The Odditorium

I'll admit. I was starting to worry. 

It was days before Christmas and I hadn't heard anything about my Secret Santa package. However, thanks to the magic of the USPS, it arrived two days before Christmas. I opened it on Christmas Day and found out my Secret Santa was Andy (aka bbcardz) of Stadium Fantasium. The box he sent was small and modest but packed a big punch consisting mainly of lots and lots and lots of oddball cards.

I'll start first with the two non-oddball cards he included. On the left is a 2018 Heritage Adam Duvall. Duvall was really good with the Reds and put up some good power numbers but after the trade to Atlanta, he bottomed out. On the right, is a 1969 Topps Jerry McNertney which will be added to my Seattle Pilots collection and knocks one more card off that wantlist.

Now on to the meat of the package, oddballs!

Andy sent over three complete sets of oddballs, first up this 1993 Post Cereal 30 card set. These are some really fun cards and cool looking cards. For now, I've put this in a team bag until I get the chance to page it up in a binder.

Next we have this 18-card set of 1992 Score Procter & Gamble featuring the starters from the 1992 All-Star Game in San Diego.

The last complete set Andy included was the 1992 Post Cereal set. Again, I put this into a team bag to be paged up in a binder soon. The first thing I noticed was that awesome Jeff Bagwell "Rookie Star" card on tip. Maybe I'll go through the two Post Cereal sets in future blog posts. Not sure yet.

There was also a bunch of miscellaneous oddball cards thrown in. I'd ordered the Cap'n Crunch Tony Gwynn in my COMC Christmas order so now I have two of them! Oh well, I'm not going to complain. 

There were also a bunch of Post Cereal cards from the early 90s included. First these from 1990.

Then these from 1991. What is it with cards and yellow borders in 1991? (I'm looking at you Fleer.)

Finally, some cards from my favorite Post Cereal set, 1994. The design on these is great with the green marble-ish borders, the red stripe at the bottom with the name and team, and the players signature in gold. These are just some great looking cards.

Here's some Hostess cards from 1993. I always liked how Hostess was able to use the team logos and hot have to airbrush anything off the cards.

Here's two cards I never knew existed, cards from the California Jumbo Sunflower Seeds company. I tried sunflower seeds once when I played knothole baseball and hated them. I was more of a Big League Chew person. These cards claim that they are from the "autograph series" but I only see an autograph on the George Brett card. Also, the pictures are pretty bland and Brett looks more like a generic high school coach. However, they're oddballs so I still like them.

Lastly, there were these three 3-card packs of Jimmy Dean cards. I couldn't resist cracking these open so here's what was inside.

Pack #1 had Kevin Mitchell, Dale Murphy, and Nolan Ryan.

Pack #2 checked in with Dave Winfield, Rickey Henderson, and George Brett.

And the final pack featured Jose Canseco, Frank Thomas, and Dave Justice. That's a solid nine cards right there!

Big thanks to Andy for sending these cards over as my Secret Santa present and for the nice note that I showed at the top. I really appreciate it! Also, thanks to Jon at Penny Sleeves for stepping up and running this years festivities. It was great to participate in again.

The 2014 Halloween Special

The 2014 (and final) Halloween Special!

Here it is, the final Halloween special that I filmed with my friend Brian and Tim. On this special, my wife actually joins in the fun with a bizarre baking segment. There is also some Halloween hot sauces, Tim making a homemade knight costume, Palmers chocolate, Halloween lunchables, and lots more. While I was editing this, I had a feeling it would be the last one so the intro is a nice highlight reel of fun stuff from years past set to creepy music.

I really hope everyone has enjoyed these videos I've put up this past week. It was a blast sharing them with you and a fun way for me to kick off October. There's still a ton more Halloween fun to come this month!

Crazy Halloween Junk Food

I'll have to admit, September has pretty much been a blur. Between work kicking my butt and being busy nearly every weekend, I had precious little time to write. Fear not though, since it's now officially fall it's really time to embrace the season ... and by embrace the season I mean gorge myself on Halloween junk food. These items have no relationship to each other whatsoever other than the fact that I couldn't get enough out of them for a full fledged article.

Hostess Scary Cakes

Yes! These are back for another year. Sure, they're just the basic Hostess cupcake any other time of the year, but not in the fall. In the fall, they are "Scary Cakes" with S'cream filling. If these aren't a sign that the Halloween season is in full force then I don't know what is. The box design this year is great with a spooky design that just grabs you. The icing on the cupcake has that standard Hostess squiggle design but the frosting is orange! Name another time of year you'll find a cupcake with orange icing! Now, if you've had a Hostess cupcake before, you know what this tastes like, however I think it has just a little bit better flavor and taste because it has a Halloween style. Put some of these out along with a cold glass of cider for the Great Pumpkin when he comes and your Halloween will be that much better.

Pepperidge Farm Pumpkin Cheesecake Cookies

I've always looked at Pepperidge Farm stuff from afar, it being more expensive than your normal Chips Ahoy or Oreo cookie pack. I've gotten a few of their products before and haven't been too terribly impressed which is mostly the reason I stray away from them (the other being cost). These were one of the first "fall" products I saw in the stores, so I grabbed it. The package design is very bright as has a design of falling leaves on the top. Opening these, I couldn't discern any particular smell so I just hoped they wouldn't be horrible. Well, they weren't horrible, but they weren't great either. The chunks you see picture in the cookie on the package are cheesecake flavored chunks. The cookie itself had a slight sort of gingerbread-y flavor to it. I can't say I can recommend these but you could do a whole lot worse.

Count Chocula Cereal Bars

Speaking of doing a whole lot worse, I found these on a display at the grocery store lumped in with all the Halloween cereals (side note: review of the cereals coming soon) and though they looked interesting. The box has a very cartoonish  vibe to it, probably to appeal to kids or fans of the Count Chocula cereal. I had the cereal itself before I had this so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. Well, everything I expected went right out the window when I bit into it. It's got a very processed and marshmallow heavy taste and has the consistency of cardboard. The chocolate looks and tastes incredibly fake and it's very heavy on the artificial sweetener. I tried to offer part of the bar to my 3-year old son and he promptly screamed and ran away. Even if kids are running from this, that should tell you something.

Hi-C Ecto Cooler

This was all the rage back in the summertime when the new Ghostbusters movie came out in July. People were looking high and low and grocery retailers big and small just so they could get a nostalgic taste of their childhood. I didn't find any in my area until mid-August, just before the movie left theaters. That didn't stop me though, I grabbed a bunch of the 10-box packs. It tastes just like I remember it, very citrusy with orange and tangerine. You better believe that when I found more of these at the store, I loaded up. There's no telling if this is back for good or if stores are just going through what stock they have left. One thing is for sure though, this is the perfect drink to have on a fall night when you're staying up late to watch a Pumpkinhead marathon.

You've Got Mail #45: Night Owl Cards

It finally happened, something I've been waiting on for a long time. I finally received a trade package from the legendary Night Owl. It arrived rather inconspicuously the day after the July 4th holiday, along with the water bill and a circular for Kohl's.

I can smell the chocolate and cream on this card (not really) but this is my first hand cut Hostess card.  I'm not entirely sure who Mike Jorgensen is but regardless, I immediately threw this in a penny sleeve and top loader. Suddenly, I want a pack of Ding Dongs.

Even though my want list may state that I collect a lot of players, it's mean to be solely used as a guide. However, my one main player collection would be Dennis Eckersley. I'm not sure what drives me to collecting his cards but I think it might have something to do with the crazy photos on his cards, case in point, the Upper Deck 70s card.

Some new Expos cards for my team collection were thrown in as well. It's amazing how much the 1996 Pinnacle cards look the same. I have enough Expos cards now to where I need to start combing through them for duplicates. 

Speaking of duplicates, I know these are not. Hoover and Sampson have been major contributors to the Springfield tire fire that has been the Reds bullpen this year. Hoover seems to have lost any idea on how to actually throw the ball over the plate and Sampson hasn't shown great stuff, but managed a nice outing in a spot start recently. I don't remember Paul O'Neill having to pitch for the Reds but I guess I'll have to take Topps' word for it.

As much as I was into Heritage last year, this year has been a complete bust for me. I opened exactly three packs and got next to nothing in terms of cards I was interested in keeping. Archives however, which is where the Father & Son insert is from, was really great this year. It has me wanting to by more packs as I really want to get my hands on some of those 69 Topps Super inserts but I really don't want duplicate base cards lying around the house.

I'd forgotten what a nice clean set 1996 Score was. This came out right about the time I was slowly growing out of collecting. While I had a few cards from this set in my original collection, it was nice to recover cards like this that I lost a long time ago.

The Sean Casey card I find a bit odd as he's listed as a member of the Pirates but is shown in as Reds uniform. Strange. Speaking of strange, I'm not really sure what that Dodgers card is but regardless it's pretty cool. The Joe Oliver card from the acid trip that is 1995 Fleer was thrown in because I had made a comment about that card on a post a long time ago.

To round things out, a nice batch of 1984 Topps was thrown in as well, which means I need to take a few minutes on a weekend to cross check and update my want list. You'll have to excuse the scan, I was in a hurry when I scanned it and forgot to trim the photo.

I feel like a member of the cool kids club now, having received my first (and hopefully not last) awesome package from Night Owl. As far as a return goes, there's one card I'm looking for specifically that I need to get before I start loading up a bubble mailer to send back.