I Wanna Say, Thank You ♫

I know I’m a little late with this, but there are some people I am thankful for, and I want to say thank you to them.

First, I am thankful for Migdalia, the Latina on a Mission herself.  Really, twitter makes you think you are closer to people you actually are, and we probably hardly know each other at all (we even discussed this phenomena once, lol).  But that doesn’t matter, because there aren’t many people that can instantly put a smile on my face with just their presence, not many people can make my heart skip a beat just by saying (err, typing?) my name.  She is not only one of the few people in this world that can do that to me, but also a sweet and helpful person who’s gentle encouragement gives me hope.

Next, I am thankful for Jacky from over at justin.tv, who’s presence does the same thing as Migdalia.  Similar in personality as well.  In fact, I’ve known Jacky quite a bit longer.  We haven’t talked much lately, but every time we do, I get the same warm & fuzzies. 🙂

I am also thankful for AnotherMaria.  She is just made of awesome, basically.  She’s strong-willed, motivated, driven to succeed.  She can multitask like nobody’s business.  She is basically all the good stuff that I’m not, but want to be.  She is The Maria as far as I’m concerned.  I hope to be as awesome as her one day.  It may be an impossible dream, but to be that strong, I suppose there is nothing I couldn’t do, and I could find someone as awesome as Maria to be with (and feel like I might actually be on something close to equal footing).

Taylor, another someone I haven’t talked to in awhile, but someone I go back with further than anyone else on the internet.  I’m thankful for her because, well, I might never have even taken the first step try to recover from my horrible mental screwed-upedness if not for her.  Amazing what having someone to care about can do.

And amongst the card bloggers there, whom I am thankful for in general, for what I have learned from y’all about generosity and stuff, are a few I am particularly thankful for.

Shane of Shoebox Legends, with whom I made my first major trade.  He’s cool, and who knows if I would’ve even hung around if not for that trade.

Of course we should all be thankful for the ladies of Dinged Corners, who constantly push the limits of what we can learn from cards.  They are truly innovative in their approach to little cardboard pictures of baseball players.  Go look through their archives if for some reason you don’t know of them, and prepare to have your mind blown by all the ways baseball cards can be used to teach, all the things things you can learn, all things you never considered before, about specific cards and cards in general.

And finally, I want to thank the man, the myth, the Wicked Ortega.  I want to thank him for caring enough to comment frequently, and for just being cool in general.  Thank you.

And yeah, I totally cried at his “What I’m Thankful For” post.  Like “hide the sharp objects” crying.  When it comes to people I have a connection to, that kinda thing is like stabbing me in the soul.  I hurt right along with.

I know I’m leaving out a few people I’m thankful for, for one reason or another, and I hope they know how much they mean to me.  You all are as much family to me as my own flesh & blood, perhaps even more so.  I think my friends are a blessing, even if I don’t often know how to properly express it, and I think that, in my friends, I am surrounded by some of the greatest people who have ever lived.

Love always…

Keyboard Unfail

The long national nightmare is over, I have a keyboard again. 😛

Let us touch on a few things quickly before I go hang with da fam and watch football and eat so much turkey and mashed potatoes & gravy that it starts dripping out my ears!

First, trade packages were sended out to M. Ryan of Ryan’s Memorabilia Blog, Brian of Play at the Plate, and The Don hisself, Mr. Wicked Ortega late Monday afternoon.  And you’ll be pleased to know that I found the DeMetrius Williams Sweet Spot auto, Mike.  It’s pretty ridonkulous.  I have no idea if there be mail service on Friday or Saturday (I make up for my slowness by being oblivious! :P), but if not, hopefully they will make it by Monday, and provide you all a slightly gentler landing coming back to earth after the long holiday weekend.

Addresses, I need addresses.  Who do I need addresses from?  I need addresses from Roll out the Barrell and Sooz of A Cardboard Problem so I can sends them stuff.  And I’d like to send stuff to Marie too, but I still don’t know if she wants any of the Linds/Canos/Martins/etc I have.

Ooh ooh ooh, here’s one for McCann Can Triple for when I finally get around to sending stuff to her late next summer (I REALLY hope I’m joking about that…).  Do you have many Braves hits, specifically Chipper Jones?  I got two Chipper jerseys in the five packs of 2005 topps Pack Wars I busted on twitter on Tuesday, and I was wondering if you’d like one of them.  I will scan them (and a bunch of other stuff) later today.  They are shiny.

I’ve gotten a TON of great cards in the last two days, and I can’t wait to scan them for you all to see.  So much stuff came on Tuesday and Wednesday that I didn’t even feel the need to stop in the card aisle on the way out of Walmart when I picked up the new keyboard.  An embarrassment of riches, to be sure.  I received all my larger things from eBay, and received a trade from Wicked Ortega that had one of the greatest cards I have ever seen, so business is about to pick up on the ol’ blog.  And somewhere in there, I will reminisce(sp?) about Allen Iverson, one of the greatest basketball players that ever lived, who called it a career yesterday.

Until our next… HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Keyboard Fail

My keyboard is no longer working, so no more posts until I get a new one tomorrow.  I’m sure as heck not writing enough for a proper post with this on-screen.  A real shame too, I just woke from a dream about baseball cards.  Let’s just call it ‘anime-esque’.  And I need also to reveal the results of my 2005 Pack Wars twitter 5 pack break here on the blizzog.

And that concludes my short burst of energy.  Back to sleep I go, till at least 4am hopefully.  Goodnight, sports fans and uber-sweet blogger ladies I have a crush on.

43 home runs?? Seriously?

Random pictures I can do…

(Edit: Just found a contest guess from Stats-on-the-Back in the spam comments between a long ranty spam about flu and medicines or something and spam for… semen pills. Umm, yeah.  Sorry you got lost in the shuffle.  Hopefully I can find something especially useful to send in return for your particular clunkers.)

Going out on a (Hall of Fame) High note!

My last ’75 to show.  Urgh, goodnight again…

Besos.

Wax Heaven Giveaways!

Here are the cool cards Mario sent when I finally got off my lazy butt and sent him a SASE:

First the 2009 Upper Deck Football Heroes...

I’m trying to spread the love by sending and trading most of the cards received from Mario to those who will appreciate them more than I could ever hope to.  Paul Hornung is offered to Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius, and Tony Dorsett is now officially offered to BigD of Hey That’s Mine.  I’m giving both Big Bens to a Steelers fan I know (other one coming up).  The Maynard/Biletnikoff is the only for sure keeper from this scan, although the Alan Page is tempting, to get a TTM auto maybe.  How epic would that look?

As it is, Alan Page, Plax, Calvin Johnson, Romo/Aikman, and the volleyball dude are available.

Beethoven, Florence Nightingale, and a couple Chicago legends...

Bobby Hull and Mike Ditka are the reason I got these cards in the first place, so they ain’t going anywhere.  I dunno about the historical peoples though.

Kristi Yamaguchi and some rock-headed Presidents...

I used to have a crush on Kristi in my teenage years.  Heh… :d

Do the Presidents look a lil’ toony to anyone else, or is it just me?

Yeah Woodstock! Woo!

Are there any bloggers out there who were at the original?

Malkin/Big Ben

This is also going to my Steeler fan friend.

Now we get to the higher end, a rare taste for me.  But a yummy taste it is. 🙂

Prime Jersey or Patch (whichever you prefer) #ed /50

This one I offered up for BigD’s Hines Ward collecting son.  I got a little something for the whole gang, if they want ’em, that is.

And if they can wait till 2010 to pull off the trade.  I’m a slow trader (slow at doing nearly everything, really) to start with, but I think I’ve got trades going with half the card bloggers right now.  At least it seems that way, not to mention McCann’s great card blogger Secret Santa thing.  I’m very excited about dat though, and hopefully the person I drew will be too.

Prime Time Prime (Jumbo) Jersey #ed 3/5!

I’m not trading away this one, I really like this one.  It’s purrty.  I may have to sell it at some point sadly though. 😦  I’m poor like dirt.  I have iffy mental health as an excuse, but I’ve got to try and make good, the sooner the better, and that’ll take some moneys to start with.

Incidentally, if you’d like to commission a sketch card, gimme a shout.  You can see a few recent examples on my blog.  I’m okay I guess, especially with portraityness.

Enough shameless and very awkwardly done self-promotion.  Last card!

More prime jersey patches, going way back with Frank Gifford #ed /25

That was a heckuva box Mario busted, all three game-used being of the prime jersey variety, if not the sickest of patches.  I like Absolute Memorabilia, one day I will be able to afford a box of it without breaking the bank, or even poking it softly.  I have no intention of being a poor bum my whole life.

That’s all for what I got from big man of the blogosphere.  Maybe I’ll win some stuff from him again (and sign up for Card Corner Club @VOTC) if I can figure out what the heck happened with my Ning password. :/

Oh yeah, congrats to Real Salt Lake on taking down the evil empire of David Beckham and Landon Donovan.  I hope it doesn’t effect the value of my Beckham jersey card though (scans to come when I get it scanned).

And big ups for Matthew Stafford showing some Leftwich-ian toughness in getting the win against the Browns in a surprising shootout.

Until our next…(Besos)

The Winnars!

Roll that beautiful bean footage!  Or just show the pic of the final randomization…

There you have it.  Brian gets the first choice of uncirculated card, Deal gets the next choice, packaddict gets third, The Don has pick four, and Shane Elkinton gets the last card remaining.

I’ll get Collective Troll *something*, sometime, someday for making the the closest guess, but finishing last in the drawing.

Thank you to everyone who played, and thank you all for supporting my blog.  Have a wonderful day.

Contest Fix

Since nobody won my 5000 Hit Contest, despite a fair number of people guessing, I have decided to just throw the big prize into the random drawing. It’s the simplest thing I can come up with, so all five uncirculated cards will be won thataway.

I will list everyone’s name in the order the guesses were made, and hit random five times, and the chips will fall where they may. The person at the top of the list gets to choose whichever of the prize cards they want, second place gets to choose from what’s left, and so on.

The final note is this. I’m broke, so it’ll be December before I can send the prizes.

I will do the drawing immediately after this post goes up. Good luck, and good night to all.

Ya Know Why I Love Benchwarmers?

Because they are the gift...

that keeps on...

giving!

Yeah!  The backs of almost every card have a full or close to full-sized picture on them, lol.  The poll seems to have disappeared, but most people seemed to like them some boobies.  I believe it was 7-1 in favor of this continuing last time I had checked it.  About four people wanted cookies too, so I guess I shall have to satiate their collective overpowering sweet tooths (teeths?) as well sometime.

Come by late this evening for an update on the contest.  I think I’ve decided how to play it going forward, since nobody guessed correctly to win the big card.

That’s all for now.  Have a beautiful weekend, beautiful people.  Hehe… 😉

Until our next…

The Lonestarr Personal Collection #8

Woo, I’m signed in again.  What a pain in the arse that has become since they monkeyed with the front page.  Anyway, in the name of just getting a post in, I present another piece of my personal collection.  Not only that, but today is special.  This is one of my most very favorite pieces of my personal collection.  It comes from my first trade with Marie from A Cardboard Problem and in recent times the Upper Deck Blog.  Anyway, I never actually got around to posting the trade I don’t think, but I did scan it all.  And now I present one of the coolest cards I’ve ever laid eyes on, the main event of what Marie sent those many moons ago:

Sportscaster!

How cool is that?  It’s a 2004 Leaf Sportscaster card #ed to either /20 or /40 (don’t feel like messing with teh ginormo binder to find out for sure, will edit it to the right number when I do get around to messing with it).  The reason this is so cool, is that back when Beckett was still to some degree relevant to me, these cards caught my eye for some reason.  Maybe it was the name, or the rarity, but for some reason, their entry in the price guide I was always curious about.  I would always stop on it when I’d, um, leaf through the thing.

I never thought I’d actually own one though.  I had never consistently collected baseball, it didn’t become my #1 until I discovered the card blogs at the beginning of 2008 (yep, I’m not quite an original, but I’ve been around since pretty early on, first starting my blog around March of last year, only got six posts in before giving up until several months later when I deleted the old posts and started from scratch), and I’m not sure I even had access to whatever Donruss brand they came in anyway, and definitely not if they were hobby exclusive.  There hasn’t been a card shop around here since around the turn of the milliniem.  And they were pretty rare, to me at least.  I still don’t know exactly how hard to come by they were, but I figured it was beyond my realm of luck.  I never pulled anything #ed that low until 2005.

Anyway, yes, this is one of the most awesome cards I own, not just because of it’s inherent awesomeness, that it’s pretty rare and features one of the greatest of all time, but because there is a debatably interesting story behind it.  There is a reason, that I can’t adequately explain, for me to have been drawn to it, to have wanted it, even though I didn’t quite understand what it was, and it came to me as a total surprise.

All I wonder about now, is what magic Marie has up her sleeve for round two, if we ever get around to finishing this second trade…

Oh, and Sooz, I need your address.  I’m still waiting to find out what exactly I need to send to Marie, but all your cards have been ready to go for awhile.

Then again, I guess there’s no hurry.  I’m pretty much broke till December, so I can’t send it till then anyway.  Meh, just send ya addy whenever.  I’m going to sleep.  This post took way longer than intended (they always do…).  Peace, love, and fighting spirit!

~Akron Hammer.  Huh?

Shalrie, Shalrie…♫

Since my Shalrie Joseph jersey card has just found itself a soon-to-be new home at The Great Sports Name Hall of Fame, I have an excuse to post it, along with a few other nice cards I pulled all by my lil ‘ol self.

My own pulls

Griffey is the only keeper.

I guess the golf auto counts as a pull.  It was the guaranteed auto from a 5 golf packs and an auto thing.  And a good one at that.

'08 Upper Deck MLS Shalrie Joseph Jersey-Back

Here's the not-especially-committal back of the Shalrie Joseph swatch of somethin' or other. The swatch feels like the trim on the shorts I'm wearing.

Shalrie was almost a keeper, but it’s cool.  I will track another down someday if I feel the need.  That said, I’m not without soccer swatches of great midfielders even after Shalrie goes on his way.

That… was a tease. 😉