It… Has… Arrived.

My box is here. Will be busting it LIVE on jtv this evening, so come on by at 8:30pm east/7:30pm central tonight!

Other Stuff that Came Up

My box of cards is due to arrive sometime between 9am and 7pm today.  But before we get to that, let us look back.  Here’s a list of all the other things that came up in the week or so I’ve been trying to get my To Do List done.

I stumbled into an art trade with a very talented sketch card artist.  I’m really gonna have to step my game up to make an acceptable comic version of Gambit for her.

I may have found more cards for Marie of A Cardboard Problem.  I need to email her about those soon.

My Americana blaster break aroused the attention of the proprietor of the Shot Not Taken blog.  So we are now in the process of working out a trade that started with real life freakin’ ninja Gerald Okamura.

This one will be a ways down the road before it’ll be return the favor time, but Indians Baseball Cards.  And then some… has some random packs of kindness to offer.  And I took him up on a Mariners one.  I guess you can get in on multiple teams, which I’ll do once the Cubbies roll around, and maybe a couple other teams that aren’t otherwise likely to get much play.  So I’ll definitely have to send something nice in return down the line.  Fortunately, this is one I was fully prepared for, so I didn’t really have do go out of my way for it.

When asking Dayf about bubble mailers, I also got his address to send him some Braves and anything else I might have that would be useful to him.  My Braves are pretty much in order I think, so this one will be easy enough to do as well.

Aside from the sketch card, nothing too major or that I’m in a hurry on.  Just thought it’d be fun to mention everything else that popped while I was getting things ready.  I just hope I have enough bubble mailers for all new this stuff though!

2009 Donruss Americana Blaster Break

After seeing of couple of great blaster breaks of this recently, I decided to break down and get my own finally.  I would be lying if I said I wasn’t pleased.  I don’t have scans for this, but some will show up on my blog eventually.

8 packs; 5 cards per pack

Pack 1

11 Barry Pearl- Rockin’ a SWANK Three Stooges tie.

34 Alessandro Nivola- Of soccer film trilogy Goal!… Um, okay.

91 Jamie Donnelly- Of Grease fame.

88 Erin Gray- Wilma Deering from Buck Rogers!

46 Charlie Daniels- Hell yes!

Pack 2

65 Yancy Butler- Teh Witchblade.

23 Barry Watson- Three people I’m reasonably familiar with in a row.  Nice.

80 Paul Le Mat- Of American Graffiti fame.

77 Taryn Manning- Actress & musician.

100 Julia Louis-Dreyfus- That chick from Seinfeld.

Pack 3

37 John Buccigross- One of ESPN’s better anchors.  Photo kinda blurry, but hilariously awesome.  Will post this one day for teh lulz.

94 Marton Csokas- Was in a couple of the Lord of the Rings movies.

58 James Duval- Actor & musician.  Has nice hair.

16 Robert Hegyes- Juan Epstein from Welcome Back, Kotter.  Wonder if my mom would recognize him immediately like she did Ernest Thomas from an Americana II pack I busted awhile back.

73 Deborah Shelton- JR Ewing’s mistress on Dallas, Playboy covergirl, 1970 Miss USA & Miss Universe runner-up, amongst other things.

Pack 4

52 George A. Romero- One for the horror movie fans.

76 Erin Moran- Joanie Cunningham from Happy Days & Joanie Loves Chachi.

33 Gerald Okamura- Martial artist/stunman/actor/freaking real life ninja!

30 Lorna Luft- Actress, daughter of Judy Garland.

87 Eric Roberts-Golden Globe winner, father of Emma Roberts, brother of Julia Roberts.

Pack 5

90 James Caan- Best card so far.  A tie with the ninja & Charlie Daniels at least.  There’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.

48 Michael Beck- Of The Warriors & Xanadu fame.

45 Nadine Velazquez- Catalina fron My Name is Earl.  Also ridiculously hawt.

3 Marcia Gay Harden- Academy Award-winning actress.  Her name is hilarious if you put Gay after Harden.  What?

61 Peter Graves- Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor.

Pack 6-

6 Randal Kleiser- Directed Grease & The Blue Lagoon, amongst others.

64 Emily Proctor- Actress.

22 Connie Britton- Tami Taylor on Friday Night Lights.

19 Patty Duke- If you don’t know who she is, I really can’t help you.

42 Malcolm McDowell- Semi-legendary actor.  I remember him most from the live action Fist of the North Star movie, because I’m cool like that.

Pack 7

Niecy Nash- Of Reno 911 fame.

15 Burt Reynolds Cinema Stars #ed 0886/1000- Excellent insert!

99 William Forsythe- Actor known for frequently playing villians in movies I guess.

57 Geoff Stults- George’s less popular brother I guess.

15 Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs- More Sweathog mojo!  Freddie “Boom Boom” Washington this time.

Pack 8

49 Denzel Whitaker- Rising young actor.  Won NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor for his role in The Great Debaters in 2008.

7 Sofia Milos- Detective Yelina Salas from CSI: Miami.

25 The Apartment Movie Posters Materials Jack Lemmon #ed 445/500- This is a really cool looking card, though I’m not sure which side is which.  The swatch side also has the card & seq. numbers and CoA, as well as a small picture of the movie poster, while the other side is a full card shot of the poster, with a pretty clever brick wall border.  At any rate, Donini wins points from me for these gratuitously cool cards.  I would love to get my hands on a few more.

4 Michael Madsen- We are finishing this blaster strong!  Another great actor of today.

62 Chazz Palminteri- Oscar-nominated actor for his role in Bullets Over Broadway.

20 John Cusack- Finishing it off with the rom-com king.  Serendipity is one of my favorite movies, I am not afraid to admit.

What a great blaster.  A ninja, a country music legend, a Cusack, several beautiful women, a decent ESPN anchor looking ridiculous, Caaaaaaaaaan, Ryuken, 70’s sitcom stars, Burt Reynolds, and Jack Lemmon!!!!  Maybe someday I’ll have to buy another blaster of this goodness.  I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing.  The base cards even managed to look nice.  Thumbs way up.

The Lonestarr Personal Collection #4

Here’s the key card of a four card Donruss Americana II lot that I won cheaply on eBay many moons ago, Julie Newmar:

Catwoman~! 'Nuff said.

Actually, the caption is a lie.  That’s not enough said!  Julie Newmar has a hella impressive resume spanning 6 decades!  See for yourself.

Also in the lot was a John Saxon-used swatch, and a couple of #ed cards, a parallel of some actor dude, and an insert of an MMA guy, but they were just the icing on the Americana II cake.  I’m not sure exactly what the cost was anymore, but I do know I payed less than $8 for the lot (possibly less than $5). Regardless though, I do loves me some Donruss Americana, so it was more than worth it.

I think I like Americana because I am fascinated by historical stuffs, and it brings the goods.

I’ve got a few more suh-weet Americana hits to show off soon, including a legitimate sports LEGEND that had no business being in my price range.  That my friends… was a tease.

Let’s meet again, in another place… and a better time.

The Lonestarr Personal Collection #3

Here is my epic Fukudome Japanese game-used ball card:

Exotic and Expensive... >.>

We don’t like to talk about how much I spent on this card… suffice to say, it’s the one time I really broke the bank on a card.   I love the card, but what I spent on it still makes me hurt a little inside whenever I think about it.  Let’s just “ooh” and “ahh” and comment it’s coolness and not dwell to deeply on the price, shall we?  That way I’ll feel less guilty for knowing better but getting it anyway.

Having a conscience sucks when it always feels guilty…

Random Cool Card I Own #2

Football time, and maybe my best patch card:

(Vaguely) Sick Patch

This came out of one of those things with a random hit in it for $9.99.  Just about the only good card I ever got out of one of those stupid, ungodly expensive things.  At least they put two or three packs in there nowadays.  The card itself is probably the thinnest patch card ever made.  It’s no thicker than the regular Pacific jersey cards which were barely thicker than a regular card from that year to begin with.

Ah, youth… so full of life, and so foolish.

To Do List~!

I intend to finish all these things before my box of 2009 Allen & Ginter comes, probably in the middle of next week, judging by the time my first box took.  These are in not listed by order of importance, by the way.  I’m just writing them as I think of them.

1.) Get all my baseball cards sorted by team (except for ‘08 Allen & Ginter and a couple others that I have a bunch of that may be useful to set-builders). [Somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 of the way done I think.  Unfortunately, my urge to do the Gambit sketch card is outweighing going any further, but I think I did pretty okay overall.]

2.) Send SASE to Mario at Wax Heaven for the ‘09 Football Heroes inserts. [With the mighty Dayf's valuable information, I might be able to send this as soon as the next time I'm out.]

3.) Figure out what a SASE entails, because I’ve never sent one before. [Done- Wow, Dayf really is the expert at doing the bubble mailer version!]

4.) Finish Marie & Sooz‘ sketch cards.  Albert Pujols for Marie, Kevin Kouzmanoff and oh, maybe Gabe Kapler for Sooz. [We're all done... unless I add some color to Kouz, Kap, & Pujols.]

5.) Get the sketch cards, as well as the rest of Sooz’ trade ready to send. [Think I'm done, since I've only got about two cards that she's after.  Working on another trade with Marie as well, since I found my Canos, Jobas, & Phil Hughes'.]

6.) Get a bigger bubble mailer for the cards I’m sending to Matt of Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius. [Done]

7.) Find the Bazooka Gold Chunk Aaron Rodgers rookie for what I’m sending to Matt, and then send the cards. [Yatta, I FOUND IT~!!  Always in the last place ya look. >.<  Also found a 2003 Donruss Elite Series Glavine #ed /2500 & some other stuff with it.  So, umm... w00t~!]

8.) SEND DINGED CORNERS THEIR FREAKING CARDS ALREADY~!!!!!!!!!!!  It’s only been what… 9 months, since you made that trade?  Good grief Lonestarr, send them something at least! [Asian players are packed up & ready to be sent.  Will send next time I'm out.]

Yes, I fail.

9.) Send Baseball Dad my pathetically small list of Sandberg cards. [Done- I had a few more Rynos than I thought!]

10.) Prepare some Indians to send to Baseball Dad. [Done]

11.) Get my Orioles cards organized to send to some people in the Orioles card blogger nation, just because. [Done.  Now when will I ever get around to contacting any of them?]

12.) Get my Washington Redskins cards in order because I want to make a trade with Chris from Sac Bunt because there are a bunch of cards on his trade list I’m interested in. [At least half done.  Will contact you soon about a trade, Chris.]

13.) This one I have to get done tomorrow.  Pay for the box of cards I picked up in the big sale at Dave & Adam’s. [Done]

14.) Get over wanting to call them Dave & Buster’s.  *stomach grumbles* [Done- Though now I'm doing the opposite! >.<]

15.) Get the UDX cards ready for McCann Can Triple. [Done, but need to to double-check them sometime.]

16.) Get some more White Sox Cards ready for Steve. [They are in order, but I'm not too sure I have anything he doesn't.  Will have to check later.]

All that’s left that I can do before I bust my box is to finish organizing my cards, send an email or two, and check a couple of want lists.  Won’t be able to send any stuff out until next time I’m out.

I will not open my 2009 Allen & Ginter box until I get pretty much all of this done.  I will check things off the list as I get through them, so you can keep up with my progress, especially if you appear on the list.  Let me know if I’ve forgotten anyone or anything, or if you want to be added to the list too.  It’s gonna be a busy week.

It’s go time~!

Random Cool Card I Own #1

I decided to restart the Random Cool Cards I Own posts, changing the Billy Williams, Ryne Sandberg, and one or two future ones I already wrote to “The Lonestarr Personal Collection”.  So here is my new first one filed under “Random Cool Card I Own”:

Which parallel is this exactly?

It's really hard to see the numbering across his chest...

2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces (Silver?) Framed Parallel Evan Longoria #ed 24/25.  I have never actually seen any of the framed parallels in person before.  They add a touch of class to an already great design.  The frame reminds me a lot of the 2002 Roberto Clemente Diamond King Gold Parallel I have, though the frame isn’t as thick.  The frames are an excellent way to make a parallel, rather than just a colored border, imo.

I’m not sure what the odds for something like this coming out of retail are, but they must be pretty long.  I didn’t get any parallels out of the two blasters I bought late last/early this year (just a regular SP in each).  I’m not too bad at getting hits & such from retail packs I guess.  I should totally make a gallery of my retail hits sometime, since I still have most of them I think.

I have no idea what I want to do with this card, if I want trade it, or maybe see what I could get for it on eBay, or maybe slide it into the PC.  I don’t collect him, but it can’t hurt to have a fantastic card of great player in there, right?  I’m not letting it go easily if I do go the trade route though.  But make an offer if you like it; I will at least consider it.

Eva, Evan.  Oprah, Uma.  Ooh, Uma… hawt. :3

2008 TriStar Projections Box Break

I bought my first ever box online in the latter half of last month, from Blowout Cards.  The box was of 2008 TriStar Projections, because it promised lots of hits (4 or 8, depending on your definition) for low low price.  Good enough for me, and minor league cards are cool sometimes.  At the time, I got it for $32 & change shipped, though last I checked, the box had itself jumped up to higher than that, after bottoming out at a couple bucks less than I paid.  But that’s not why you’re here… you came for a box break!

So let’s break it down:

24 packs per box, 8 cards per pack, 192 cards per box

Base-

I got around 3/4 of the base set with no dupes.  Forgot to scan the base cards though.  I pulled base of most of the (future) stars, including (off the top of my head) Matt Wieters, Matt LaPorta, Rick Porcello, Jason Heyward, Andrew McClutchen, Colby Rasmus, and Evan Longoria, who already is a star.

The design is pretty slick, but there are two notable problems with the set:

1.) Because the rest of the image the picture of the player is taken from is shoop’d out, leaving only the player, a few players have disembodied body parts encroaching on their action shots (see the Adrien Cardenas parallel below).  It’s very very weird looking and distracting, but there are very few like that, so it’s tolerable.

2.) The stats on the backs of the position player cards are misaligned.  Every.  Single.  Card.  The batting average is supposed to be at the end of the statline, but instead, it is the first thing listed, throwing off the entire line.  It is a pretty bad mistake, which is a shame, because this set is nicer looking than 75% of Topps & UD’s releases from the past year.

Reflectives Parallels (1 per pack)-

I think I got 22 of these, also without dupes.  The reason there are only 22 is because a couple of the #ed parallels were Reflectives, which, except for one memorable one, replaced the regulars.  (Future) Stars included David Price, Matt Wieters, Jed Lowrie, Andrew McClutchen, and Max Scherzer, who’ve all seen major league action, if nothing else.  Jason Heyward is a highly touted prospect as well, it seems.

Reflectives

The Reflectives are freakin’ gorgeous, by the way.

#ed Parallels (4 Guaranteed per box; Green #ed 50, Yellow #ed /25, Orange #ed 5, and Purple #ed 1/1)-

Ben Revere Green base #ed 40/50, Adrien Cardenas Yellow base #ed 13/25, Jesus Montero Reflectives Parallel #ed 12/50 (Reserved for Sooz of A Cardboard Problem), and Wilmer Font #ed 11/25.

I see Rainbows... @.@

Numbered ones... @o@

I actually pulled a 5th #ed parallel too, but we’ll cover that in a bit.

Autographs (4 Guaranteed per box; same parallel numbering as the non-autos)-

Matt LaPorta base, Casey Weathers base, Chris Withrow Green base #ed /50, Balbino Fuenmayor ORANGE base #ed 3/5(!)

Withrow has a really nice sig.

And the backs...

All four of these guys seem to have some promise, Matt LaPorta with tons of hype, Casey Weathers being a high draft pick (though Tommy John’d at the moment), Withrow I’d heard of before this pack, and Balbino is struggling but has huge expectations and is still only 20.  Plus he’s freakin’ #ed to /5~!

That’s not all though, oh no.  I did say there were five parallels.  And here is the 5th:

For realz 1/1? Believe it~!

Bonus~!!!!

Jon Still Purple Reflectives Parallel #ed 1/1.

I will not be saying mojo, because that would be wrong. But it is the first true 1/1 I’ve ever pulled, so it is still really exciting going on two weeks later.  However, being in the Red Sox organization, I did offer it to Shane over at Shoebox Legends if he wants it.

I was going to try and score this box, but I really can just give it a number or letter grade.  I really enjoyed opening this box.  The cards look really nice, there were a lot of hits for a low price, some of them may even end up being good, and I greatly enjoyed taking the time to open them, because, well… minor league cards are “Hope in a Pack”-incarnate.  It’s not just hoping you get something good of someone good, it’s getting something good of someone you *hope* turns out to be good, of someone who hopes *they themselves* turn out to be good.

I don’t know who, if anybody, from my box will become major stars (aside from Longoria, who already is), but it doesn’t matter that much anyway.  I got a whole lot more than what was promised for my $27+ shipping.  Two cards whose print runs equal six… combined, a possibly record long box break (somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 hours, due to having to type to chat with people the whole time), three blog posts, and probably many soon-to-be pending trades as a direct result of the pulls.

What more could I ask for?  Besides posting the pictures and getting them where I want being less of a pain in the @$^%Z4$&%¢@#%$.

Attempted Derek Jeter Sketch Card

As promised, here’s my attempt at a Derek Jeter Sketch card for Sooz of A Cardboard Problem:

I tried...

As you can see, by no means is it poorly drawn.  I just completely failed at making it look like jeter.  I dunno what went wrong, because two other sketch cards I attempted before this (and also a similar sized work) of other people looked like who they were meant to look like.

He isn’t colored because I lack markers in navy blue and his particular skin tone, and I skipped the gray because I just thought it looked better without any color at all to go with a colored background, though that didn’t turn out quite as I’d envisioned either.  I did mention to Sooz needing practice, and if nothing else, this was definitely a learning experience.

Couple other quickies:

• My 2009 A&G is ordered.  You’ve been put on notice, my fellow Gint-A-Cufflinks.  Or something.

• I pulled an awesome card out of a 1/2-priced pack of 2008 UD Masterpieces from K-Mart this afternoon.  That will be posted as a Random Cool Card I Own soon.  Alas, retail Masterpieces has already been posted at A Pack to be Named Later, so the pack itself won’t be seen on there.

Ironically, the pack posted on APtbNL had three of the four cards in the other pack of Masterpieces I bought (all except former White Sox slugger Frank Thomas; got current White Sox slugger Jim Thome instead).  Madness.  And… I’m out.

Until our next…