Thank you, but no.

Have you ever seen a card that you would NEVER want? In generally ANY circumstance?
Well, I know I have!

I stumbled across this while perusing the "non-sports" section of COMC, and it made me stop and take a second look. I mean, really? Gene Simmons' pants? I'd feel like I would have to wash my hands after touching that card even if it was in a top-loader.
Maybe I'm just being overly cynical (feel free to call me out), and maybe it's because I'm not that big of a KISS fan, but I'm bothered by this card.
I know the resolution stinks, but it seems COMC has a new system in place to prevent "image sharing" from their site, so I had to go dig this one up on Google. If you are interested in this card (or want to see how similar Gene can look to Sylvester Stallone), here's the link:
Some of the most expensive pants you'll never wear...

Anyway, that's all I have for today, haha.

I hope all of you have a great (and safe) New Year's, and I look forward to the coming year.

Stay unabashed! Stay interested!
-Ruffin

A little early Christmas cheer...

Given what I do for a living (which has me working 10 hours tomorrow), my wife and I decided to have our household Christmas this afternoon when I got home from work. My son got some entertaining (and quite musical) toys, my wife got some scarves (try not looking lost when you're on that shopping trip, I dare you), and I got a gift certificate to my LCS. Oh, and this!

Needless to say, I was ecstatic and pleased, haha.
I hope all of you have a wonderful holiday season, and before you go...

I have a general "organization" question for all of you out there:
When putting together a binder of your favorite team, is it best to do it by set/year, or by player? I was thinking about a separate binder for chrome-ish stuff, but I'm not really sure...
Any and all input is appreciated!

As always,
Thanks for stopping by!
Stay unabashed! Stay interested!
-Ruffin

A time for reflection...

Tomorrow is my two-year wedding anniversary.
February 4, 2013 will be the seven-year anniversary of my first date with my wife.
Needless to say, these are days that I am thankful for the constant things in my life. But it was a gift my wife gave me for our anniversary that reminded me of how things can change.

The main thing I love about this the complete 2011 NLDS Game 5, a game I remember watching with my dad. I remembered that the birds had scored in the first inning, and that Chris Carpenter pitched a complete shutout game afterwards.
It was a double by Skip Schumaker that brought in that run, and he would leave the game after his second at-bat.
Skip was a player I always found myself rooting for, and I'm sorry to see him go. When I heard about the trade, I was reminded of this card:

When I first pulled this out of the pack, I was struck by how creepy the "gold finish" made Skip look. Almost like one of the motion cards of yore, but featuring Tyler Greene instead...
Now I see the card as poetic, in a sense. Both of these players have been traded, though I will miss Skip a bit more.
I feel the same way about Michael Young being traded. I don't know why, but I hate seeing a player who has spent many years with an organization get traded. Though, from what I understand, Schumaker and Young made it clear that they wanted to be traded.
I'm still on the lookout for a Schumaker auto, and I certainly will not complain if that Rally Squirrel SP ever falls into my lap!

Thanks for stopping by!
Stay unabashed. Stay interested.
-Ruffin

Missed Connections

You were the patch/auto numbered out of 10.

I was the nervous observer as your price climbed higher.

I kept your picture in case I see one of your 9 siblings.

Call me.

I'm sorry to say that this one slipped out of my grasp, I was relieved that it went a little over my "desired maximum bid" though. That always makes the loss a little more easier to swallow, haha!

That being said, I will fight the urge to post a Missed Connection every time I miss out on the Cardinals in a break. Don't want to drive you folks crazy!

Thanks for stopping by.
Stay unabashed. Stay interested.
-Ruffin

Ode to Netflix...

I have Netflix,
It doesn't have the best flix,
Though it has decent tv shows...
(That's as far as I got on such short notice.)

I honestly think we've cancelled our Netflix subscription twice. We just weren't satisfied with it on the whole. That being said, it seems that the third time is the charm.
It all started when my wife asked "Have you ever seen Lost?"
Lost was a series I remember seeing bits and pieces of over the years, but I never had the chance to see the whole thing. And therein lies the beauty of Netflix, immediate gratification.Well, for series that have already completed anyway, haha!

We have since completed Lost, and now we are making our way through Prison Break. (Another show I started, but never finished.) It's nice to be able knock out a few episodes here and there and to not have to wait week to week for the next episode. Though having to wait for the AMC shows (Hell on Wheels, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead) is killing me!

I used to watch martial arts and horror movies on there, but the selection seems to have dried up. Or maybe my movie standards have changed?
What about you guys? Got any Netflix suggestions for me?

G'night!

It's game time!

I like video games. I haven't completed a lot of them, but I really enjoy playing them.
Early on in life I mainly played on the handheld platform, and it wasn't until my college years that I got a gaming console. I still grab the free moment on there when I can, but I'm here to talk about a mobile game series.

Is anybody else pretty much addicted to the 9Innings series from Com2Us? If you are a baseball fan with a smart phone, I think you are missing out.
I have an iPhone so the 2011 version is better on here than android, but the 2013 version is really good on both. Essentially, you pick your favorite team, and then through the process of leveling up your players, and
combing players, you can build your ideal dream team. 

In my early days, I was constantly swapping out players; but they'd still be on other teams. The game would never take Brian Wilson off of the Giants, if he was on my roster. It was weird, and I eventually decided I wanted to make a pure Cardinals team. Though seeing Brian Wilson hit a homer off of Brian Wilson was entertaining. (Though again, it was weird).
Unfortunately, they aren't doing anymore roster updates to the 2011 version, so I still get to use Pujols and keep my team bonus. This is a little easier verion to play, and the games go by a little quicker on it. Maybe I'm biased because my Molina is currently .463/.470/.771...

The 2013 version is a lot more like a console game, you can play "challenge games" against recent All-Star and World Series teams, and there is WAY more roster depth. I'm not sure how far vast it is, but I'm fairly certain the entire AAA rosters are in there, or at least the top prospects. Seeing as the games take place over 8 seasons, and only your relief pitchers need rest, this makes things a little more believable.

That said, they're very fun games and pretty much the only ones I play on my phone these days.
Other than that, I'm usually playing Mass Effect 3 on Xbox Live.
Feel free to send me a friend invite, my gamertag is jamicfin, it's my universal go-to.

See you next time!

Can winners be cynics?

On a recent visit to my LCS, I had a chance to chat with a buddy of mine who pulled this out of 2012 Topps Five Star Baseball:

I asked him how it felt to get a really awesome card like that, and he responded with:
"Man, the thing was numbered out of 49. I told [the owner] to sell it quick before the value dropped on it, almost made the price of my box back."
Maybe there's just a part of my brain that doesn't understand that logic. It did with my Pete Rose auto, mind you; but that was after I heard about this latest set before it got released.
I will probably never be able to open a box of Five Star, the cost/benefit analysis just doesn't work out to me all that well, and I do have way too many other interests.
All that being said, do you (the reader) keep or sell something like this? It'd be a tough call for me, I will admit, and would most likely be determined by my financial situation at the time. I'd probably sell it to pick up a Cardinals auto I didn't have (or a Hornsby relic!), and then use the rest to get something me and son could enjoy.
But that's just me, what about you?

I am ashamed...

I couldn't finish watching the Egg Bowl last night.
I tried, I really did.
This is my NCAA Super Bowl, the only game each year that truly matters to me in college football. Every other win in the column is a bonus if we can just finish off those Rebels, and we just were not able to do it.
We made some amazing plays, but they made their drives last longer, and that's really what killed us.
I'm not proud that I turned it off, I'm not proud that I started second-guessing the players and coaches. I honestly try really hard to not be THAT fan. Living in the 'Bama section of 'Merica, I see/hear/smell those fans on a regular basis; The Yankees fans of NCAAF, I call them.
That and me and the wife had about 3 more episodes to go before we finished Lost on Netflix. She'd never seen it, and I missed some episodes here and there (i.e. the last season), so that seemed like a better option.
Due to impeding circumstances, I finally get to have Thanksgiving dinner when I get home today. I am thankful that I have a happy, expressive, entertaining 7-month old to remind me that it wast just a game.
Have a good one, folks!

Hail to the State...

As I sit here watching the 109th Battle for the Golden Egg, I thought I could share a recent trade acquisition with you:

This beauty comes from my friend over at The Daily Dimwit, and he should post what I sent him in the next few days!

It's always nice when a player from the college (or high school) team you root for winds up at the professional team you root for. Seeing Will Clark retire as a Cardinal made me happy, even if he is back in the Giants front office now...
On the other hand, I wasn't too thrilled when Paul Maholm went to the Cubs. Or when Josh Donaldson was drafted by them, lol. Josh and I went to the same high school, he was a few years ahead of me though.

Anyway, time to get back to watching this game... #hailstate

Talk about a variant markup...

Most card sets (sports/Americana/comics/competitive) have variants within the sets. Whether it be the sparkle refractors of Topps Series 1/2/U, the border variants of Topps chrome, or foils in Magic: the Gathering.
What if the prices for these cards were drastically different?


Say: $2.99                   or           $59.99

"That's crazy!" I hear you say.
For these David Freese cards, yes, that's an overly dramatic price increase. (No offense to the 2011 NLCS/WS MVP)

Now for something completely different:


          $2.99                   vs.             $59.99
(I know the pictures don't show it, but the one on the right is REALLY shiny.)

This card is classified as a "rare" from the 7th core set of Magic. There were 110 rares (1:1) in the set with 36 packs per box, foils were packed out at 1:3 odds, and to be honest I don't know the foil rare odds. (Only that they weren't very favorable!)
This was the first set to feature "alternate-bordered" foils, so to speak. There are other cards in sets that posses this quirk that have a much higher price tag on the foils than the regulars, though it's only been a recent development.
Case in point: I purchased my foil copy of this card 2 years ago for $14.99, so I call that a win.
I'll get more into why I made that purchase later on...

I know the odds are in no way comparable, but I guess it's the perspective I wanted to offer. It's not too terribly hard to build team sets with the different parallels in Topps 1-U, but that's half the fun, right? Getting to collect what you want to collect and having fun doing it. There are so many things to collect out there and so many ways to do it (thanks to the internet), I'd love to hear from you about the things you like to collect.
This is what this blog is about, in a nut shell.
Have fun out there folks and keep on cracking, pulling, trading, and whatever else you need to do to get ehat you want in your possession!

A fresh start...

Well, this is my second crack at an ongoing blog, and I'm hoping it will be more successful.
I feel that it will be easier to expand my topic base, and to keep my posts shorter haha!

If you are a follower from my previous blog, I have to tell you the subject content that lies herein will be a bit broader than St. Louis Cardinals baseball cards. I will still touch on those from time to time, but given my current finances (and time constraints) it's going to be a lot easier for me to post if I'm not limited to card purchases.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you continue to visit.