Not Done With Fish: Blog Bat Around 6

I think Adaptation was great. There are a lot of reasons, but mostly because Charlie Kaufman is weird. I like weird movies. One of the reasons I like this one is because of Nick Cage. I guess you can tell from my blog name (or whatever it’s called) I’m a fan of Raising Arizona. Because of that I will always have a place in my heart for Nick Cage, despite all of the terrible movies and accompanying awful Goo Goo Dolls them songs he unleashes on an unsuspecting populace. No matter what crap Nick has in store for us he will always be H.I. McDonough to me.

In Adaptation he reminded us of why he had so much potential in the first place, before he started making Sgt. Crapelly’s Crapolin. But, that’s not why I’m want to talk about Adaptation. The reason I bring up Adaptation is because of Chris Cooper. He plays a guy named John Laroche and has a speech in the middle of the movie about how he used to study fish. It goes like this:

John: Look, I'll tell you a story, all right? I once fell deeply, you know, profoundly in love with tropical fish. Had 60 goddamn fish tanks in my house. I skin dived to find just the right ones. Anisotremus virginicus, Holdacanthus ciliaris, Chaetodon capistratus. You name it. Then one day I say, "f*** fish". I renounce fish. I vow never to set foot in that ocean again. That's how much "f*** fish". And there hasn't been a time where I have stuck so much as a toe back in that ocean.

Susan: But why?

John: Done with fish.

That line absolutely slays me. I’m laughing right now just reading it. When my family gets together, if anyone asks me or my brother why we did something, or didn’t do something, our answer is usually “Done with Fish.” We just get funny looks. Nobody else gets it. We sure crack each other up, though.

The question put forth, however, is not “Why do you like Adaptation” (although that might make a good post), it’s why do you blog. I’ll try to explain it the best I can. A lot of it is probably stuff I’ve brought up from time to time in other posts. Obviously, it ties in with collecting. There isn’t a single one of us that decided to make a card blog that doesn’t collect cards.

When I started to think about the topic, I realized that I collect cards the same way that John Laroche collected fish. There is absolutely no explanation for why he started, or why he quit. I’m the same way. When I started in 1986 it was about all I could think about. I have very few cards, almost none, from 1985, but I have hundreds from 1986. I don’t remember an event that kicked it off for me. All of a sudden I was a collector. That lasted for 5 years. I have hundreds of 1990. Then, 1991 came. I have very few 1991 cards. Nothing happened. I just didn’t collect any more. I have a few factory sets from 1991 and 1992, but I never looked at them. It just took my parents a few years to realize that I was done. They’d get me a few sets for Christmas and I’d treat them like Ralphie and Randy treated socks.

Fast forward to may of 2008. My dad tells me to get my junk out of his basement. I found my cards and was inexplicably consumed again. I spent hours resorting and stacking and filing my cards. As I started looking into what was new I was quickly overwhelmed. I had no idea what the heck any of this stuff was. Chrome? Parallel? Refractor? Game Used?

Seriously, what the heck is a refractor? I had no idea (I’m still not sure – other than a card made shiny). So what does anyone do when they want to find something out? They type it into google. So that’s what I did. I found a lot of stuff about refractors, but nothing at all explaining what it actually was.

So, here’s what I did: I emailed Ben Henry. I’m crapping you negative. I actually emailed Ben Henry. When he didn’t respond, it was on to plan B. I had started reading blogs and I noticed that people always leave comments after the posts. I figured that If I started a blog, I could just post questions and hoards of people would fall all over themselves to answer them for me. Yes, I’m that stupid.

Then, a funny thing happened. I found that I enjoyed posting stupid little things about my cards as much as I liked collecting them and the reason I had for blogging changed.

So now I blog because it makes me pay more attention to the cards that I have. I blog because I think I can occasionally be funny and make someone laugh. I blog because as far as I can tell, this is the only little corner of the entire interweb where people actually like each other and are kind. I blog because I don’t know a single person in my real life who collects cards and it gives me a way to talk to other people about the hobby. I blog because I’ve slowly morphed my blog into my own personal home page with every link I will ever need. I blog because when I quote The Big Lebowski here someone is going to get it (usually not the case in real life). I blog because it keeps me interested in collecting.

I really doubt that I would still be collecting if I wasn’t running this blog. I have no idea how long it will last. Judging by past experience, it won’t be gradual. One day I’ll just wake up and that will be that. Fun while it lasted.

I guess you could say that I blog because I’m just not done with fish yet. And, I think that’s the closest I can come to explaining it.

Sorry this is late