesterday I had the audacity to do it again with a few trips to the CD Warehouse for some cheep tunes. I could be ripping open a blaster of Bowman Platinum right now, but I'm typing out this post and listening to some music instead. How foolish I am. Here's three 'gently used' discs that I actually paid money for instead of just torrenting like a normal person because sometimes you just want to hold the goddamn album in your hands.  Yes, I'm old. Absolutely none of these I walked into the shop hoping or expecting to find, but I was pleasantly surprised nonetheless.

Not gonna lie. I discovered this band through ponies. I've discovered a shitload of bands through ponies, including Boards of Canada which is one of the bands I have been desperately searching for in my music shopping. I've actually found two CDs by them in my travels: a 3 song EP of a John Peel session, and a live album (bootleg?) I forget the name of that I just couldn't pull the trigger on because you can hear people talking during the show. Actually I had heard Boards of Canada before someone improved/ruined one of their songs with pony giggles, I just didn't start listening to them for hours on end until ponies. MGMT I had never heard of before. Well, I had probably heard of them, but I certainly didn't pay attention to them and I never would have stopped dead in my tracks when I saw their album up on the shelf. I suck at describing music, so I'll just say there's a lot of guitars and electronic stuff in their music, something I'm really into right now. There's also a good remix of Electric Feel by Justice, another band I've been looking for in my music hunts lately. Here's the non-pony version of Time to Pretend.

The sketchy cover sold me on A Sunny Day In Glasgow's debut album. No, really, drawing is relevant to my interests, so I picked up the album when I saw sketches on the cover. Basic marketing, folks. Of course  if there were nekkid wimmin on the cover it probably would have sold more copies, but that's neither here notr there. The cover worked at least this one time. I got Autumn, Again by these guys last year when it was free on Amazon and enjoyed it so I figured I'd check it out. More electronic, more guitars and female vocals to boot. This sucker's right in my wheelhouse. It's a bit... eclectic. And not as chill as Boards of Canada. But I like 'em dammit, even if no one else has ever heard of them. Here's Things Only I Can See. Well, click on it and you can see it too.



Ok, I'm gonna catch hell for the next one but I DON'T CARE.

Yes, I bought an album from a band called The Unicorns.

Twilight is apparently a fan

FINE, I HAVE A PROBLEM. I KNOW THIS. I'm a tad magical horse crazy at the moment, but seriously this album is really, really good. Oddly enough, I did not find this band through ponies. I think it was through Erasure, actually. Which has kind of formed a theory in my head that [adult swim] helped pave the road for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic's popularity with slacker male cartoon addicts with their game Robot Unicorn Attack as a favor to Lauren Faust. A twitchy, silly unicorn game as a sort of John the Baptist heralding the upcoming pony cult. But I digress. This album is really really really good. They only did one full-length CD (and a couple of EPs) before breaking up, but this shit is goooooood. I really suck at writing about music (I can dance like a mother%ucker about architecture though) but I'll give it a shot by comparing it to other stuff I like. It's kinda got the energy of Franz Ferdinand with the loose goofiness of Dead Milkmen with just a touch of Modest Mouse depression for flavor. Does that make any sense? Of course it doesn't. Just listen to the actual music.



Yes, yes, yes. The song is about Unicorns. BUT IT'S GOOD. I don't care, I'll like it if I want to.

So there's my musical purchases for the past couple of months. All three were just under twenny bux. So waddya think? I should have just gotten a Value Box and one of those 100 card junk wax racks, shouldn't I?

(nah)

Dangit, I coulda had a blaster

I went to the local card shop this weekend to pick up the finishing touches on my Secret Santa gift. While I was there I raided the early-'70s box and knocked some stuff off of the wantlists. All told, the damage came to just a tad under twenty bucks. Check out the swag and let me know how I did.

 I dunno man, you think I shoulda got the Bowman Chrome blaster instead?

The best trade I have ever made

This weekend I pulled off a masterful trade on the Transmogrifier Mark 2. Words cannot describe the brilliance of this deal so I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves. I traded this:

Waddya mean it's too small? Ok, fine, here's my part of the trade in bite sized chunks.

1967 Jim Pagmiaroni
1969 Johnny Edwards
1973 Paul Splittorff

1973 Danny Walton
1974 Dave LaRoche
1975 Tommy Davis

1976 Tony Taylor
1978 Earl Weaver
1978 Larry Barlow

1979 Rick Langford, Eduardo Rodriguez and Larry Milbourne

1979 Paul Thormodsgard
1979 All Time ERA Leaders
1980 Derrel Thomas

1980 Larry Christenson, Roger Freed and Mike Heath

1983 Joe Nolan, Greg Luzinski and Ron Hodges

1985 Billy Gardner
1985 Steve Carlton
1986 Enos Cabell

1987 Charlie Hough
1992 Edgar Martinez
1994 Pedro Martinez

1994 Ken Hill
1994 Orel Hershiser
1997 Derek Bell

2001 Manny Ramirez
2009 Kenji Johjima

I trade all this crap for this... this beauteous thing...

BEHOLD: 

MAH COOKIE 

PART TWO

ELECTRIC COOKIELOO

Proof for the doubtful:

Who the hell is Jim Pagmiaroni

If you wanted any of these cards I traded off, sorry. this was a last ditch effort to get a cookie. And a Cookie I did got. Cookie Rojas isn't the reason I'm so happy with this trade though. It's because 

I'M FREE

No more Transmogrifier. 

Ever. 

No more offers of a 1987 George Brett for my Brian McCann Die-Cut. Ever. 

I'm done. Shipping has been requested and I am out of cards and codes. I do have 45 rings left to trade. There's a perverse part of my soul that wants to try to collect 45 Braves rings, but I shall resist. 

I am free. FOREVER.

Who wants to trade Junk for Junk?

Anyone got a pile of these cluttering up the joint?

Stupid security tags out of retail packs. These things accumulate like crazy, don't they? Well, they do when you are a packrat like myself. Even worse are the thick ones they use as relic card decoys that just make the dumber variety of pack searchers bend up the pack that much more. They are all kinda useless too, unless you use them as dividers or packing material for trades.

Or for sketch cards....

If you are one of the weird people like me who just can't throw away trash just because it is shaped like a baseball card and want to get rid of all these things, send 'em my way. They are great for quick & dirty sketches when I don't have time to do something nice and complicated. You may even get one of 'em back as well, slightly altered.

Let's Make a Deal!

A package of 20 artist sketch cards costs me about $2.50. A small bubble mailer with postage packed with cards costs me about $2.50. Here's my offer:

You send me around 20 or so of these blank filler cards and I'll send you a small bubble mailer full of cards.

You send me around 50 or so of these blank filler cards and I'll send you a Priority Mail Small Flat Rate box full of cards.

You send me, like, 100 of these blank filler cards (how many friggin retail packs do you buy, anyway??) and I'll send you a Priority Mail Small Flat Rate box full of cards.

If you only have a handful, you can drop them in a Plain White Envelope and I'll send you a PWE back with a couple of surprises.

GROUND RULES:

To get in on this action, comment here, then e-mail me (dayf13 at gmail) about how many cards you will be sending.

I'm cutting this off at the first 10 responders even if everyone only pledges one card. I am not going to allow myself to get overwhelmed by trades for trash. Once I've completed those trades and I have a need for more cards I'll reopen the offer.

If you live in Canada or England or Australia or Bangladesh or the planet Skyron or anywhere I need a customs form, I'll need to check on shipping prices and adjust the amount of cards you get accordingly. I'm not paying out the nose for shipping for trash.

The stuff I will be sending you will be junk I want out of my house. There might be stuff from your wantlists in there, there might be a box full of 1987 Topps commons. Depends on how I feel. I will NOT be spending more than about 20 minutes putting together a package in trade for trash.

If you send a bunch of Braves or stuff from my wantlists along with the blanks, I will not take this into consideration and send you better stuff. You'll get the same junk as everyone else and like it. If you get really fancy and send me Heywards or Vintage or something I might get offended by your attempted bribe and send all Pro Set Football or Hoops Basketball. Which is actually worse than trash because it doesn't hurt to throw away trash.

Better yet, just don't send other stuff unless absolutely necessary. I don't care if you're one of the dozen or so collectors who randomly sends me stuff every few months and just decided to throw in my usual pile along with the blanks, I will Pro Set with extreme prejudice.  Half the reason for this exercise is to help me get rid of a lot of junk. If the need is dire and your wife threatens to go all Lysistrata on you until you get that damn pile of cards off the desk then go ahead and release the Kraken. Just warn me and don't expect any favors.

You may request teams/sets/players/send wantlists if you wish. I would actually prefer it as it would make my job easier. Just remember that you are at my complete whim as to what you will get in return. If I am having a good day where the Braves trade for a power hitting left fielder and I get to have nookie with the wife and there's a new episode of My Little Pony on, you might get some really good stuff. If I am having a bad day where the kids are screaming and my knee is sore as hell for no goddamn reason and my MP3 player runs out of juice and I have to listen to shitty Atlanta radio on my commute, you could get utter garbage. In a trade for trash. You are all completely at my mercy.

Everyone who sends even one blank card will get one non-blank card back. If you catch my drift.

All righty then, that's about it. Get a commentin' and e-mailin' and thank you for your support.

Also: I have decided that since no one ever reads this thing on the weekend anyway, this is now a Monday-Friday blog for the forseeable future. I'm worn out, folks. I need a break every once in a while.

October Card Show - Evolution

One goal I have at any card show: Find one interesting non-sports card. I usually find more than one, but one of them takes the crown as most interesting. This one killed two birds with one stone as well.

Everyone loves Allen & Ginter. Well, most everyone. I usually love Allen & Ginter, but since it looks more like a Fleer product than something from the 1880's this year my passion has run a little cold. Metaphorically speaking,  sure, I'll sleep with 2011 A&G -I'll even call her the next day - but no way in hell am I spending Christmas at her parents' house. I don't give a crap if it might be Nana's last Christmas, I got things to do. The one thing in that set that keeps drawing me back is the Ascent of Man insert set. Dang, that is a fiiiiine looking set. All them organisms... breeding and breeding and breeding some more... Natural Selection working it's sexy magic... ultimately ending up with over-evolved neurotic slobs obsessing over expensive images on flimsy card stock... Awww YEAH baby! That's the stuff right there. Maybe I can come over for coffee and dessert on Christmas Eve, baby... knock down some spiked egg nogs with Nana. Party a little bit. Does Nana swing?

The set is beautiful, the artwork is fantastic, the subject matter irritates my local school board, there is only one thing wrong with the 2011 Allen & Ginter Ascent of man set.

It's only 26 cards.

For the Math-impaired out there, that's one card short of filling up three pages. ONE STINKING CARD. It amazes and bewilders me that in an industry catering to collectors that there is not one soul in the entire company who ever thinks about these things. The entire reason there IS a collectible card industry is because collectors are obsessive-compulsive about their collections! We like things neat and orderly! Give us an insert set that fits neatly in pages! All we needed was one. more. card! Throw us a bone, people!

So I got my Ascent of Man cards in pages. A little too late actually, because all the cards I had for that set were unfortunately involved in a rather disastrous tea-related incident. I was able to contain the damage, some stickers ended up kinda warped and half of my 2011 Update Braves team set was lost. The Ascent of Man cards - while soaked - somehow ended up looking better in my eyes for some reason. While there was definite water - um - tea damage and there were slight stains on the back and the edges were all gnarled up, they still looked really good to me. That's true love right there. Even if I've de-friended 2011 A&G from Facebook, I've still got that old fossil Ascent of Man on my speed dial.

Now I have my freshly antiqued Ascent of Man set in pages, but I need something to stick in that 27th pocket. Why not a vintage card? See for yourself:

The perfect cap for a set about Evolution: a 1952 Topps Look N See card of Charles Darwin. I especially like the look on Charles' face. He seems to be thinking: "How did we end up evolving into douchebags in just 100 years?" (I've got an idea). Here's Charles all by his lonesome for your gawking pleasure:

Here's Chuck in all his creasy, scuffed, scribbled, beardy, gorilla goodness. Coincidentally, Thorzul just posted another specimen from this set recently. It's less scuffed and more screamy, but it's not as good as - well, no. It's way more awesome than this one. But it doesn't fill up my Ascent of Man set as well does it!

Ok, technical stuff. This is one of Topps' earliest Non-Sport sets and features a mish-mosh of famous people from Presidents to artists to military leaders to daredevils to scientists. There's even a Babe Ruth card in there for all you baseball nuts. The Rembrandt card is short printed for some reason. Artists always get short shrift. This mess on the back is the gimmick for the set, if you put some red 'paper' over the card you get to see what Chucky Evo was famous for. I haven't actually looked at it through some 3-D glasses (or just used a filter in Photoshop) but I'm certain that Charles was famous for that epic beard. He also inspired a Vonnegut novel too! So, bonus. Of course now I have to figure out what to do with the card from Collective Troll expressing wonder about our origins that used to be holding down the 27th spot in the pages. I still need 10 more cards for the set and it's gonna be hard to find 'em in pristine tea-soaked condition so I think it should be ok for a while.

Sketch Card #10 - Angel Bunny

Whelp, no better time to post this one... Nope, this is the perfect time.

This here is Fluttershy's pet, Angel Bunny. I made a trade with Laurens over at Card Buzz and sent a bunch of Angels cards in exchange for a Julio Teheran Liquorfractor. Since Laurens is an Angels fan, Angel Bunny seemed like a perfect fit for a sketch card. I just cannot resist the puns. I boogered the sketch a bit, as Angel's head is way too small. Nothing worse than an off-model parody sketch card. Ok, there are worse things. Let's just play this off like it's Angel's older brother, the sports nut.

Fluttershy is unavailable for comment as she is out trying to cheer up all her Cardinal friends. Poor little birdies...

DEAD TO ME

The Hall of Fame is.

October Card Show - J-Hey

One of my goals during the card show was to pick up a J-Hey card I didn't already have. Maybe not an auto or something, just something I didn't already have. However, I got tunnel vision on Vintage cards during the show. Pretty much everything I looked at was older than Heyward. It was getting time to leave, and I still didn't have anything Jasony in my possession. Then I found this:

Well, it was something I didn't already have. Cost me fifteen bucks too, which is probably less than I would have paid in gas driving to every toy retailer in the state trying to look for one of these. Yeah, it was a dumb purchase, but I like it. It got me out of the card show a half hour sooner than I would have if I had started scrounging around for an affordable J-Hey card. Jason is now tacked up on the wall next to a line of Braves Starting Line figures and my lone other McFarlane figure, a Hank Aaron with the label peeled off the front because they used crappy glue. Yes I have Starting Lineups tacked to the wall of my office. If you're gonna be a nerd, you really gotta go all out. No, I don't have pony toys tacked up to the wall. Starting Lineups are for looking at, toys are for playing with. Of course now I have a vision of Pinkie Pie yelling at me in Spike Lee's voice "HOW COME THERE AIN'T NO PONIES ON THE WALL?" in my head. Oh Lawd, this purchase was a mistake.

brb buying ponies

Choose my book - December

Time to let you all decide what I should read next. Basically I not only have too many cards, but too many books as well and am paralyzed by making such a momentous decision. I was able to whittle the choice down to 12 books: 10 new ones, one holdover from last month and one new suggestion. Every single one of them I have in my possession except for the reader suggestion, so there will be no epic chase like there is for Fear and Loathing because I'm too stubborn to to just buy the damn thing online. I'm still working on Still Life with Woodpecker because I was lazy and didn't read on Saturday and I didn't read any yesterday because I was convinced by an interested party that there were much better things to do in bed than read Tom Robbins.

I am so glad I sprung for the wireless video game controllers now.

The poll is up in the corner, vote for as many or as few as you like. Or don't vote at all, see if I care. Here's a rundown on the choices for this month.

Small Beer - Ludwig Bemelmans

I had never heard of Ludwig in my life when I encountered this book at a Goodwill book sale and snapped it up.  It looked kinda funny and had lots of cartoony illustrations inside. Plus there was a tuba on the cover. Turns out it's a book by the guy who wrote the Madeline series. It's apparently a collection of short stories.  There is virtually nothing about this book online other than a review in Time that you need a subscription to read so I'm going into this one cold. I'm guessing this one will get virtually no votes but might end up being one I pick up anyway after reading a couple of the top picks.

Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way - Bruce Campbell

Bruce Campbell is a bad mickey-fickey. He was Elvis fighting a mummy in one film! Plus my wife bought me this book. Maybe she's trying to tell me something. Oh, also my catechism sponsor was named Bruce Campbell. Not the same one, but a cool guy nonetheless.

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

This is my mother's favorite book. I've never bothered to read it. Now you can force me to read it.

Cakes & Ale - W. Somerset Maugham

This one's on the list mainly because I liked the cover of the edition I have. I think it makes fun of Thomas Hardy which is always a good thing. That depressing gawdawful man was the bane of my high school and college career. Seriously, I was forced to read Tess of the ScoobyDoos four times. Four times! It kept getting stupider and stupider every single time! To this day I root for Alec out of spite. Oh yeah, this book. It's a satire. And it's short. I could probably knock this out in a lunch hour or two.

A Canticle for Liebowitz - Walter M. Miller Jr.

Gotta have some sci-fi on the list. Science! And Nukes! And pastrami, kraut and bagels!

The Cyberiad - Stanislaw Lem

Another collection of short stories, this time sci-fi. Stanislaw is the dude who wrote Solaris, for all you vintage foreign sci-fi film fans and/or George Clooney fans. Yes, you can be both... I tried reading this in high school and was utterly bewildered. Time to try again, maybe?

In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash - Jean Shepherd

I misspelled poor Jean's name in the poll. Too late to fix it. More short stories, more humor, more satire. Between this list and last month's list you probably have a good handle on the types of books I like. You may not recognize this book or the author but EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU has seen a film based on it and will likely watch it in this calendar month. You might watch it ALL DAY LONG. Ever heard of A Christmas Story? Yep, based on stories from this book. The narrator in that film is Jean himself. You can also see him telling Ralphie to get the hell to the back of the line to see Santa.

Maus - Art Spiegelman

I've had this for a long time and haven't been able to bring myself to read it yet. Art Spiegelman is a brilliant underground comic artist. He's also depressing as fuck. The subject matter in this book is really depressing. It doesn't help that I have family members who lived (and some who didn't) through that mess. Gotta have some serious in the middle of all this comedy. In a list of top graphic novels of all time, this is right up there.

Men At Work - George Will

After I drew this, it occurred to me that I might actually have George's book lying around. Indeed I did! Gotta have at least one baseball book in the list.

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - Tom Wolfe

Hunter was last month's journalist, Tom is this month's. This book is actually my dad's favorite, I think, and I had his copy for a long time when I was a kid. Ken Kesey, The Merry Pranksters, the Grateful Dead and a bus. Hippies... Hippies EVERYWHERE. Maybe I need to read this one and Gatsby back to back. Or at the same time. Alternate pages, perhaps.


We Could've Finished Last Without You - Bob Hope

Here's the holdover from last month. Gotta have one two baseball books on the list. A memoir of the Atlanta Braves by their promotions director back when they were the worst team in baseball.


The Big Short - Michael Lewis

Here's the reader suggestion for this month. The Moneyball guy exposes some of the absolute horseshit going on in Wall Street that has brought about the current bullshitty state of our economy. Not one financial ratfucker has spent one nanosecond in the clink for trainwrecking the world, but there's plenty of resources available to prevent people from exercising their right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances. This might not be the best book for me to read as my blood pressure has already jumped pretty drastically just from typing this.

The Illuminatus! Trilogy - Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea

And after that fnord, this is probably a good book to end the list upon. I'm a closet Discordian anyway so why the hell not?

Too Little Too Late

Hall voters' message to Jim Kaat, Minnie Minoso, Tony Oliva and especially Marvin Miller:

Drop dead and you're in.

Sketch Card #9 - Maddux Pie

This one went to Jon over at Community Gum. Jon had a couple of stickers I needed and I had a few to send over his way. Jon is the first person I asked if they wanted a specific subject on their sketch card. This was the response:

Would you be able to do Greg Maddux riding on a pony of your choice?

Riding ponies? In My Little Pony? Whaaaaaaaa???? Filthy humans riding Equestrian ponies?!?! Blasphemy! Jon could get sent to the Moon for a thousand years for such insolence! I quickly devised a way to get him off the hook though:

WHEEEEEEEEEEEE!

(everypone out there should already know the joke that's coming so let's just get it over with)

So here's Pinkie Pie getting a piggyback ride from Greg Maddux (Cubs edition). Greg looks a little surprised and maybe dismayed at his situation. Honestly I don't get it, Pinkie Pie is the best pony, and giving her a piggyback ride should be a great honor. Maybe Greg is just a little worn out because Pinkie ate too much fudge and got a pudge and couldn't budge. It would explain why she's riding instead of prancing around like she usually does. She sure is having fun at any rate!

This one was a bit of a challenge as I rely heavily on reference photos when drawing and there isn't really a single photo of Greg Maddux giving a piggyback ride to anyone out there on the web, let alone giving one to a horse. So I found one of some random dude on a beach giving a piggyback to some chick and went from there. I made Greg a little more knock-kneed and the girl switched species, but it's about the same pose as in the picture. Greg's face I based on that grimace he makes when he pitches that can be seen on about 50% of his cards. I experimented with a multi-colored crosshatch background and ended up liking how it turned out enough to use it again. The only reason I did it in the first place was to cover up a mistake. Can you tell what it was?

Ok, I have at least three or four more cards I still need to draw so I better get a-drawin'. Ride 'em cowgirl! (oh wait, that's Applejack, not Pinkie Pie)

SEC Championship Game

How the hell is Georgia in this thing? It's because I gave up on football after they got beat by South Carolina, isn't it? I'm gonna watch the game today (well, half watch the game/half read a book/half listen to music/half clean up the house/seven-eights drink beer/half fall asleep and take a nap) and the Bulldogs are going to get massacred. It will be God Himself telling me that my favorite teams will only be successful if I'm not really paying attention to them. Maybe I'll drink bourbon instead of beer and take that nap in the first quarter. Since it'll take a miracle for anything good to happen for the woofwoofs today, I'm going to post this Herschel Walker Guideposts magazine I got from Stats on the Back a long time ago and never posted because I didn't quite know what to do with it. Desperately needing Divine Intervention sounds like a good time to post to me.

Aw what the heck. Article too!

Yeah, I know Divine Intervention doesn't work that way. Besides, God is an SEC fan and wants to see an LSU - Alabama rematch in the BCS Championship game so I should really not invoke Him at all right now. Anyone got an article on Herschel from Reason or Skeptic magazine?

Maybe I should start drinking now... Beer or bourbon? Oh I know!

GoooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DAWGS!

SIC 'EM!

WOOFWOOFWOOFWOOF~hic~WOOF