News and notes, plus an All-Star trip through the blog roll

I've been less active the last few days due to a busy weekend and an illness that knocked me on my ass.  However, I did want to cover a few things today, then take a quick run through my blog roll to highlight some of the cooler stuff I've seen in reading my favorite blogs.

First up, my COMC package arrived yesterday, a day early!  That includes some trade bait for a few of you, and I'll be sending a bunch of packages and PWEs out sometime this week/weekend.  Plus you'll have some cool stuff to check out over on TMM.

Also, SportLots packages continue to roll in, which has been fun.  I've got more "You Complete Me" posts to write up, and again, some pickups will be highlighted on TMM.

Finally, of course, tonight is the All-Star game!  I'm pulling for the AL, of course, due to six Tigers making the team.  Here's five of them (Verlander was warming up to start the game) in a picture taken on Sunday--the game I attended:

From MotorCityBengals.com

Ok, now let's do something I haven't done in a while and highlight cool/interesting stuff from the blogs I read every day!

• TMV Win-Win contest-winner 26 Cent Summer is showing off some card show pickups, and the quality so far is top-notch, including a nice score of 7-time All-Star Sandy Koufax.
• Jafronius opened a pack of 2013 Opening Day to celebrate tonight's game over on A Pack to Be Named Later.  He didn't pull any All-Stars!
• Brad of Brad's Blog has some last-minute Brad trade bait.  Brad.
• Famous person birthday noticer hackenbush noted that yesterday was all-time great Lion Barry Sanders' 45th birthday.  Shoeless Joe, Ginger Rogers, and Will Ferrell are also feted.
• Dime Box Nick of Dime Boxes brings back his very cool "Short Term Stops" feature and today looks at players that enjoyed (or didn't) very brief stops with the Angels.
• Hot Corner Pat (hey, it works) of Tigers-centric blog the Hot Corner lists his Tigers PC All-Stars based on the number of cards he owns of each player.  It's a fantastic list, and now I've got some catching up to do!
• My Cardboard Mistress' Spankee busted a blaster of 2008 Upper Deck X and DID succeed in pulling 2013 All-Stars David Wright, Justin Verlander, Joe Mauer, Miguel Cabrera, and Jhonny Peralta.  Plus, a decent amount of what he pulled represented his PC guys, which is always great to see.
• Everyone's favorite Night Owl is celebrating his birthday coinciding with the All-Star Game for the first time since I was 2!  Happy birthday, Greg!
• Another Dodger fan named Greg, from Plaschke Thy Sweater is Argyle, had a nice article about Clayton Kershaw posted onto Facebook by the real deal!  Congrats, Zakwin!
• Don't be too surprised, by Fuji celebrated Oakland A slugger Yoenis Cespedes winning the 2013 Home Run Derby over on the Chronicles of Fuji.  In related news, Jose Valverde was spotted getting pitching tips from Mike Gallego.
• Kevin of the Mojo Beard has been living under a rock--will someone please tell him about Yasiel Puig?
• The Prowling Cat takes a timely look back at Nolan Ryan's All-Star appearances.  Yes, one of those extremely ugly-ass Pacific cards is included!

That's it for today, so enjoy your favorite blogs while you hopefully get to see some of your favorite players take the field tonight.  Remember:  this time it counts.