Confessions of a Junior Junkie



I've been a bad blogger. 

I suppose I'm still relatively new to the community, so I don't know "the rules."  I do know that my internal sense of morality takes issue with a few of my own blogging practices of late.  I've always been one to come out and ask before proceeding with wrongness, hence this post.

Now here's all the things I'm guilty of.

I look at my view counter.  It's true - I do.  It's not like I go out of my way to see it.  It's right there at the top of the page and one of the first things you see when you pull up the home page whether.  On a related note, I'm currently on the brink of a milestone: 10,000 page views since December 14th, 2012.  I should do a giveaway at that time.

I don't read every post by my fellow bloggers.  I used to, even the hockey ones, every one.  But I subscribe to far too many now and I can't keep up.  I find myself scrolling through them now and reading only the ones that pique my interest the most, then once I've been through all those I go back and read as many others as I have time to.  I still miss a whole lot.

I have no system for choosing what cards to showcase next.  It's still a very random selection process.  You may notice, though, that posts come out more frequently when the cards covered in the post are from the early to mid-90's.  That's my wheelhouse, so I need less research to be factually accurate.  On the other side of the coin:



This set remains a mystery to me.  Why taupe?



There's still a lot I don't know about these cards.  I am a relative expert when it comes to Griffeys printed from 1989-1997, but beyond that I depend heavily on research for my posts.  I could sit and write from the top of my head about 1995 Donruss, but when it comes to 2002 Topps, I have to spend a lot of time gathering information before I feel I can get it right.  This has made it so it takes longer to put together an accurate post for later sets.  Hence:

I spend way too long putting together each post.  I don't feel like I have to write a novel about the history of every set, but for sets I don't know anything about the completist in me has to put a lot of time into gathering information and condensing it all for the Griffey collectors of the world.  I'm on baseballcardpedia,  other blogs, checklist sites and even Wikipedia and Google making sure I have the right information.  And yet, as time-consuming as it is putting together a decent post......

I don't spend as much time on blog posts as I could.  This past weekend I sat and watched movies for hours.  Tonight I'm going to see Yo La Tengo at Tipitina's.  Tomorrow we have our sand volleyball league.  Friday we are helping friends with their wedding music selections.  Part of me is hoping I'll need some minor in-patient surgery so I have a little time to just sit and type.  I'm going to have to start blowing off social engagements in the name of baseball cards. 

I have a dozen unfinished blog posts.  When I think of a good idea for a post I spend a minute typing and save it.  It shows up in my list of posts with a little orange "draft" next to the title.  Some of these I've never gone back to complete as I've been so busy trying to put new Griffeys out there.  I have some great ideas for new posts coming soon, too.  You probably wont see them until I'm done, unless.......

I sometimes hit the Publish button early.  When I do you get to see the first picture and the first few sentences of writing for the next post.  Most recently it was for the 1999 Pacific set "Invincible."  That post is definitely not finished yet, though, as I am waiting for the base card to come in the mail from COMC.  I wish Blogger allowed for easier redaction of posts or perhaps a less oops-prone "Publish" button.



I need to buy this.



I'm terrible at Fantasy Baseball.  I guess this is not a crime, but I did take a spot in the card blogger league having never played fantasy baseball.  I'm great at fantasy football, so I figured my skills would carry over.  They didn't.....  I'm still not sure whether my team is especially injury-plagued or if my general ineptitude is to blame for being in dead-last place.  Sad pandas are we....



Finally, I think I do a pretty good job keeping up with trades, but I get the feeling there may be a couple that slip through the cracks.  I keep an Excel spreadsheet now to try and nail down all the transactions I have going on, and that does help.  I do have a list of people who are due something from me, so if you are one of them, don't fret.  I'm just talking my sweet time.  I've also begun a system of just picking out people in my trade list at random and sending them stuff for no reason.  We'll see how that works.

I throw myself on the mercy of the blogsphere.  I promise to be Mark Grace-ish in the fulfillment of my sentence.

Happy Hump Day, everyone....