Tuesday, March 27, 2012

It's See-B.S. Sunday Morning with Armen Keteyian.

By now you've seen the piece that aired over the weekend on CBS Sunday Morning. To be fair to Mr. Keteyian, Charles Osgood had the week off -- Osgood would have NEVER allowed this to air -- and you can only do so much with a 5 minute segment. He told a story which he thought was an accurate depiction of The Hobby in 2012. With that said, I thought it was a fine segment ... had it aired in 1994.

The main issue I had with the story was that it completely misunderstands what The Hobby has evolved into. It is not the Romanticized vision of "Leave it to Beaver"-era kids swapping cards, wrapping them up in rubber bands (now you know why you can't find a 52 Andy Pafko without severe notches), then riding the trolley with Mom, Dad, and Sis for a double-header at Ebbets Field.

Those days are past now, of course, and card collecting has ceased to be a "kiddie" Hobby for at least a generation. It is a Hobby for young internet-savvy men (and a few chicks, too), and there's nothing wrong with that. You wouldn't know that from the Keteyian piece.

You also wouldn't know from Keteyian how stratified The Hobby has become. Mr. Mint and five middle-aged guys in a VFW Hall in North Jersey on a Tuesday night are not representative of The Hobby as a whole.

Yes, The Hobby does have problems. But it's no where near as bad as CBS led Sunday Morning viewers to believe.

Monday, March 12, 2012

ZOMG! HE'S BACK!!!

Yes, yes, yes!!!

The Cardboard Junkie is back on The Twitters! And he's not just Tweeting about ponies!



Go follow him. Now.