Monday, June 15, 2020

A Whole Lotta Nothin'

Not sure why I'm so uninspired lately.

The influx of cardboard continues at a decent pace.  There have been a steady stream of trades every few days or so.  I just sent out four more PWEs, on top of two or three bubble mailers.  And I've taken in several packages of varying sizes in the last couple weeks.

I also got two halves of another major SportLots order in. 


But none of it is really remarkable enough to post about.  No disrespect to the traders - I love what I got - it's just mostly set hits from things I or many others have posted about already.  My big order was a start to the serial numbered base set from 2007 Sweet Spot Classic, and the back end of two huge rookie saturated football sets from the early 2000s. 

I just get tired of doing nothing but loot posts and trades.  They're fine, but there's got to be better ideas to sprinkle in now and then.  Look at how Night Owl can make profound statements, even out of the contents of a PWE...

Another strike against me is that I write posts in the same place that I do phone support for work.  I have my work phone, laptop and all the connecting equipment set up in the computer room hooked to the monitor that also serves my home PC.  I could go over to the card room and use the other monitor and keyboard I have over there, but then I'm contending with the piles of cards on the desk.  There's not quite adequate room for the mouse over there.  But either way, it's more "screen time" on top of a full 8-hour day.  I'm already half bleary eyed at 5 o'clock, so I'm not eager to sit there for another couple hours.


There's another obvious lack of inspiration since there are no live games to watch.  We're still waiting for all the leagues to negotiate salaries, schedules, locations, and COVID precautions to start or continue their seasons.  They're still weeks away.

Expected this

Found this

Since I've still continued to buy and trade cards online, I wasn't really motivated to check the retail aisles since the stores have opened up.  (I'm not sure the Targets & Wal-Marts ever closed).  But I had the chance this past weekend.  Needed a couple things, so I ventured out to Target first, since they generally have a good selection.  What I found was that I hadn't missed a thing.  I don't think the distributor had been there since February.  There were about six or seven factory sets, mostly baseball, and two empty single pack dispenser boxes - and not a single sports card otherwise.  Not in their whole display - which it seemed had been encroached upon another three feet by the Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh section.  I didn't bother to look in Wally World.  I didn't want to spend any more time in there than I had to.  Maybe it's that cards are "non-essentials"?

I've still got nine monster boxes of football to sort through.  While I'm on phone duty, I'll turn around and sort out some of my dupes, so I've put most of my extra stuff in order.  That makes it nice to pull trade bait, but doesn't lend itself to good posts.  I've got one more post's worth on the baseball hoard, and then I might put up some giveaways, because it seems that's the trendy thing to do.  And I've got a lot of offbeat stuff to give away.

But in the meantime, I'll just have to muddle through my work duties, the negative energy from the pandemic and social protests, and the waiting game for sports, shops, and shows to open up again.

So don't worry, I'm not going away. I just might be going to bed early tonight.





8 comments:

  1. Sadly, I think the retail store managers might be making a haul and buying a lot of the good stuff for themselves. Collecting has never been hotter it seems at the moment....nothing else for people to do unfortunately.

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  2. My dad does some side work as a Target vendor, including stocking cards. He says that it's (unsurprisingly) getting harder and harder to find people to do those jobs with the whole pandemic situation, so sadly some Targets get neglected. And even the ones that do get stocked seem to be bought out pretty quickly by all the dudes hunting for Bowman and such. Just not the greatest time to be a card collector (or a right-thinking, empathetic human being, for that matter).

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  3. I go through phases where it's really hard to write about cards I got from people, even though I was very appreciative and probably excited when I first opened the package(s).

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  4. I hear you on the overload on screen time thing. It's your hobby... you do you and do it when it makes you happy.

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  5. Wow. I thought my card aisle was sparse. Well... maybe it is. Haven't been to my Target in weeks. I guess the good news is that people are collecting again in full force.

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  6. People really don't want to read trade posts. I get the impression that they're almost mad that someone has dared post about their trades. Challenge accepted.

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  7. I don't mind trade posts, but then I have only been back blogging for a little while. Maybe I'll get all jaded someday soon! I'm super jealous that you have big boxes of cards to look through, that is what I dream about right now.

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  8. Yeah the card vendors dont have much to put out these days. The vendors for Wal-Mart and Meijer havent been out since many of the 2019 packs that should be on clearance by now still ring up at the regular price. It's gonna be a while for them to get back to normal but I haven't seen them as empty as yours!

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