Friday, January 3, 2020

This is 2020

I almost forgot to switch out my wallet card like I've done every year since I began keeping a wallet card in 2015. Seeing as I haven't left the house all week thanks to this brutal stomach flu, I haven't actually had my wallet on my person yet in 2020, so no harm done. Let's switch it out now.


2019's wallet card was a lovely specimen of 1991 Topps featuring Mr. Tony Gwynn. It looks great! He didn't get to go on many great adventures, but he was with me through the ups and downs of 2019.


From checking the wallet card label on blog, looks like I only tagged a couple posts as having wallet card photos in 2019, the first of which being a recap of a beach trip where Tony got to dip his toe into the Pacific.


The only other wallet card appearance on the blog for the year was a 4th of July walk to grab a couple beers. Snapped a pic of Annie with the card and a dog toy she found. Man, she was a great pup and my wife and I miss her a ton.

Here is the "Before" picture from last year.
I was stressing out trying to pick a new wallet card for 2020. I'm running at diminished capacity due to the illness, so it's no easy task. Sometimes when I stay home sick, I can still be productive and do stuff around the house, maybe work on custom cards in my "to do" list (Haven't forgotten your dad, Nick!), but this time I haven't been able to do much besides sit on the couch. Even typing this post is pushing my limits right now! Let's seque now into this post going off the rails a little bit.


Check out these Moana stickers that were available in Kellogg's cereal in 2016. Oh, and they glow! I'm not sure if I should count these in my list of glowing trading cards. They are as wide as a card, but not as tall. Hey, they fit in my glow-in-the-dark cards binder, so they've got a home there, at least.


They look pretty good glowing.


My wife surprised me with some Kinetic Sand for Christmas. This stuff is a TRIP! It even caused Chewbacca and Cobra Commander to broker a peace treaty while the Han Solo Brothers look on under the watchful eye on Boba Fett. It's like sand but weird and clean, almost like wool or something. Pretty fun.

Speaking of Star Wars, the 2019 Festival of Lightsabers concluded yesterday. That was a late end. Usually it takes place during the week between Xmas and New Years. (My "x" key has been sticking on this laptop so I have to really pound it.. annoying. (
I used to keep track of the festival in a text file, but I seem to have lost it, so now I use my blog as a journal and keep in here. So you can scroll down past this; it's just for my records.

FESTIVAL OF LIGHTSABERS : history

2007 - 1st Annual Festival of Lightsabers
I, II, III
IV, V, VI - special editions

2008 - 2nd Annual Festival of Lightsabers
I II III
IV V VI - original theatrical versions
Ewok movies

2009 - 3rd Annual Festival of Lightsabers
I II III
IV V VI - theatrical

2010 - 4th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
I [The Phantom Edit fan edit]
II [Attack of the Phantom fan edit]
III [regular]
IV V VI - special editions
Robot Chicken star wars special I
Family Guy - something something dark side [empire]
Star Wars Holiday Special w/ Rifftrax commentary

2011 - 5th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
Family Guy - It's a Trap [Jedi]
Clone Wars II animated film
III
IV V VI - original theatrical versions
Family Guy - Something, Something Dark Side [Empire]

2012 - 6th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
Rifftrax prequels
Trilogy special editions

2013 - 7th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
New Hope [original]
Empire [original]
Clones
Sith
Family Guy (New Hope)
Jedi [original]

2014 - 8th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
I, II, III
IV, V, VI - special editions

2015 - 9th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
IV - special edition
V - special edition
II "Attack of the Phantom" fan edit
III
VI - theatrical
VII (in the theater, IMAX 3D)
+ All 3 Family Guy specials
+ Fanboys

2016 - 10th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
25 - Rogue One (in the theater, IMAX 3D)
26 - A New Hope (special edition)
27 - Empire (special edition)
28 - Attack of the Clones
29  - Revenge of the Sith
30 - Jedi (special edition)
31 - Force Awakens

2017 - 11th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
24 - Force Awakens
25 - Last Jedi (in the theater, IMAX 3D)
26 - Family Guy Blue Harvest + Robot Chicken SW Episode I
27 - Rogue One
28 - IV (theatrical)
29 - Family Guy Something Something Darkside + Robot Chicken SW Episode II (I also watched the Star Wars episode of that Netflix "Toys That Made Us" show)
30 - V (theatrical) + Robot Chicken SW Episode III
31 - VI (theatrical) + Family Guy It's a Trap

2018 - 12th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
26 - Solo
27 - Rogue One
28 - A New Hope (special edition)
29 - Empire (special edition)
30 - Jedi (special edition)
31 - The Force Awakens
1/1 - The Last Jedi

2019 - 13th Annual Festival of Lightsabers
Force AWakens
Last Jedi
Rise of Skywalker (imaxx 3d on xmas day)
Star Wars Holiday Special (first time watching it without funny Rifftrax commentary. My wife was like WTF?)
New Hope (SE)
Empire (SE)
Return of the Jedi (SE)
..also watched Empire of Dreams, the behind-the-scenes SW doc (via Amazon Prime). Also started watching Clone Wars and the Mandalorian on Disney+.

No prequels this year. Almost watched Rogue One, but something came up. Watched 2001: A Space Odyssey on NYE (just like Tom Hanks always does!). I got that onn Blu-ray for mas (XXmas). That's a great and strange film. I also got the Back to the Future trilogo on bluray but we haven't watched them yet. I'm going to not fi typos for the rest of this post as it is off the rails and therefore I don't need to.


I love Pee-Wee's Playhouse. In 2019, the "big post I need to finish" was the glow-in-the-dark cards post. Didn't finish that one until made it my mission to finish it as a tribute to my pup, plus it gave me something to take my mind off things during that rough time. In 2020, I think the post that'll be my new albatross will be my big Pee-Wee cards post. It'll be a lot, but I hope to publish it "soon".
I mentioned it on Twitter, but in that above shot, you've got legendary Dave Letterman prop Calvert DeForest (Larry "Bud" Melman), plus the girl of the left is in this video..



And the boy is in the Mighty Ducks and the girl on the right is in Orange Is The New Black and other stuff.


I've been neglecting my List of cards in movies and TV (I guess with all the time spent on my big list of glowing cards it's hard for me to keep up 2 different lists of cards at once! klol)

But yeah, here's a baseball card in Friends.

I wish I knew how to add an outline/border to my pictures I put on blogger. The white borders of this card get lost. When you see cards on my blog, I pride myself on also showing you the corners and edges. I don't crop cards too close because then you lose some of their story. This image was taken from TCDB, I believe.

Back to Friends.. we were binggging it a bit trying to get thru as much as we could before it was taken off Netflix streaming when the calendar changed. We made it to Season 6, Episode 17 "The One with Unagi". That Duane Ward '92 UD card appears in a few Season 6 episodes back on the bulletin board in Joey/Chandler's place. Matthew Perry (Chandler man) was raised in Canada (born in US), so maybe that's the significance of the Blue Jay on the corkboard.

My wife has watched all the Friends many times, but me, I watched the first few seasons back when they were new, but I lost interest and stopped sometime in the final few seasons. I've still never seen the finale, though I know generally what happens (NO SPoilers but Ross and Phoebe Buffay end up together, I'm pretty sure! lol)




Shoeless Joe makes an appearance too!



RIP Don Larsen.



How'd I do on my goals in 2019?

I don't think I made any. I didn't finish any of my big setbuilds I'm working on, but made a lot of progress. As I've got several builds going at once, I'm ok with taking my time. I should hopefully finish off a set or two from the late 70s or early 80s this year. But again, I'm not in a hurry. I just want to keep on enjoying collecting, and for me that includes having a lot of pokers in the fire. Lots of sets to build, lots of players to collect, and minicollections that grab my attention for a while at a time.

I picked up some big dream cards in 2019. Clemente auto! Cognac Trout! Mantle auto! Nothing specific on my mind for 2020 yet, but we'll see how it shakes out. I will likely focus on non-sports a little. like the Simpsons stuff I mentioned yesterday. Also, MST3K autograph cards are hitting the market as we speak and I will probably try to go after them all if I can. I hear some are short-printed and may end up being very expensive to bring home.



BEERMAS!
I know a couple readers kinda care about my annual thing where I get a beer-a-day from my wife leading up to my bday/xmas eve.

Attn: Fuji, check out the Beastie Boys inspired label among these!


I haven't had the last 3 in this photo yet. Beermas has had some delays this year and will wrap up soon after I recover fully. And yes, I've decided to not to a "dry January" this year after staying away from booze the previous 2 or 3 Januaries. I will make an effort to drink less, though, but overall I've been fine lately and not drinking too much (plus the big annual work party is in late January this year, so trying to have a dry month ain't gonna fly), though I really want to lose some weight. I weighed myself at the in-laws over the holidays and was at my heaviest ever by several pounds. Yikes.. tummy got away from me! But hey, a silver lining of this stomach flu is it starts the diet off strong! lol

Anywyas, these are good beers,. I don't have much "reviews" to give about them this year. Sorry the photos are great and I'm too lazy to type up what these are (but feel free to ask with any questions). The peach IPA was the only one I didn't like, which is surprising since it seems it'd be up my alley.

UPDATE to stress that my wife is super awesome. I feel bad that she caught my stomach flu and has been going thru all the same hell as me but a day later.


Hey, but back to TCDB... I've achieved #1 COLLECTOR ranking for a certain pl;ayer!




This is not a joke. Yes, according to trusted info source The Trading Card Database, yours truly is the world's top Luis Torrens collector.  Feels good to be the best!



BACK TO wallet card!
I was looking for a card among my Padres dupes but I had trouble remembering what cards I've already used. I know I've saved my old wallet cards, but I don't know eactly where in my collection they all are. But I turned once again to my blog's archives to remind me of my life.

my wallet cards thru the years:
2015 - 1988 Topps All-Star Gwynn
2016 - 1987 Topps All-Star Gwynn
2017 - 1987 Fleer "Limited Edition" Gwynn
2018 - 2008 UD Masterpieces Gwynn
2019 - 1991 Topps Gwynn
2020 - ?,,,,

2020 is 30 years removed from 1990. I began collecting in 1990, and ignoring my many years away from the hobby, I'm celebrating 30 years as a card collector this year. I figured I'd throwback to 1990 for this year's wallet card.

I considered taking a break from Tony and giving the honor to Bip Roberts, though ultimately chose to stick to Gwynn. I was about to settle for his base '90 Topps card, though my first choice was his '90 Topps All-Star card, but I could have sworn I already used that one as my wallet card.. it's just so imprinted on my brain. But nope, consulting that list I posted a couple paragraphs up, the A.S. card has not been picked yet!


Here it is! I've got like a dozen of this one. I tried to find one already in rough condition, but they were all decently sharp.
The card is a perfect encapsulation of my first entry into obsessing over cardboard during the awesome summer of 1990. It's a beauty.

Wishing this Wallet Tony and all you readers a very happy 2020!

14 comments:

  1. How was the Pastry Stout? Sounds interesting

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    1. It was good! Hints of chocolate and vanilla. Strong but drinkable (8% ABV).

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  2. I don’t think I’ve seen that Level beer yet! I’m a big fan of their usually video game-influenced designs (and their beer is pretty solid, too.)

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  3. Sorry to hear that you're both sick...for borders, you can do that with one click in PhotoScape. They have a border tool. Comes built in with something like 42 options.

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  4. I don't know how you managed to write any kind of post with stomach flu, but I applaud you -- I've had stomach flu a couple times and could barely move an arm or keep my eyes open. (And no rush at all on dad's cards! I'm still working on putting together a few things to send your way as a thank you!)

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  5. Damnit, the acetate Torrens auto I gave you three(!) years ago has given you the lead.

    I hope that stomach bug goes away soon. Sidenote, I'm still not 100% sure why you drink beer when you live in a state where weed is legal.

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  6. I already had the stomach flu and know how much fun that is. Feel better to you both.

    I still have my original wallet card in my wallet. It has never seen the day of light, mostly because I use my wallet just for my license which I never have to take out. Maybe it's time I check it out.

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  7. I still have my original waller card! I never take it out, but it's still there!

    Also, I'm coming for you on TCDB. Until ZZ comes and kicks the crap out of both, I'm going to go find my Torrens cards and take this title. I'm not letting you have this honor so easily.

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  8. I'm looking forward to the Pee-Wee's Playhouse posts. That was one of my favorites too!

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  9. Wow, this post was a ride! Fever?I never got into Playhouse but Big Adventure was a fun movie. Hope your birthday was good, Gav. Have a great 2020!!

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  10. Hope you're feeling better. Love me some Wu-Tang Clan. How the heck did you figure out the girl in that photo went on to star in the video? And which beach did Tony take a dip in the Pacific at? My Wallet Card Tony went swimming in the Pacific in 2019 too when I visited Oregon last summer. I probably should swap him out soon... but I'm too lazy. Plus he's still in pretty good condition.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, Fuji (and everybody) for the well-wishes. I was feeling significantly better today, but may have pushed my stomach too much with lunch (and one of the Beermas beers) and then started feeling bad again afterward. Should have played it safe! But yeah, hopefully I'm back to normal by Monday.

      I was looking on IMDB for her other acting credits, and it mentioned the Wu-Tang video.
      The beach was Manzanita, Oregon.
      I think my grand wallet card plan is to do it for 9 years, so I'll have a nice 9-pocket page worth to display. For the 10th year, I'll pick a "permanent" card to keep in my wallet indefinitely (give myself an excuse to be lazy about it, lol). That's my tentative plan, anyways!

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    2. I like idea of the 9-pocket page of wallet cards. Might need to borrow that idea. I'll have to ask my friend if she's ever gone to Manzanita. Looks beautiful.

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