Feast Or Famine

Hey look! There are two people who post on this blog! My name’s Andy. We may have met. I’m the one who annoys you with Royals autograph posts and less funny captions than Jon. I’m also the one prone to fits of months without posts, one of which just ended. It’s a shame, really, because I love writing and I love card collecting. But I’ve done very little of either since… well, December, really.

See, I’m a freelance video guy. I do production and editing for random clients for a living. And, if any of you are freelancers as well, you’re very familiar with the phrase “Feast Or Famine.” I’ll go months where even my regulars don’t call for gigs. And I start to panic and spend too much time looking for new clients. But this last famine (towards the end of last year), that’s not what I did. I did the thing that I’m supposedly doing all this work for.

I made something.

Essentially the first thing I’ve made since college, apart from some music videos and sketches (not counting the things I’ve made for clients, of course- that’s work, not my life). No big deal, really- just three episodes of a web series with some friends. But hey, a least it has explosions and guns. Here, check it out if you’d like. Disclaimers: Some NSFW violence and language for those with real jobs. This is the first time I’ve posted any of my work on this blog, so some ground rules: I’m open to constructive criticism, but be civil here- YouTube comments are the place to air your grievances! Or send me an email if you’d like to damage my ego directly.

It’s called Hitwomen and it’s about two… well, Hitwomen. Many lessons were learned, much money was spent, one 48 hour straight shooting session completed. It was fun as hell. And the end product is one of the better things we’ve made. And it’ll only get better the more we do it.

Of course, I’ll need another Famine for that to happen. Literally days after our launch/screening party for Hitwomen, as I was beginning to look around for things to sell to pay rent, I was flooded with calls for work. New clients, old clients, new projects, new challenges… I said no to nothing and I’m just now surfacing for air.

In the time I’ve been making stuff/working (aka: not posting here), I’ve done very little collecting-related. My Royals on-card auto search emails have piled up and been deleted without even looking at them. In a late night fit of “No, damn you, I will have a life!” I stumbled upon one little card that I’ve been looking for for a while. Here’s what that looks like:

Sweet Swingin' Sweeney!

Nothing special to most people, but Mike Sweeney is one of the types of players I love. A one-team guy. Solid player, good work ethic. Seems like a decent guy. A “Fan Favorites” type. Someone who should be in the Topps Archives set next month but probably won’t be. At any rate, his autos rarely cost over $5 shipped so I snagged this one at probably over market rate just so I could say I bought a card in 2012.

Not that I’m not due some cards. I’ve bought a bunch of redemptions for Royals autos from 2011 products- Finest, Marquee, Tier One. Here’s how that’s turned out so far:

Pend this, jerks.

A couple of quick notes about this little image. Not only have Butler, Crow, Hosmer and Hellickson all signed on-card for other products since these products came out, but Crow actually signed other cards for 2011 Topps Finest. What trick of inefficiency made it possible for him to sign his green refractor an his gold refractor without signing his xfractor and his base refractor? Astonishing.

The second thing I’d like to point out here is that those two that say “shipped”? Haven’t gotten them. That tracking number is null and void and they didn’t even bother making one up for the other one I haven’t received yet. Sure I could tweet angrily @ToppsSupport and maybe the person who answers a couple of questions every couple of weeks or so could respond with “We’re working on getting those out as soon as possible!” but what’s the point? I’m at their mercy. I have no recourse.

So glad I’m getting back into the swing of things!