MERRY CHRISTMAS!

What did you get for Christmas? I think this may be the first year in a long time that I didn’t get any baseball cards for Christmas, though a friend did gift me a nice stack of Topps Now and Living Set cards a couple of weeks ago. Does that count?

For those who received Amazon gift cards, what are you going to get?

I will probably pick up a few more Masters of the Universe Funko Pops, and since I just cleared some space on my bookshelves, maybe a new book or two.

Whatever you gave or got, I hope you had a great holiday season and that you were able to spend it with loved ones.

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Random Awesomeness (part 210)

• When the Jedi Return: Make sure your troops are ready [Plaid Stallions]
• Topps Re-hash [Red Cardboard]
• Exclusive Photos: Van Halen Plays Houston in 1978 [Van Halen News Desk]
• Reds pitcher Jon Moscot once gave up seven home runs to, um, Rob Schneider [Cut4]
• AC/DC Auditioned Singer From Tribute Band Back In Black Before Deciding On Axl Rose [Blabbermouth]
• The San Diego Chicken: A Baseball Card History [Beckett]
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens syncs up to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon [Consequence of Sound]

Purchase Ace Freheley – Origins Vol. 1

Random Awesomeness (part 209)

• Listen to Joe Perry’s New Solo Song With Terry Reid, ‘I’ll Do Happiness’ [Ultimate Classic Rock]
• Watch: Unreleased The Highwaymen Gig [The Daily Beast]
• 2016 TSR: An Interesting First Week Of The Season [The Shlabotnik Report]
• Custom Baseball Cards Highlights 2016 – Trevor Story [Jason’s Custom Trading Cards]
• Custom ’55T for Reds barrier-buster Escalera [Bob Lemke’s Blog]
• This Web App Identifies Unnecessary Words In Your Writing [mental_floss]
• Movie Mobiles: Recreating Famous Cars from the Silver Screen [Great Big Story]
• THIS is what I’ve been up to lately… [The Infinite Baseball Card Set]

Purchase Kiefer Sutherland – “Not Enough Whiskey” on MP3.

LOYO, Obamacar, and otter café: new words in OxfordDictionaries.com

The most recent update to OxfordDictionaries.com sees a host of new words added from the worlds of politics, popular culture, and social media. You can see ten highlights from the update below. In each case, clicking on the word will take you through to the word’s new dictionary entry, where you can see full definitions, example sentences, and more.

autocorreck verb (of software) cause (text) to contain mistakes by means of an autocorrect or autocomplete function: “I wrote a great text to her, but ‘love’ was autocorrecked to ‘move’.”
[Blend of autocorrect and wreck]

parrotocracy noun a hypothetical society governed by people selected according to their ability to repeat slogans and soundbites mechanically, or to repeat or steal the policies and ideas of others: “Heaven help us if we end up with a parrotocracy.”
[from parrot and -cracy]

reply-gall noun the perceived impudence of an individual who sends an email response to everyone addressed in the original message: “His reply-gall became infamous after he sent an 1800-word response to a company-wide announcement.”
[from reply + gall after reply-all]

Instayam noun a Thanksgiving photograph shared on social media: “Before we ate, we had to send an Instayam.”
[blend of Instagram and yam]

Leo verb to achieve something after years of trying: “I feel like I’ve Leoed this morning; I finally passed my driving test.”
[from the name of Leonardo DiCaprio, with allusion to his winning the 2016 Academy Award for Best Actor after six unsuccessful nominations.]

fanishment noun the state of being blocked by a celebrity on social media: “Steve’s fanishment was inevitable after he tweeted at the star footballer 1000 times in a single day.”
[blend of fan and banishment]

Obamacar noun (humorous) a hypothetical scheme under which current President of the United States Barack Obama would provide free cars for every citizen in America: “Republican commentators cracked wise about the so-called Obamacar.”
[from Obama + car, after Obamacare]

otter café noun a café or similar establishment where people pay to interact with otters housed on the premises: “Locals are already excited by the prospect of the area’s first otter café.”

LOYO abbreviation laughing on your own (used online in reply to a joke that others have not found amusing): “A better joke next time, please. LOYO.”

social fleedia noun a situation in which one or more social media users choose to close their accounts: “Commentators are seeing a huge rise in millennials encouraging social fleedia.”

“Social media continues to be a vital and constantly evolving catalyst for linguistic innovation,” says Richard Snary, a lexicographer at Oxford Dictionaries. “We’re recognizing this with words which specifically reference these sites, such as Instayam, fanishment, and social fleedia, but Twitter also accounts for much of our corpus data for Obamacar, LOYO, and the verb to Leo. In two of these examples, we’re seeing how the creation and sharing of memes relating to a specific public figure can quickly gain traction and help a coinage enter the language – and our language monitoring programme is uniquely placed to observe and record these changes.”

[JT sez: I think they have gone too far this time. When will the idiocy stop?]

Random Awesomeness (part 208)

• The David W. Niven Collection of Early Jazz Legends, 1921-1991 [Internet Archive]
• Fun with Junk Wax & Bubble Gum [Tan Man Baseball Fan]
• The 12 genres of baseball photos from Photo Day [SB Nation]
• 2016 Royals Spring Training: Edinson Volquez [A Hair Off Square]
• Unearthed: Killer Photos from Van Halen’s ‘1980 Invasion’ Tour! [Van Halen News Desk]
• 13 Writing Lessons From Stephen King’s On Writing [Writers Write]
• Every 1970’s Topps Reds Base Card [Red Cardboard]

Purchase Quiet Riot – Live At The US Festival 1983.

Random Awesomeness (part 207)

• The 5 Albums That Changed Viv Campbell’s Life [Classic Rock]
• SSPC (Super spectacular perfect cards) [Night Owl Cards]
• These Should Exist: The Robo Force Edition! [Branded in the 80s]
• An Amazing Ernie Banks Project [Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius]
• A ‘Saved by the Bell’ Themed-Bar and Restaurant Is Finally Opening [GQ]
• Are you kidding me?!?! Mejia BANNED 4 LIFE! [Mets Baseball Cards Like They Ought To Be!]
• Color Swatch Baseball: Pantone Chips of Every MLB Team [S. Preston Art + Designs]

Purchase Hollywood Vampires – Hollywood Vampires (Deluxe with bonus tracks).

Random Awesomeness (part 206)

• The Mashup Awakens [Brian Kesinger’s Tea Girls] (JT sez: I’m a huge Star Wars nerd, and I absolutely adore Calvin & Hobbes, and these mashups are perfect.)
• Custom TTM Success: Alan Young (Scrooge McDuck)! [Baseball Card Breakdown]
• Finding Boshek [The Numerous Solutions of Billy Jensen]
• Jimmy O’Connell: The Other Side of a Scandal [The Infinite Baseball Card Set]
• Hot Stove: One Last Box Of Cereal [The Shlabotnik Report]
• Cute Illustrations Imagine ‘Star Wars’ Characters As Winnie The Pooh And Friends [Design Taxi]
• The Big Picture [Night Owl Cards
• Miami Fox Publishing Looking For Short Story Submissions For Pyramid Of Terror Anthology [Horror Society]

Purchase Willie Nelson & Family – Honeysuckle Rose.

Random Awesomeness (part 205)

• How Rob Halford Ended Up Fronting Black Sabbath for Two Shows [Ultimate Classic Rock]
• Watching Snape’s Scenes in Chronological Order Makes Harry Potter Way More Heartbreaking [Nerdist]
• 5 weak words you should avoid & what to use instead [Crew]
• Edgar Allan Poe Had a Time Machine and I Can Prove It [History Buff]
• Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and other presidential candidates get made into ‘Garbage Pail Kids’ cards by Topps [Daily News]
• Free Download of Breakin’ the Chainz Live in 2005 [CRASHDÏET]
• Padres customs to shatter your perception of reality [Baseball Card Breakdown]

Purchase CRASHDÏET – Rest in Sleaze.

Random Awesomeness (part 204)

• 1980 Topps Ken Griffey All Star MVP [Cards That Never Were]
• 38-year old Reds rookie on 1957 Topps custom [Bob Lemke’s Blog]
• 1975 Topps Rookie Catchers-Outfielders: Gary Carter, Marc Hill, Danny Meyer, Leon Roberts [Rating the Rookies]
• Box Score: A Recap of My 2015 Season [The Infinite Baseball Card Set]
• 15 Amazing ‘Star Wars’/Classic Album Cover Mashups [mental_floss]
• Star Wars Cast Sings “Stayin’ Alive” [The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on YouTube]
• 29 Movies That Almost Starred Harrison Ford [mental_floss]

Purchase Mötley Crüe music.
I can’t believe it’s over.

I’ve been doing this how long?

WordPress notified me today that I have been blogging here for eight years. The Writer’s Journey has gone through many changes over the years, from content to style, and I have finally settled on what works best for me: whatever I want. I love doing book reviews, making custom virtual baseball cards, and posting about real baseball cards, horror movies, and writing. This blog is my escape, my go-to, my fun zone. If someone else doesn’t like it, that’s fine; they can go start their own blog and post what they want to post. That’s the beauty of the internet, and really, of life in general. Do your own thing. Create your own world. Be your own person.

I’m grateful to those of you who have stuck around with me since the beginning through all the changes. I do hope you enjoy some of the things I have shared with you, but ultimately what I choose to share here is for me.

For those who are not on my occasional baseball card mailing list, shoot me an e-mail and let me know who your favorite team is and your address. I have several non-Reds piling up that I need to dispose of, and I don’t have a fireplace for them. I also have some Reds dupes, so if you’re a Reds baseball card collector, I have some cards for you as well.

Thanks for sharing the past eight years (or whenever you came on board) with me…here’s hoping to at least another year of books, baseball, horror, writing, Doctor Who, Star Wars, comic book movies, and whatever else tickles my fancy.