This may have been the longest break between posts I've had since I started this blog. If not, it's pretty close. Looking at my blog history, it appears that my Posts Per Month (PPM) dropped off significantly last December, too. I think that having a break between semesters throws my focus off. I am not lacking for things to post about; I have had plenty of stuff arriving in the mail, I have been the target of some amazing generosity from bloggers and eBay sellers; I have won prizes; I have had a couple of trades; and I have purchased a few cards too. I just haven't been able to bring myself to sit still long enough to crop all of my scans and generate some text to go along with the pretty pictures. Hopefully this post will serve to get things going again.
I got this Andrelton Simmons Members Only parallel from 2014 Stadium Club from eBay a while back. Looking at my eBay history, it looks like this card arrived in my mailbox on December 1st, so I'm pretty far behind on some of my posts. I don't know much about Simmons, but looking at his Baseball Reference page tells me that he is very valuable defensively and is at least a positive contributor on offense. I guess I could have just read the back of the card, which talks all about his defensive prowess.
I have been hoping to get some of my cards sorted and build my have / want lists back up so that they are accurate, but over the last little while I haven't done a very good job of keeping up on sorting new acquisitions. My current method for sorting my collection might be described as the Random Piles on Nearby Flat Surfaces (RPNFS) approach. It makes it hard to find things, and it makes it difficult to remember whether I have a particular card or where a given card might be hiding. My main problem might be that I've lost some of my focus, so there is more accumulating than collecting going on. Maybe getting back on the blogging wagon will help me to get the collection back under control.
And in relation to another hobby, I was able to pick up a LEGO kit last night, one day before the release date! It is the Gorilla Grodd Goes Bananas kit, and includes a lot of really cool pieces. Wonder Woman's Invisible Jet is a big deal here, especially as her minifig features her New 52 (DC's most recent line-wide publishing relaunch) uniform. The other big draw for me was a couple members of Flash's Rogues Gallery, with Captain Cold and Gorilla Grodd making an appearance, robbing a poor banana delivery truck driver (there's always money in the banana stand). I think it's unfortunate that Flash's villains are often overlooked, as they are a pretty interesting group. Batman is also included, as he is the DC cash cow and finds his way into just about every set they make. His mech suit is pretty cool, featuring a gun that shoots a fabric net and a little plastic doohickey that allows him to leap a fair distance. This kit is pretty light on piece count, with 100 fewer pieces than many kits that are $10 cheaper, but I think it makes up for it by having some very desirable elements in it.
I love LEGO sets, and it is hard to keep up with the new releases. A lot of them go out of production before I am able to get them, and once a set goes out of print the prices on the secondary market shoot way up. It looks like several of the Star Wars kits I've been eyeing have recently gone off the market, probably to make room for kits supporting the new Star Wars movie that will be arriving next year. I was a little sad to see that my local Wal-Mart had the newly-discontinued Millennium Falcon kit 30% off on clearance, but there were none on the shelf. The ship appeared in the trailer for the upcoming film so there will likely be another kit, but I doubt it will have the same group of figures included. The ship is a pretty cool thing on its own but it had a very good group of minifigs, with Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Leia Organa, Darth Vader, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. I should really start a LEGO blog, but it's hard enough maintaining one blog. I don't know if I could keep up with two blogs. And really, I should probably have three blogs, with one for sports cards and memorabilia, one for comic books and related items, and one for LEGO kits. That's a lot of blogs. Too many blogs.
The great thing about Lego Star Wars sets is that they usually go back to certain vehicles and rerelease them years later. And iconic ships like the Millenium Falcon get re-released more frequently than others. That's pretty much how I avoid splurging on the secondhand market, wait nearly a decade for a (usually) improved version at a far more reasonable price.
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