Quick Notes

Sad Messi wants more blogposts!

I'm working on some posts to get this site up and running on a regular basis again, but for now here are some quick notes from around the Justin G. sports world.

- The NFL Draft starts tonight. Yeah, I have no clue who the Ravens are drafting nor do I care. If they drafted the resurrected corpse of Bubba Smith I would think it was a good pick. I like watching the draft coverage because Mel Kiper is so earnest when talking about the draft picks.  As if it really matters in the long run. 

- Speaking of resurrections - we renamed one of our cats JesusCat.  I can't wait to take him to the vet and let them know of the name change. Added bonus - he'll get reminders in the mail addressed to JesusCat when it's time for us to schedule a visit.  Awesome.

- The O's are in first place.  Yes I'm enjoying it.  Yes I know it won't last.  I'm not worried where they finish in the standings, I'm more concerned with the possibility of them destroying the record for strikeouts by a team and errors by a third baseman.

- Roberto Luongo may be heading to the Lightning. Or the Maple Leafs. Or the Blackhawks.Or he might stay with the Canucks. Or he might retire and open a pizza joint.

- I just had a card-tastrophe.  Went to grab a box off the shelf in my closet and a piece of paper on top of it started to slide off.  So I went after the paper and dropped the box. Five-thousand cards crashed onto the ground, well some of them on the cat (not JesusCat). While I was initially upset, a part of me is excited to sort them all out again.  I LOVE sorting cards.

- If you want to get a lot of page hits over the next couple of months just throw "Roberto Luongo" and "Trade" in a title.

- Two songs stuck in my head over the last two weeks.  Gotye's "Someone I used to know" (pronounced goat-ee-A apparently) and fun's "We Are Young." Not sure if I like Gotye, but it's growing on me.  First heard "We Are Young" at Wrestlemania where they used it to pimp the John Cena/Rock match-up.  Probably would have been better for the Undertaker/HHH match.  Yes, I am a dork.

- Went to my first roller derby match last weekend.  Liked it, will probably write about it (sometime in the next three months).

- Three straight games for Messi not showing up..is he hurt or should we start the "Messi can't perform in a big game" articles. Whoops.  Already there.  Although "rendered impotent" is a bit harsh.

- Yeah, I'll go over my horrible first round picks this weekend once the first round is over.

Trade Time: Or What I Got in the Mail Yesterday

I was banging around on the internets a few weeks ago and decided to upload some images to Zistle.  I’ve been using their site to track my progress on completing the 2011-12 Score Hockey set (progress is not going well…so many cards still needed) so I figured I’d help them out and with some images. As I was doing that I noticed a gentleman needing some 2009-10 UD Champs.

Justin from Off-Centered is working on completing some of the vintage-esque newer sets like Champs and Allen & Ginter.  I can’t blame him since over the last few years those sets have garnered a lot of positive feedback in the industry.  As I’ve mentioned in the past – Champs has been my go-to set for hand-signed autographs of older and newer players. 

Needing to clear out some space in my hockey box I flipped through my doubles and saw that I had about 16 base cards that he needed.  A message here, a response there, a trip to the post office and we had ourselves a trade.

On Friday I saw a delightful, yellow, padded envelope in my mail slot and it was my return haul for the cards.  With hockey trades I’m trying a new system, since I don’t have a lot of wants outside of the Lightning I’ve given folks the option of just sending me a pack of 2011-12 Score.

The reason for this is two-fold.

1.       It saves me from having to spend money on packs and it isn’t that expensive for others. I think retail is 99 cents for a pack. That way I can chase a set and it won’t cost me too much out of pocket.

2.       I get a chance of actually pulling a Vincent Lecavalier card from a pack.  My inability to pull cards of my favorite player from packs is getting to be annoying. So I figured if someone else bought the packs I could fool the card gods into getting a card I wanted.  Would it work?

First off – some of the extras that Justin threw in.  As one of the few Lightning collectors out here I think people just feel obliged to throw in their extra Lightning cards – I ain’t got a problem with that.

Hey Steve…how ya doin’ in Colorado?  Pretty good, eh?  Just wanted to say I miss you. 

Was that creepy? It felt a little creepy….

My Marty, that’s an awful big trophy you got there. I mean look at it, it looks like it’s almost half of his size.  One thing I like about Pinnacle is that they use non-traditional photos to break up the set a bit. There are only so many ways to take photos of guys skating down the ice so it’s nice to see something different every once in a while.

Now onto the packs.

 Each pack had a Hot Rookie in it so I feel like I beat the odds a bit on that.

Bobby Luongo looking like he’s not in a happy place. I wonder if he’ll be looking for a new address this summer.

And finally – could it be? Is it? My God, that’s VINNY LECAVALIER’S MUSIC!!!!!!

Yup, so my theory has been proven sound.  The only way I will ever pull a Vinny out of a pack is to have someone else buy it for me.

Thanks, for the cards Justin and good luck in finishing your set!