In the Kitchen with JP-A...and MOAR

Those of you who follow this here blogarino may be familiar with my JP Arencibia-centric mail day posts. Seeing as I receive 3-6 packages per week from trades, ebay, COMC etc., I have to start combining them.

As a result, this post will not be just JP cards, but some other badasses I have picked up recently.

But of course, we start with the J-Poops:

Ya'know what I love? GYPSY QUEEN. Both of JP's cards in this set feature him in his catcher's gear, which is awesome. I am hoping to get a sick gray-trimmed chest protector like his this summer as I'll likely be changing teams in my summer league.

You know what else I love? PURPLE. Purple will show itself again in this post, I promise. Here's another piece to the Magical JPA Rainbow Crusade, acquired for $.74 off of ebay and limited to 499 copies. It's really a great looking card...much better than an orange or gold refractor. The black refractors look best on this card though. 

My first 2012 Topps (Flagship) John-Paul is this rather acrobatic and sparkly parallel. I am quite pleased as to how well this scanned. It reminds me of the level in Sonic 3 when Knuckles shows up at the end of the first half of the jungle level, jumps on a switch and the island basically burns to a crisp. Well done, Topps. 

This will be it for the Arencibias, but he's got one total BRO of a teammate:

Brett Lawrie. Is there any more professional athlete more fitting for a die-cut card? FCKINAGGRROO D00000D. This came out of an outrageously overpriced blaster of 2012 Bowman Chromez.

On a much more positive box blaster note, I decided to switch things up and check out WalMart, rather than Target, for a pack-ripping fix last weekend. The results were excellent. 2011 Update (and 2010 Bowman Platinum) blasters were marked down to $11.48, so out of fiscal expertise, I took the 16 combined 8-card packs of Update over the 7 packs of 4 Platinum card.

I was well-rewarded. The Larry Walker is a Short Print, and currently sits around $7-$12 on the 'bay. Pretty good for one card out of a blaster - but these came fo' free in each box:

I saw the Orioles logo on the back of this and instantly thought it was a Robby Alomar, and although the patch is great (except it had fallen off in the pack) I was a bit disappointed in the player. 

Although, pretty much everyone is disappointing after this beauty came out of the first pack:

Holy nuts gawd yessssss. This is your reward for reading through this post - a card so badass I don't think I need to explain anything about it, just know that it was WAY worth the price of admission in this case - braving the semi-lat-night WalMart crowds.