Apropos of Nothing

I just think it's great that among us walks a dude named "Cuncho."

Current status

Went to the gym last night - Back down to 210, which is pretty good, considering I've been eating nothing but crap lately. Also, on the bench machine thingy, got 255 up five times, and started feeling all huge. Then, I looked across the room and saw some dude doing many more reps of 315, and suddenly felt much less huge. And I'm not sure what's been going on in Norman, Oklahoma, but on the way home, the freaking ghetto bird was flying around. Huh.

This morning, a random neighbor showed up asking to borrow my plunger. It really sucked, because my plunger broke the other day, and that's totally something you tell a guy when you just don't want to deal with him, rather than actually having a broken plunger. I need to get a new plunger-head tomorrow.

Also, realizing that my stupid football card addiction was costing too much money, I've decided to stop buying so much stuff and start trading with other addicts online. So far, I've done two, getting a pretty cool Muhsin Muhammad for a relatively equally cool Vince Young a couple months ago, and tomorrow, I'm mailing off a package of stuff that includes such luminaries as Brodrick Bunkley and Brandon Lloyd to a dude trying to put together a set who's supposed to be sending me three $8 Walter Paytons and a $10 Brian Urlacher in exchange. Pretty nice. The Moose-for-Young trade was probably a pretty dumb move, book-value wise, since the Vince can go nowhere but up and the Moose can go nowhere but down, but hey, I traded a Vince Young card that there are probably thousands of with a little piece of a jersey that wasn't used in an actual game for a Muhsin Muhamad serial numbered out of fifty with a piece of an actual game-used jersey that's as big as my head. Works for me.

Also, here is this:

Olin Kreutz, the Gift that Keeps on Giving

If you're weirdly obsessed enough to remember this post from Christmas last year, you'll know that I like to accumulate stupid pieces of cardboard, often times with Chicago Bears on them. So what with yesterday being my birthday and all, I went on a MASSIVE $13 Ebay spending spree, and ended up with this, that came in today:



Awwwwesome. Another card with a piece of a Pro Bowl jersey attached, his only officially autographed card, and at a $35 book value, it's his most valuable card. And the autograph is directly on the card, instead of the way they'll have a dude sign a sticker to put on the card these days, so that means that the hand that broke Fred Miller's jaw has held this card. Woah.

A fine day of purchasing.

Today, not only did buying two packs of football cards net me three Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart rookies with a total book value of $75, (have you been reading Cardboard Downfall lately?) but I bought some hamburger buns, and in addition to the eight buns regularly included, there was an extra half of a bun inside.

CARDBOARD DOWNFALL

I figured since I've been doing so much talking and obsessing over stupid little pieces of cardboard lately, I'd go full-tilt and make another blog, just for that kind of stuff. There, I'll share the tales of the last twenty years of wasting my money on this crap, maybe give my opinions on new brands or whatever, and if it's anything like the music review blog I started late last year, it'll start with a flurry of updates, only to scarcely ever get touched again. But yeah. I really need to mess with the sidebar over there to give some sort of updates on when those get updates. But until then, enjoy my CARDBOARD DOWNFALL.

Speaking of selling stuff on Ebay

Hey, remember that weird Metallica CD I mentioned a few months ago?
Almost 40 bucks with five days left. Something tells me it might be a good time to think about selling my copy. Hmm.
On that note, I'm making preparations for the big gamble of Ebaying off some of those cards. For now, I'm just gathering up the stuff and making scans of it for future use. You can check out the ongoing project here. I'm using all the tricks of the trade here, including using colored construction paper backgrounds to better display the conditions of the cards' corners and setting certain ones on top of this plastic file folder I got to filter out some of the light to make foil parts more visible. (So far, the Peyton and LT cards) Damn, I'm good.

Man, Ebay

I've been spending too much money on football cards (I'll post more about that tomorrow, when I'm not about to pass out) in the last year, and while the relatively high-dollar cards (for me, at least; I'm one one of the creepy power-collectors who spends the hundreds every month on the stuff required to get the severely valuable stuff) of guys who aren't my favorite players (the "notebook guys;" more on that at a later date) have piled up, it occurred to me that I really ought to try selling some of these off to try and make the 20-year addiction start to pay for itself. But a quick scan across Ebay has shown me that they might not be the way to go to dump off the stack of Vince Youngs and Matt Leinarts that have accumulated. Like I got this card. A Charlie Whitehurst card. And yeah, he's a backup QB and his stuff isn't in high demand, but it's one of those cards that has a chunk of a jersey attached to it. A real jersey that he's even wearing on the front of the card. Everybody wants those jersey cards right now, you know? And the thing books at about six bucks or so, and I figure hell, I might be able to make at least half of that. Well, taking a quick glance across the Whitehurst stuff other people have put up for auction, the picture is freaking grim. It's like a vast sea of jersey cards, autographed cards, and autographed jersey cards, all of which book at way more than the one I have, and they're all going for like a dollar ninety-nine, if anyone's bid at all. And the thing is, it's the same way for cards of guys who people actually want cards of, who aren't scrubs like Charlie fucking Whitehurst. What I want to know is where all these low-bid cards are when it's actually one I would want? How can a Reggie Bush card with authentic autographs from Reggie Bush, Jesus Christ, and The Easter Bunny with a book value of nine-zillion dollars auction for $8.00, when the $3.50 autographed Jim Flanigan card I tried to get once zoomed up to $11.50 by the time I decided that only a retard would pay that much for a card of a lesser-known defensive tackle?

I think what I'm trying to say here is that if there's anyone out there who likes football cards with pieces of jerseys glued to them, I got some Matt Jones, Charlie Whitehurst, Derrick Hagan, and Willis McGahee action I can hook you up with. (For the record, I've also got ones with Olin Kreutz, Anquan Boldin, and Charlie Batch, but I'm keeping those for me.) Also, I think I have like four of that Topps Total Sports Illustrated for Kids Reggie Bush that's worth like eight bucks, but I can't remember where the box is with all of those, so just focus on the jersey cards for now. But yeah, you guys should send me money for those.

THE GREATEST GIFT OF ALL

THE GIFT OF KREUTZ.

Have I mentioned

That I love the Bowman brand of football trading cards?

(SpecialgoldcardofJ.D.Runnelsholycrap)

two things i am not thankful for

1. Realizing that I have no butter, which kicks ass on pumpkin bread.
2. Realizing that I still don't own a single Tommie Harris trading card.

Two things I am thankful for

1. Deciding to take a peek into the Thanksgiving leftovers they sent me home with and seeing that I got hooked up with a FAT SACK OF PUMPKIN BREAD.
2. Topps's Bowman division, and their wild-eyed, crazy obsession with rookie cards.

oh man i need this card

Leon Washington thinks you're Number one. So much so that he had to tell you with both hands.

My Stupid Ebay Activities

I won't bore you with the details, but if the post office can get their shit together, a financial windfall, at least by my standards, should be hitting me in short order. And after the car and the student loans are paid off, (don't freak out - It's an almost paid-off $2500 car and like a year worth of Delta State University) I'll have a hefty chunk of disposable income on my hands. So in anticipation of this, I spent some cash on Ebay today. What did I get? A new computer? No. Big screen TV? No. Kickass car stereo? Nope.

I spent 30 dollars for almost every Chicago Bears trading card released by Topps between 1981 and 1990.

By book value, it's a fairly decent deal, but not as good a deal as it would have been if some of the major rookie cards had been included. But of the seven cards left out, I already have the Dan Hampton, Richard Dent, and Doug Flutie rookies, the Willie Gault and Todd Bell rookies could easily be scooped up for like a buck, total, and only the Mike Singletary and Jim McMahon rookies are truly bummers by their absence. And I've already found a place selling the McMahon for like three bucks if I get some sort of crazy McMahon-rookie Jones going. But yeah, the final tally:
177 cards, with no duplicates, all Near Mint/Mint:
Neal Anderson - 3 (RC)
Trace Armstrong - 2 (RC)
Johnny Bailey - 1 (RC)
Brian Baschnagel - 3
Kevin Butler - 6 (RC)
Mark Carrier - 1 (RC)
Jim Covert - 6 (RC)
Ron Cox - 1 (RC)
Richard Dent - 5
Dave Duerson - 4 (RC)
Robin Earl - 2 (RC)
Vince Evans - 2 (RC)
Gary Fencik - 5
Dave Finzer - 1 (RC)
Leslie Frazier - 3 (RC)
Steve Fuller - 1
Willie Gault - 5
Dennis Gentry - 4 (RC)
Dan Hampton - 8
Jim Harbaugh - 3 (RC)
Roland Harper - 1
Mike Hartenstine - 3
Jay Hilgenberg - 5 (RC)
Noah Jackson - 3
Vestee Jackson - 1 (RC)
Lorenzo Lynch - 1 (RC)
Ken Margerum - 1 (RC)
Wilber Marshall - 2 (RC)
Dennis McKninnon - 3 (RC)
Jim McMahon - 6
Steve McMichael - 6 (RC)
Emery Moorehead - 2
Ron Morris - 1 (RC)
Brad Muster - 2 (RC)
Jim Osbourne - 1 (RC)
Alan Page - 1
Bob Parsons - 3
Walter Payton - 21
William Perry - 3 (RC)
Mike Richardson - 2 (RC)
Ron Rivera - 2 (RC)
John Roper - 1 (RC)
Thomas Sanders - 2 (RC)
Terry Schmidt - 2
Mike Singletary - 7
Revie Sorey - 2
Lemuel Stinson - 1 (RC)
Matt Suhey - 7 (RC)
David Tate - 1 (RC)
Bob Thomas - 3
James Thornton - 1 (RC)
Mike Tomczak - 2 (RC)
Keith Van Horne - 1 (RC)
Len Walterscheid - 1 (RC)
Rickey Watts - 3 (RC)
Dave Williams - 1
Otis Wilson - 3 (RC)
Donnell Woolford - 2 (RC)

Also, adding in the random extra stuff the guy threw in with the deal, you get:
Red Grange - 1 (from 1988)
Walter Payton - 1 (1991)
Adrian Peterson - 1 (RC - 2002)
Gale Sayers (1997)
Mike Singletary - 3 (2 from 1992, 1 from 2002)
Brian Urlacher - 2 (2002)

Ho-lee shit.