Before I run off to work today I thought I put up one more post. In an effort to get enough merchandise together for my first world community grid research advertising blitz I have been buying more football and baseball cards. These are eight bowman chrome football card packs that I just bought yesterday. There are 7 cards in each factory sealed pack, of course if you pull a relic card or an autograph there might be fewer cards in that pack but that's pretty much what most people hope for when they tear open packs these days. I bought these in a blaster box but I wanted to open them to get rid of all the empty space that the cardboard box takes up. Don't worry, I'm not searching the packs, I just plan on only giving away three to five packs as prizes in most cases and I want to be able to keep all my sealed trading card packs and other sports packs in the
treasure chest. I like this particular series of football cards because they have a lot of autograph and relic cards in them. Hopefully this box will have at least one pack with something interesting in it. Maybe you'll pull a rookie card that could be worth hundreds or even thousands in a few years.
I really have more than enough packs to launch this project but I like to have lots of variety for people to pick from as well. I have been hitting walmart about twice a week and every time I go through the checkout line I see the area where they keep all the retail packs and the blaster boxes. The shelves are packed full of merchandise from half a dozen types of sports. I just cant resist buying something when I see all this stuff, even though I know I could get a better deal online or even at a local card hobby shop. I just keep buying this overpriced stuff.
What's really bad is that most people by football cards and baseball cards because they love collecting trading cards or because they are a big fan of a particular sport and they like opening packs in the hopes of finding rookie cards or autograph cards of their favorite players or maybe just relic cards from their favorite teams. Some just do it because it's something they have enjoyed doing since they were kids or maybe they buy them for their own kids because they want to pass on the tradition of opening packs and pulling out great cards that they can keep and pass on to their grandchildren. I just buy these packs to give away. I buy them because I want to encourage people to run programs like world community grid on their computers so we can find cures for diseases.
For me it's a very strange obsession and I am fully aware that it is an obsession but there is a method to my madness. I know I could give away many things as prizes and that using something simple like gift cards would be much more affective in getting people interested but by giving away sports related merchandise I have a chance to be part of a community of athletes and people involved in the sports entertainment community. You see by giving away football cards I can use different keywords in my posts and interact with athletes, coaches, trainers, sportscasters and sports fans on social media outlets. This gives me the potential to reach out to celebrities in the world of competitive sports and that could be huge for programs like world community grid and folding@home.
I'm really just trying to advertise grid computing and show its potential for finding cures for disease or at least finding new drugs that can alleviate human suffering. I think there is a great future for programs like these that let home users become part of the disease research community. If through my efforts I can increase the amount of people using this program by just one percent I will have accomplished something great.
For those of you that are truly interested in trying to help find cures for diseases like cancer or for the readers of this post that want to get some great sealed packs of football cards just read
this post. You will need to be a member of my
world community grid team and actively running the program if you want to win any of the prizes I will have up for grabs in the future. Please take the time to read through that post. I think it explains a lot to those that are unfamiliar with how grid computing works. If you have any other questions please don't hesitate to ask below in the comments.