Pack Break X3: 2008 Upper Deck SP Baseball

I got these as freebies thrown into my order at Dave & Adam's Card World a while back. I had bought a pack of these once before and I did like the crisp, clean design to them.

Pack 1: A lot of great Upper Deck products had a huge personal asterisk on them for me... Yankee Stadium Legacy cards. I'll keep 'em if they fall into my Hall of Famer collection or my star player collection.. but a lot of them, like this one, just have no home with me.

Marquee Matchups, two random players with stats on the 9 times they've faced each other and more stats on other lefties or righties they've faced. Booo.

This pack reminds me of most Donruss / Panini packs I've opened, as in there's no insert whatsoever. Oh well. I still like the base set and at least one of the insert sets that I didn't get from these packs. If I had any 20's left after I used them all to get my fireplace going, I would try to put together this set, but I don't see that happening.

The only card I'm set on keeping is the Rollins. All others are up for trade.

Pack Break: 2010 Topps Star Wars Galaxy Series 5

Finally, something new at the local Freddy's store! I usually try most non-sports cards that I have the slightest interest in their subject matter at least once. I came away with a pretty nice pull and unexpectedly knocked something off one of my 2010 goals!

Darth Vader is always a welcome card and a hot redhead in black leather named Mara Jade is even more welcome.

This is an original sketch card of Princess Leia drawn by artist Denise Vasquez. Not quite what I was hoping when I made pulling my first 1 of 1 one of my goals for this year, but I'll take it! Looking at some others on eBay, there are some really nice ones out there that make this one look like a first grader's sketch, and some of them sell for a quite a lot. I'm just going flip it on Ebay to get what I can for it.

Darryl Strawberry, Celebrity Apprentice Episode 3

SPOILER ALERT!!!

|

|

|

Well that was unexpected. I can't help but be a little mad at Darryl for throwing himself under the bus like that in the spirit of being a team player. BS. Darryl just didn't want to be there anymore and he found a way out. Darryl is a great guy but from what I saw, he let his charity down and his fans down, big-time, and got himself fired. At least I don't have to keep watching the show anymore. Thanks Darryl.

Barter: Care of Chris OK

Here's the first of hopefully several long overdue trade posts! This one finished up about 2 weeks ago. Chris over at Budget Baseball Cardboarding offered up some cards on my needs lists and some Ichiros for a couple of Longorias he spotted on my blog.

At the rate I'm going, I think I'll have 2010 Topps Series 1 finished before Series 1 2009. Weird.

Chris surprised me by throwing in a bonus card, and wow! This is sweet!

Thanks so much Chris! These are all great additions!!

State of the Blog Address

Fellow bloggers and esteemed search engine users, lend me your ear. 2 score and a few days ago, I began a new era of employment which has brought much prosperity to our family and friends. Debts have been paid, tasks have been completed and children have been fed. The sweet taste of success left a burning desire in our home for even more prosperity and happiness. This, along with the oncome of a great opportunity for our family, led me into the services of a second employer. Now a great lesson has been learned that with prosperity comes great hardship which cannot be used towards the cause of blogging. And with that comes the inevitable realization that a choice between the two employers must be made. But until certain things come to pass that are beyond my control, we must excercise patience during this period of uncertainty. Until then, the blog may suffer. Trading between fellow collectors may suffer. COLLECTING may suffer most of all! I urge you to not lose hope, as all things will come to pass. All trades set in motion are still in motion and will continue to move until the task at hand is completed. The system is still working. Have faith and God bless.

-packaddict

Darryl Strawberry, The Next Celebrity Apprentice? Episode 1

Minor SPOILER ALERT!!!

Today was the big season debut of the newest run of Celebrity Apprentice with some very entertaining celeb contestants this season, most notably Darryl Strawberry, who will hopefully come away a win. Some of the other celebs to look out for are Bill Goldberg, Bret Michaels, Sharon Osbourne, Rod Blagojevich and Cyndi Lauper all of who seemed to take up 95% of the camera time from the other 9 contestants who, if you're not specifically looking for them, you might not notice.

Darryl had it pretty easy this round as he didn't get shoved into the spotlight or forced to make any decisions. And his team came away with a demanding victory without much drama. Everybody on both sides just loved everyone else and there were no major cat-fights or cuss-fests. In fact, Trump literally raised the most eyebrows trying to get some answers as to who the celebs thought should get fired!

So, yes, we do get an episode 2 of Darryl in Celebrity Apprentice! Same day, same time, next week! 13 contestants left.

eBay Loot!

I got the top 3 Goudey 4-in-1's for my Ichiro collection, but I guess if I ever wanted to build a Sizemore collection they could go in that too. Weird.

The Eddie George comes from the Photo Engravings insert set in Pacific's 1997 Philadelphia effort. I got it simply because I liked the idea behind the design. I'm a fan of old-time photographs. Now that I've actually got one in my hands, it could have been done a lot better if the cards were super thick instead of almost paper thin, and an all sepia front instead of all the color.

The Colts card is my first white refractor. It was super cheap and will go into my serial numbered collection. These are #'d to 869. Any significance behind that number?

The Honus Wagner comes from an insert set in 2007 Upper Deck. I was completely unaware of these inserts back on '07. I found out about them recently and I want to eventually collect them all. This is my first.

As for the Zach Randolph, I've never been a big fan of the Turkey Red sets for some reason, but the parallels have become some of my favorites!

The Clyde Parris mini is a very welcome addiction to my collection. Back in January I decided that the Parris Allen & Ginter was my favorite base card of 2009, so over time I'll be picking up as many parallels as I can.

And another shiny Elite card that caught my eye, this one with 3 legendary Dodgers on it. These are #'d to 1500 and will go into my serial numbered collection.

These Pinini Threads jersey cards are so freakin' cool!

The Brooks Robinson is from the 2001 Topps Archives Reserve set. I'm slowly putting together the set. I just ripped a pack of these and will post the results pretty soon.

I liked the design of the Yaz with the sepia photo and I'm glad they kept the Red Sox logo full color. It looks great. These are #'d to 1989 and will also go into my serial #'d collection.

Another Ichiro, this one from the Upper Deck 20th Anniversary Hobby Preview set.

The card design on this Brandon Roy jersey card triggered something in me that made me have to own it! I love how it looks like a playing card. The jersey was used in a T-Mobile Rookie Challenge.

I used the Roy card to show just how big these 1976-77 Topps cards really are! I always thought they were a little tall but these are huge! Very cool.

And finally we have the Japanese variation of Ichiro's '07 Topps Chrome. This might be my favorite Ichiro.