1990 Topps Frank Thomas RC NNOF Error Card

Ok, I used to be quite obsessive about baseball cards back in the day. The strange thing was that I didn't watch baseball, but love collecting the cards. I found it intriguing that people assigned values to the card based on how good the player was. In particular, I loved the 1990 Topps edition. The design was really cool. I remember tearing open the green packages to see if I was lucky enough to get someone good. I happened to get some of the best cards including Juan Gonzalez, Frank Thomas, and Ken Griffey Jr.

Then a while back, I heard that the Frank Thomas rookie card had a strange error. The name was left off the front of the card hence it was dubbed "No Name on Front" or NNOF. You can look at the picture to know what I am talking about. Anyways, apparently, there are very few of these cards floating around and even few that are graded mint condition according to PSA.

I went on Ebay one day and saw one Mint 9 and I was crazy enough to purchase it from a doctor for almost $20o0. I believe there is something like 2 to 4 of these in this condition. It's just one of those weaknesses that I have for cool stuff on Ebay. Only time will tell if I made a wise investment or not, but it seems ok because Frank Thomas just retired recently with an incredible baseball career. Here are his lifetime stats below. You be the judge.

Batting Average: .301
OPS: .974
OBP: .419
Home Runs: 521
RBI: 1,704

Nintendo NES Stadium Events Cartridge

Now, I love Playstation 3 with all the cool new 3D graphics and number of games available, but there is just something about old school video game consoles like the Nintendo NES that brings back that nostalgia. I still have one of these boxes lying around and I do play with it from time to time.

Now, i came across a news article recently of how this housewife sold an old NES system for some spare cash on Ebay. It turns out that she unwittingly was selling "Stadium Events" cartridge, which is one of the rarest NES games created. There are only around 400 known copies of this game floating around. What makes this auction especially unusual was that the "Stadium Event" cartridge included the packaging box in pretty good condition. The final sale price ended up being $13,000 USD to an avid NES game collector. Talk about a great surprise.

I'm not a serious collector, but I would not mind getting a copy of this game just to see what all the fuss is all about. As soon as I go onto Ebay and search "Stadium Events", 20 listings appear with some pretty steep prices as high as $5000 USD. Isn't that strange? 5% of the supposed 400 copies suddenly appear on Ebay. I fear that some of them may be fakes. That's too steep of a price to pay if I am not certain its an authentic game. It's got bad investment written all over it. Then again, I think a lot of these games are old fads. I never read about people reselling these "rare" games for more than the paid originally. Honestly, there may not be a market after purchasing the game for so much. Maybe I should move onto Atari games. Would that be cheaper than $X,XXX?

Google Adwords Refrigerator

A while ago, Google rewarded its customers who spent a ton of money on their Adwords account. How much is considered a lot? How about 1 million clicks? Yes, if you bought 1 million Adwords clicks, Google sent you an awesome mini fridge. The mini fridge is a versatile piece of equipment. It can be used as a refridgerator as well as a heater. Geez, I was glad to get some Adwords user guides during Christmas, but the mini fridge beats that hands down. I wonder what other cool stuff Google will send to their customers.

Now, I'm not one lucky few who got one of these babies, but I do sure want one. I always wanted a mini fridge to store my soft drinks next to my work desk and its kind of cute with how small it is. Aside from that, there is nothing special about it. I heard the mini fridge can get quite hot, but it sure looks cool.

When the fridge first came out, people were willing to spend $1,000 USD on it. One word comes to mind: crazy. Well now that the craze has gone done, its time to hunt for one. I've been looking around the internet to see where I can get my hands on one. Turns out, Ebay is a good place to find them. They have a few once in a while. Last auction, I saw one for around $50 including shipping, but i keep on forgetting about the ending time and keep missing out on it.

Side Note: I am also kicking myself for missing out on Google's free profile business cards. Google teamed up with iPrint.com and had a promotion that gave out 250,000 FREE business profile cards. I may just have to shell out $13.99 for 250 business cards.