For the love of cards

Despite most all of my leftover belongings from childhood being gradually discarded over the years, i recently came across an assorted box of unopened packs of cards. Do you know how hard it is to not open a pack of cards when you're a young collector? It takes a lot of restraint. Initially, i was pretty excited thinking, "Wow, these cards are from the early 1990's and some even the late 1980's, they are probably worth something!" 

They're not. 

It's a random collection of packs including some standard baseball packs as well as several that I thought would be more rare/tougher to find/more valuable such as World Cup 1994 cards, Batman Returns, 1989 Panini baseball stickers, some minor league packs. All unopened, all for sale on Ebay for the exact amount of "not worth the effort to sell." So what do i do with them? Open them for the nostalgic fun of opening packs? I did open a pack of World Cup cards. So if you're looking for the Brad Friedel Stand Out Performer, Eric Wynalda, or Romario to round out your old soccer card collection, make me an offer.

Have a pleasant day of birth.

Happy Birthdays. While i certainly do hope that everyone has an enjoyable time on their day of birth, I just can't bring myself to wish happy birthdays. It is very rare that I send out Facebook official birthday wishes, and you most certainly are special if you get a phone call. Many family members don't even get a call. (Sorry Rousseau, i really meant to call.)

So why not give a quick happy birthday via Facebook? i contemplate doing it quite a bit. My worry is that what if i send a happy birthday to one person one day but miss someone else the next day who i actually care about. Then they think i'm a jerk for missing their birthday and end up having an unhappy birthday all thanks to my wasting a happy birthday on some random person that i may or may not have went to high school with.

Where do i draw the line for birthday wishes? Only people i have had real life interaction with in the past ten years? Absolutely anyone i happen to notice with Facebook's reminder? Only give happy birthdays when drinking? Only those who wished me a happy birthday the year before?

The sucky thing is that i actually appreciate happy birthday Facebook wishes on my birthday, yet i don't give them out. After my birthday last year, i decided that i would start giving out birthday wishes right away only to postpone it until the start of the new year to be fair to the birthdays i had already missed in the first half of the year. Then i forgot. Now i remembered again because someone i know is having a milestone birthday (21, 30, 40, 50, 65, 100) and i feel they deserve a birthday wish.

Sorry sweetie, it's the only birthday pic i could find.

Searching For Sugar Man

If you haven't seen the movie, Searching For Sugar Man, stop by Redbox and pick it up this week. It was recommended to me by my brother Matt, which sometimes means a movie for people with alternative taste (no offense), but I thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it was one of the most enjoyable movies I've seen in quite awhile. It's a documentary about the story of a musician from the 1970's that never really took off and some distant fans search for his story. I recommend just renting the movie, don't even watch the preview. That's how I did it and it made it that much more interesting.