My it certainly is damp around here

HOLY CRAP WHERE'D ALL THE WATER COME FROM?!???!

Here's what it looked like in Georgia today:

What a lovely day for a game of golf!


here's what used to be the fairway.


Not going down this road anytime soon...



I was gawking too much to get pictures of the really spectacular devastation, such as the car stuck in three feet of water on Chastain road, the bridge to my kid's school being overtopped by a raging creek (yes, creek) and a brand new very expensive park in east Cobb that was completely underwater. Man, it sucked to be in Georgia today. I spent about 5 hours in the car due to floods, road closings and school closings. I spent about a third of that time street surfing. Ugh. It wasn't all bad though as this came in the mail.


Wooo a package! but wait... look at the return address!


ZOMG ITZ MAH JESSE VENTURA FEATHER BOA RELIC CARD!!!!!!!

Let's open 'er up!

Ut oh.... Letter. Letter's are never good. I think I may have just got drafted.


Oh well, no feather boa relic for me. Of course that means I have a.....

SURPRISE RELIC!!!!

I know it's a celebrity relic because I could feel the star shape when I was taking it out of the penny sleeve, but I took off my glasses and squinted while scanning and uploading it so I would still be surprised. I want to share this momentous occasion with you all, so I am going to bed without looking at the relic. I would like you to post in the comments your reactions WITHOUT SPOILERS to the replacement for my feather boa card. I shall be back at 0600 hours to read your comments and guage how excited/disappointed I should be before finally looking at my prize. Thank you for your support in my endeavor.

HERE COME THE JUDGE

A viewable reference since 90% of you have no clue what the title references...


SO.

Mario chose me as a judge for his Hobby Limerick 1/1 contest. Good thing too, since my poems bombed. He asked me to look over the entries and what I thought were the five best. This was not easy at all, but here is the judge's final decision:

Fullbodytransplant:
Thick paper with pictures and names.
All our heroes from various games.
It’s a hobby we love,
Fits our needs like a glove.
Sporting legends, big men in small frames.

JoshSamBob:
In our youths to the store we would hasten,
“Rated Rookies” we dreamed of embracing.
Sadly greed’s now the norm,
And I’m sad to inform
That it’s gimmicks that everyone’s chasing.

Steve K:
Beckett’s price guide: as wrong as could be
Filled with value inaccuracy
Though they’re right when they state
re: these printing plates
“No plate pricing due to scarcity”

David Joseph Smith:
There once was a player named Jeter
Who played shortstop next to a diva
While the diva made more
He made fans very sore
And Derek was always the pleaser

Chemgod:
With his glove and his legs and his bat
He was the best in the game, that’s a fact
But it wasn’t enough
So he took BALCO’s stuff
And now his head is too fat.

If your poem was not on the list, sorry. I didn't get a single 'like' vote on any of mine so life's tough, chums. You should have taken your chance to butter up the judge when you had the chance. To all our hobby poet laureates: good luck in the drawing!

Target Twilight Zone

Last week was a really crummy one. I've spent most of the weekend in a daze trying to recover. After I finally got out of a disaster filled day at work I figured I deserved a couple of packs to cheer me up, so I dropped by Target on the way home.

I need to explain my dressing habits here. I work in a business casual office. This means khakis. I pretty much wear khakis all the time now since the only place I can find jeans I like is 40 miles away at an outlet mall. Now that the fashion is to show off your ass crack in jeans, the ones found at local retailers are not for me. So I wear the khakis. My shoes are some black no-slip sneakers. I wanted to go walking after work one night but I was wearing dress shoes. I found these shoes on sale for 8 bucks and got them and since they are all black, they sort of look dressy if you don't stare at them. Here was the mistake: I usually wear polo shirts to work. I like them better than button downs and I'll wear them if I can get away with it. So on Fridays I have this red polo I like to wear. I feel like Tiger on Sunday at the Masters when I wear that to close out a week and lately I have needed that feeling. I think you know where I'm going with this.

So I'm in Target at the card aisle. Not much there. Some A&G, Philadelphia, a few packs of Heritage and some new Topps Basketball was the only stuff I was remotely interested in. I'm halfheartedly pawing at a pack of A&G when a guy comes up next to me wearing the exact same thing as I am. Red shirt, khakis, black shoes. He starts looking through the packs too and I lose concentration with what I'm looking at and decide to go off and maye get a soda instead. Then I see another person dressed like me. And another. HALF THE STORE IS WEARING THE EXACT SAME THING I AM. Which is obvious now, since my Tiger Woods victory outfit is basically the Target Dress Code. Freaked, I get the hell out of there and go to Wal-Mart, where I found this:

Retail Obak!

With Old-timey players!

Retail Goodwin!

With Pretty Clouds!

And some more American Heritage. I got the want list ready to post tomorrow. I'll show off the Goodwin, Obak and AHH later this week, I jsut wanted to get that embarassing story off my chest first.

National Collect Like A Pirate Day

No, not these pirates.

Not even these Pirates.

These pirates.

Tired of spending time and hard earned money building a Topps base set only to find there's an impossible super short print keeping you from completing your goal? Sick of pre-ordering a case of Heritage only to find that there's a pile of cards that you'll only get if you buy a case of cases? Are your OCD tendencies causing you to break out in hives every time a new base set comes out with some stupid gimmick preventing you from being the completist your neurotic nature demands?

WELL SCREW IT

DEATH TO SUPER SHORT PRINTS

KEELHAUL THE CHASE CARDS

GARROTTE THE GIMMICKS

FILL THAT HOLE IN YOUR SET WITH A HOMEBREW

PRESENTING:

2009 PIRATE CARDS

2006 Alex Gordon ain't just for Olbermann anymore!

Gobble up that Ratty gimmick!

The card companies are mercenary, you should be too!

Get a little Cap'n in your binder!

Now the point of interweb card piracy is to share. Share those impossible cards with your fellow collectors. Now, I've started off with 4 here. Make your own Pirateized cards, I'll link 'em here and we can all fill in those gimmicked up base sets with cards we made aaaaarrrrselves. I'll pick the best and put them into an official 2009 Pirate Card Set.

Not enough incentive to crack open MSPaint and defy copyright law by exercising your right to *gasp* Fair Use? I'm going to print out some sets on some cardstock I bought. The creators of the top five cards as chosen by poll will get a printed set from me. Everyone who makes a piratey entry will be sent a document of the cards that you can print out yourself.

Is this stupid? Yes!

Will I get sued? Probably!

Is it fun? Definitely!

Now post some entries in the comments! I still owe Chris Harris a factory set!

I CAN'T STOP WRITING THEM

Limericks, that is. For Mario's big Yankee 1/1 press plate contest. Here's what I've come up with so far:

Upper Deck tried to gobble up Topps,

exclusive seeds bear bitter crops.

Mike E's rope-a-dope

caused Richard to mope,

he prays his unlicenced won't flopps.

I wrote that then felt bad that I took a swipe at the guys who donated the prize. I tried to give some equal grief to the competion with the next poem:

Competition be damned Topps will hoard

their monopoly license, abhorred.

1980 is back,

you'll see in your pack:

waxy stains, stale gum and cardboard.

I don't think I pulled it off. There's too many people out there (myself included) who like ripping those old waxy packs with the chalky gum and reject cereal box stock cards. Note - the submitted version has the last line of:

the return of stale gum and cardboard.

but I came up with the revised line while writing this post and I liked it. Editing is a writer's best friend.

I took one more stab at general hobby ennui and I'm fairly pleased with the result.

For the lost art of the ’90s I’m vexed.

We were holo’ed, refracted, dufexed.

Now it’s all jersey hits,

sticker autos worth shits,

How’d SPX become X? I’m perplexed.

Yes, I went blue. You try thinking up a decent, useful rhyme for 'relic'. Still, I'm happy with it. Happy with my negativity. Wait a minute, aren't I supposed to enjoy this hobby? Yes, yes I am. So I challenged myself to write something happy.

Baseball cards, they surround me in piles.

Is the time I spend sorting worthwhiles?

I say yes, without fail

as I send through the mail

a card package resulting in smiles.

And with that, I'm done for the night. Get on over there and try your hand at some poetry. Remember kids: a limerick is always in AABBA format where lines A all rhyme and have 9 or 10 syllables and lines B rhyme and have 5 or 6 syllables. Not to say that some of the iambi cpentameter and free form rap isn't good, I'm just sayin' try to go by the rules...

You liked Christy so much, I thought I'd post Ed

CABLE WENT OUT LAST NIGHT

NO TIME TO WRITE

FROM THE DRAFT FOLDER:

HERE'S ED WALSH

THREE MINUTES UNTIL ME LEAVE FOR WORK

HERE BACK

SIZE COMPARISON: 1950 CALLAHAN - 2008 A&G MINI

ENJOY

6 in 30 - Feetsball edition

Her's another binder for Dinged Corner's 6 in 30 game. I picked my old football binder for this one. I put most of this one together in the late 90's so it's a nice time capsule of my favorite players back then. Here's my 6:

1983 Topps Walter Payton

Payton got the first page in the binder so that gives you an idea of how high I hold him in esteem. I love the '83 Topps football design too, especially the team name at the top. Excellent card of an all-time great.

1994 Eric Zeier Georgia Football Schedule

Eric was the Dawgs' QB while I was at college and I was always rooting for him in the NFL. Too bad he never got a real chance to start for a team. He didn't look too bad in the few games he got to start.

198something Topps Hershel Walker 1000 yard club

I forgot to check the year on this thing before I put it back in the binder. As a Gerogia Fan, you gotta love Hershel. No, really, you gotta. It's a law down here. If you are caught being a Bulldog fan and not liking Hershel you get arrested and put on one of those Cool Hand Luke chain gang thingys. I miss the 1000 Yard Club inserts that used to be in every pack, but I don't think they'd work nowadays. One per pack insserts kinda suck in the 21st century, just look at ToppsTown cards.

1996 Classic Visions Emmitt Smith

Lots of shiny holofoil and glowy outlines surround Emmitt. Even though he's from (gak) Florida, dude could RUN.

1990 Fleer Jerry Rice All-Pro

The streak of Bulldogs and running backs ends! This is a pretty nice early '90s insert if I do say so myself. I'm a huge fan of Jerry Rice. After watching him utterly ruin my Falcons for years I think I have Stockholm Syndrome or something. Best wide receiver ever.

1992 Pro Set Brett Favre MVP insert

Yeah, I like Brett Favre. Even though he's a complete pain in the ass nowadays. Hey, he was drafted a Falcon. I have misguided loyalties. This card was an insert from 1992 Pro Set which is when Pro Set started to fall apart. This card looks nice though.

This card isn't from the binder, but is instead the card used for my countdown over there. '92 Upper Deck looks a lot better than '92 Pro Set. I need to quit looking at these old cards from the '90s before I get interested in them again. I don't have time for that stuff right now. More 6 in 30s to come eventually, some baseball ones too!

I almost had a heart attack when I realized...

I forgot to show off my Heritage autograph! Here you go, in a blast from the past format...

Who is this? Robert Jarvik, inventor of the artificial heart.

What is this? An autograph card from 2009 American Heritage Heroes Edition.

Where'd I get it? Jumbo pack from Wally World.

How much did it cost? $5 for the pack.

Why is this so special? DUDE INVENTED AN ARTIFICIAL HEART. THAT BEATS IN YOUR CHEST THUMPITY THUMP AND KEEPS YOU ALIVE. IN UTTER DEFIANCE OF GOD'S WILL HE STARES DEATH IN THE FACE AND LAUGHS. HA HA HA! Plus, an excellent Scrabble player. Ok, maybe I exaggerate slightly like the Lipitor ads. It's my first auto from American Heritage and I'm overly wowed by the cool. I'd trade it in a heartbeat for a piece of the Space Shuttle though. Pun not intended.*

Oh, by the way, Auto-Matic is on permanent hiatus until I win the lottery or one of the other contibuters adds something. If you want I'll cross post this over there, but I'm a one blog writer now.

Here's a couple of other inserts I haven't shown off yet:

The short prints from the set appear to be 1956 Topps cards of Barack Obama and Abe Lincoln. The whole Illinois connection, don't you know. Obama's a Sox Fan, but Abe couldn't have been a Cubs fan since they were formed in 1870 and didn't become the Cubs 'till 1898. Abe might have also been a Sox fan like Obama if not for Booth since the Chicago National League team was called the White Stockings from 1870-1875.


Here's the last insert I didn't have, A Hero's Journey. Not to be confused with A Writer's Journey. I think this set is all Lincoln, but I'm too lazy to look it up. Since Topps recycled that same awful painting of Abe, I don't care about it too much. I'm too busy trying to decide which baseball team Abraham rooted for. The New York Mutuals? The Brooklyn Eckfords? Maybe the Newark Eurekas. Philadelphia Athletics, perhaps? I think it might have been the Washington Nationals. Abe seems like he'd support the local team.

*Whenever someone says pun not intended, it sure as hell was intended. I edited that from 'nanosecond' to 'heartbeat' just to throw in another terrible heart pun. I REGRET NOTHING.

What do these guys have in common?

Ryan Church

Jeff Francouer

Give up?

NEITHER ONE IS GOIN' TO DA PLAYOFFS

('least we're in third place! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO)

Heritage Heroes Jumbo Pack #2

American Heritage Heroes: The Anti-bluh.

Also:

Q) How dumb do you have to be to have a small pile of cards featuring first responders at the Towers and forget to post them on 9/11?

A) As dumb as me apparently...

I'll correct that error eventually.

NOW for the second jumbo pack of this historical goodness. Once again, best cards in the pack ranked 1-5 with odd pop culture references where applicable.

Heroes of Space: Apollo 9

Yay! My first space card! And I scanned it upside down by accident! Ya know what... THERE'S NO UP IN SPACE. So this is perfectly all right. Here's a nice space themed song from They Might Be Giants' best album: Space Suit.

Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan

These two were back to back in the pack and I thought that was interesting even if you don't. So... would you rather be a humanitarian or a political hero? I don't want either, I WANT A MONKEY.

Charlton Heston Medal of Freedom

Can someone explain to me why I've gotten no less than three requests for my Joshua Chamberlain Medal of Honor card*? Did he do something really special or are you all confusing him with Wilt. Oh yeah, Charlton. Here's me about 15 minutes after getting that pet monkey I wished for.

Molly Pitcher

Is that Yankee Doodle Dandy checkin' out Molly's pitcher? I believe he is! Get yer head in the game! There's Redcoats out there! Here's some Molly Hatchet that's good to listen to while downing a pitcher of beer.

Iwo Jima

I was somewhat surprised to see that Topps didn't use the iconic image of the flag being raised for this card. I guess that one probably costs some $$$ to reprint. This card did inspire me to work on one of my crazy epic insane post ideas, but that will have to wait for another time...

*that card is already in a packaged labeled "Dinged Corners". Sorry, everyone else.

bluh

I feel crummy and I don't want to post anything.

Instead go to Thorzul's and think about doing a post for the next Blog-Bat-Around.

I think this one is unofficial or unauthorized, but who cares.

The Bat Around post topic has nothing to do with my ennui, I'm just generally miserable today. Has to do with work and sick and stress and that kinda stuff.

Here's a card.


Sorry for bluh. I'll try to un-bluh tomorrow.

NFL Opening Day

No, that thing that happened Thursday night doesn't count. Early openers are are a communist plot.

The real season opened up a few minutes ago. The Falcons and Dolphins have kicked it off. Both teams were a surprise last year and made it to the playoffs after a dismal season in '07. Now I am watching - praying - that the falcons go to the next level this year.

I'm not talking about going to the Superbowl.

I'm not talking about winning the division.

Hell, I don't even care if they make the playoffs.

JUST WIN 9 GAMES

You see, the Falcons have never had back to back winning seasons. EVER. They've been around since 1966. How is that even possible? Every time the Falcons have a great year something horrible happens next season to screw it all up. Jamal Anderson blows a knee. Michael Vick rapes a poodle. The Falcons hire Jerry Glanville. Horrible, horrible stuff. To help me feel better while waiting for the next shoe bomb to drop I'm going to keep a countdown on the blog to remind me how many games they need to avoid futility for another two years. I'll probably delete it after Matt Ryan gets abducted by aliens and they are 1-7. In the meantime, here's Bill Fralic, whose uniform provided the number 9.

That's all ya need Falcons, just get nine. My heart can't take doing this again in 2011.

This is why you always curve the bill of your cap

This poster was the giveaway at last weekend's Gwinnett Braves game. This is as much as I could fit on my scanner. I was able to fit in Tommy Hanson (first guy on the top row) but sadly the manager and a trainer got cut out. There's a lot of other guys who made the big league roster on this poster including Brandon Jones, Gregor Blanco, Reid Gorecki, Boone Logan, Manny Acosta, Barbaro Canizaro, Brooks Conrad and Kris Medlen.

Poor, poor Kris Medlen.

You're telling me there wasn't a second take of the photo? Kris could have gotten away with that expression. He does look genuinely excited to be there. Maybe he got called up to the bigs that morning. But the hat..... you can't get away with that hat. Not with that look on your face. Right next to Kris is Wes Timmons with a bill that is almost as level straight as Medlen's cap, but he's able to kinda pull it off. Not Kris. Poor, poor Kris.

And before you say that I'm being unfair to Kris, when a seven year old boy looks at a poster, gets a big smile on his face and says "Hey daddy, look at this guy" then it isn't me. It's that cap. Always curve the bill of your cap!

Tristar Minor League Pack

Got this pack of Prospects plus and a team set at the game last weekend. These were 75% off so they were actually decently priced at $3.75.

These were special Affiliate packs put together by Tristar. One pack of Prospects Plus, a card of a Braves draft pick and a special instant win game card inserted inside a very shiny deck loader sleeve. I don't understand why baseball card manufacturers (or the guys who repack them more likely) don't understand that baseball card collectors don't like protective sleeves where one side is opaque. Great for Magic: the Gathering decks, teh suck for reading stats.


I like the packaging just for the collection of the Braves' minor league logos.

Here's the braves dude I got nestled inside the deck protector. When I first did a search on Tyler Stovall I found this. what?? How can he be a Reds draft pick and still have a Tristar card with Braves plastered all over it? Apparently there were two Tyler Stovalls picked in the 2008 draft. One by the Bravos in the 2nd round, the other by the Reds in the 20th. Our Tyler had a decent year in Danville in '09 but needs a lot more seasoning. Maybe I'll see him in Rome next year.

I'm not showing the whole pack of cards, I don't do that anymore. I will show the best card and the reason why I don't have to but any more of these things. Gordon Beckham, the pride of Georgia, looking surly while wearing an angry Kannapolis Intimidators cap. The face fits the cap. Grrrrrr! Gordon has been called up to The Show! and is having a nice rookie year with 10 dingers so far. Has Gordon got any real rookie cards yet? He'll look good in Heritage High Series.

The Heroes Obsession Begins

Remember how I was with Allen & Ginter last month? Well, that's what you're going to get with American Heritage Heroes Edition until I complete the set. Luckily it's a small set. I have my want list typed up already, but I have a couple of new jumbo packs to mix in before I post it. Here's one of 'em, the others will be on the way soon. I'm not doing the whole "list every damn card out of the pack" thing right now and I may just quit cold turkey on that. I will show you the top 5 cards in the pack though. In this pack 5=7. If two plus two always makes five, then five can just as easily be seven. Oh, yeah, lots of references this post from obscure to mainstream.

Jimmy Stewart

This might be the Duke Ellington of this set. I haven't looked over a checklist yet, but it will be DAMN hard to top this card. Sheer awesomeness as evident by who he beat for #1 card in this pack. TR is up there with Yogi on my list of all time faves, but Stewart in uniform takes it. Here's my favorite scene from Harvey featuring some Jimmy wisdom.

Teddy Roosevelt

This is the card I drooled over when I first saw it online, but inexplicably it got beat. Topps has used this photo a little too much, I think. Now, if I can get a Chrome version of this card then I'll have a TR Finest Finest card. Now that would be slick. Here's a cartoon featuring Mr. Roosevelt from one of my favorite cartoonists. This toon is PG-13 rated but be careful if you wander around the archives. My favorite cartoon from that artist is absolutely filthy.

Erin Brockovich Chrome

My first Chrome, and it's a pretty cool one. I'm astounded by how much better the real life Erin looks than Julia Roberts does in that movie or otherwise. Ok, not that astounded.

Roy Campanella Heroes of Sport

Campy! This... was a kick ass pack. Here's Roy on What's My Line.

Ralph Ellison

Awesome writer who was just featured on an NPR story about writers who got their start in the WPA during the depression that was on the air this weekend on 90.1. If you even get some free time and want something good to read, check out Invisible Man. Very well written and eye-opening.

First American Spaceflight

My first space card from this set! I want the entire Space Heroes set so somebody out there trade 'em all to me. Plus, it's an excuse to link some Pixies.

Women's Suffrage Movement

Wooooo! Women who vote are SEX-AY. The fact she can play a mean horn is a bonus. I ain't posting anything about politics right now if I can help it so here's some female musicians who are awesome and probably voted at one time or another.

The Runaways
Delta 5
Ruth Underwood
Au Revior Simone
Siouxsie Sioux
Kim Deal oops, I mean Kim Deal
Ella Fitzgerald
Laurie Anderson
The Go-Go's
Missy Elliott
ISIS
The Slits
Cibo Matto

And many more but it's getting late...