She Are the Champions....of the Wooooorld

 I was born in 1984. I've been a basketball fan since 1996. I've never seen my home team win a championship...until now! 

The New York Liberty brought home the 2024 WNBA Championship, bringing the city and state of New York the first major basketball title since the Nets won the final ABA Championship in 1976. 

The hard-fought finals against the Minnesota Lynx was honestly the most invested I've been in a basketball series since the Nets made the NBA finals in 2003. Game 5 was played on my birthday, and the refereeing was awful- the Lynx best players were in the proverbial stripes. 

Back home for game 6 was a nail biter, but my team won! New York is the champion! 

I had to get some of the Panini Instant cards documenting this. 

This is from Game 4, and the first time I thought to check Instant. 

I never knew if I would ever see a championship parade in my home state. But they did it, they are the champions now and forever. 

I have confidence they can do it again...even if not back to back, but the window is there with this core for several more runs at the title. However, nothing will ever feel like the first time seeing the celebrations! 

The final two Instant cards, from the parade, arrived on December 31st, allowing me to finally write this post. 

Testing my mettle

 I recently touched on how I changed the way I scan recently, just grabbing whatever box needed to be scanned and working through it instead of picking and choosing what I felt like doing at that time. 

I ran into the first big test of this style of scanning. 1995 Hi-Tech Brickyard 400 is a 90 card set and all 90 of them were in this box that I picked to work on next. Unfortunately these cards are very dark, and they are very "clingy" in that way that every bit of dust sticks to them and doesn't come off easily- and shows in the scan., especially on the back.

The urge to put these back in the box and work on whatever is in the next box is so strong, but I am pushing through. I've been setting these aside and putting them off since Christmas 2021 as it is so if I do it again, who knows how long it will be before I actually do them? And besides, the longer I let them sit, the more dust they can collect, so doing them now - while not particularly fun- saves them from being even more of a pain in the butt in the future. 

I'm griping but it will only take me about 3 days to do the entire 90 card set. 90 cards usually takes me about an hour and a half so it's a big difference in time, but on the other hand, I don't really have anything better I can do either. Except the next box of cards...or models. Or writing a blog post like this one to put off editing more scans...

This is what a scan looks like before I fix it.

And here's the same image, corrected.

Eat these cards!

 You are invited to a fancy meal. 

There will be chicken Alfredo. 

as well as a serving of Ham.

If you'd prefer, you could have Ribbs.

If you want classic American cuisine, you could have  a Berger

and fries

If your palette leans towards the Mexican and Indian cuisine, there will be tackos and curry. 

You could also order the fancy Japanese steak

or just eat bread.

There will also be sandwiches and stew.

Can't forget the Chili!

Try it with rice!

And many kinds of fish.

 

John Salmons

Do not worry if you are a vegetarian - there will be a salad option too. 

And a wide variety of fruit.

All kinds of berries....

a whole hill of berries in fact!

There will be condiments available too, don't worry!

Save room for dessert!

You will have your choice of beverages also.

For fans of alcoholic beverages, there will be beer, wine and sherry

while non-alcoholic refreshments will include coffey and seltzer.

Eat hardy, and don't leave a crumb!

And in case you are wondering, yes, I am nuts.