The ToppsTown Experiment

Everyone has one.

A guilty pleasure, an item that many people are tempted to love, even though they're not supposed to. One of my guilty pleasures is David Bowie music. But then again, this isn't a David Bowie blog.

Another one of my guilty pleasures is ToppsTown. Two months ago I signed up for ToppsTown, just to redeem codes and see what the fuss was about. I inadvertedly entered a community of kids and teenagers whose sole purpose was to waste time on the internet.

Wait a minute, I thought, I waste time on the internet! I'll fit right in with these guys!

Fitting in wasn't what kept me there. Shrouded behind the redeeming codes part was a whole 330 card set. Redeem cards, build the set. The set was infuriating to build, because the one card you needed to trade for involved giving up a few Legends cards you already had. Granted, I WANTED 12 Derek Jeters, but I only had 2 of them. So I could only give up 1 Jeter in a trade, but they probably wanted more than a Jeter. They wanted a Ty Cobb, or a Cy Young...and just for a Joba Chamberlian, or Luis Castillo!

Man, people were even giving up Jeter, A-rod and a couple of legends...and asking for low profile amatuers like Martin Prado and Ian Stewart. There were stupid people in the ToppsTown community, but, come on, they were teens!

Nevertheless, one month ago I asked for a simple trade: What I need for doubles of what you need. And it worked . Last month I finished my ToppsTown set.

But it wasn't over. I still had all those Series 2 codes coming my way, so I just redeemed them just for the hell of it. And I got the same cards I HAD GIVEN UP THOSE DOUBLES FOR!

It was a troubling experiment, but long story short all 330 virtual cards that probably don't mean anything in the blogger world are mine. And even though I will never own them, it still felt pretty good to finish the set, finally getting the Luis Castillo and AJ Burnett that I needed.

So that was one guilty pleasure that paid off for me.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-chaaanges...