Win-win contest winners!

Time to announce the winners of my latest contest, as advertised (if I didn't mention it) on

(I have now fulfilled my promise to Sam that I'd pimp that blog every time I posted about this contest in exchange for him pimping this contest on that blog.  Sam--no need to send your be-mulletted goons in wife-beaters to break my kneecaps and berate me for voting for Barack HUSSEIN Obama; we're totally even, bud.)

Prize for followers:
Here's the drawing for the main prize, awarded to a random person who participated by following a new blog he/she wasn't following before.  I took the following list, comprising each entrant in the order in which I received them:

1.  The Diamond King followed 26 Cent Summer
2.  BA Benny's Baseball Card Buffet followed Ryan's Pitch
3.  ARPSmith's Sportscard Obsession followed Drew's Cards
4.  My Cardboard Mistress followed Night Owl Cards
5.  My Sports Obsession followed Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius
6.  Fantastic Catch followed BA Benny's Pack Rip Cafe
7.  The Daily Dimwit followed Poor Old Baseball Cards
8.  $30 a Week Habit followed Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius
9.  Emerald City Diamond Gems followed Friars on Cardboard
10.  Cards on Cards followed ARPSmith's Sportscard Obsession
11.  Waxaholic followed The Snorting Bull
12.  Manupatches & Mustaches followed The Snorting Bull
13.  Canadian Cardboard followed $30 a Week Habit
14.  Tenets of Wilson followed 26 Cent Summer
15.  The Lost Collector followed Tenets of Wilson
16.  Justin's World followed Friars on Cardboard
17.  Plaschke, Thy Sweater is Argyle followed Ryan's Pitch
18.  My 2008 Topps Set Blog followed Hello, Victory!
19.  Nomo's Sushi Platter followed Phungo
20.  Play at the Plate followed The Snorting Bull
21.  Coot Veal and the Vealtones followed Cards That Never Were
22.  DocHoloday followed Waxaholic
23.  Dime Boxes followed Vintage Cubs Cards
24.  Cornado2010 followed Play at the Plate
25.  All Trade Bait, All the Time followed 26 Cent Summer
26.  Royals and Randoms followed Texas Rangers Cards
27.  Chipp 'n Dale followed Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz
28.  The Other World followed Andrew's Baseball Cards
29.  The Snorting Bull followed All Trade Bait, All the Time
30.  A Pack to Be Named Later (Jafronius) followed Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz
31.  Reader skroeker followed Fantastic Catch

So here we go.

JUAN

TUOHY

 

THREEVE

 

And your winner of the 2010 Topps Update baseball set and much, much more is Larry from Emerald City Diamond Gems!

Congrats, Larry!  Please shoot me an email and we'll work out your additional stuff.


Prize for most-followed blog:
31 of you submitted the name of (at least) one blog you began following.  In the event you listed more than one, I grabbed the first one you listed, but if you did follow more than one, good for you because that's awesome anyway!  We ended up with 23 different nominated blogs, which I thought was pretty cool, since that should give everybody some more reading material for quite a while, myself included.

The following blogs each received one new follow:

• $30 a Week Habit
• All Trade Bait, All the Time
• Andrew's Baseball Cards
• ARPSmith's Sportscard Obession
• BA Benny's Pack Rip Café
• Cards That Never Were
• Drew's Cards
• Fantastic Catch
• Hello, Victory!
• Night Owl Cards
• Phungo
• Play at the Plate
• Poor Old Baseball Cards
• Tenets of Wilson
• Texas Rangers Cards
• Vintage Cubs Cards
• Waxaholic

The following blogs each received two new follows:

• Friars on Cardboard
• Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius
• Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz
• Ryan's Pitch

And leading the pack, we had two blogs garner a solid three new follows each:

• 26 Cent Summer
• The Snorting Bull

First of all, congrats to each of you who earned at least one new follower--you must be doing something right!  Depending on which of you I don't currently read, that number may rise pretty soon as I begin adding more of these to my daily reading.

So as you can see, we ended up with a two-way tie.  Back to random.org for the showdown:

My second congratulations of the day go out to 26 Cent Summer!  Matt is our winner here, and it looks like I may need to contact him myself because he never did enter the contest of his own volition.  Anyway, Matt, if you're reading this, you've got at least three new followers and some cool stuff coming to you, including a 2010 Topps Update Jayson Werth manu-bat barrel!

Thanks again to everyone who participated--I hope this was fun and even useful for those of you who didn't win.  Like I said, I tried to set this contest up in a way that even if you weren't chosen you might still get something out of it in the form of some fun new blogs to check out.  I can honestly say I was made aware of a bunch I hadn't even heard of but am now especially interested in following, and maybe that happened to you too.

Well, that's it for this contest, but I promise to come up with another one the next time I run out of ideas for content to post!

Last call for the blog-following contest

Here's your final reminder to get in on my blog-following contest, ending tonight at 11:59 p.m. EST.  The contest is linked right there and can also be found on 

A quick reminder of what's at stake:

First prize:  randomized for all entrants who follow a new blog

A set of 2010 Topps Update baseball plus whatever I can find of your favorite team

Second prize:  awarded to the blog with the most new follows (randomized in the event of a tie)

A Jayson Werth 2010 Topps Update manu-bat barrel and whatever I can find of your favorite team

So please get in now if you haven't already!

Contest reminder and 2005 Topps Football tins

Contest reminder:

It doesn't matter that it was the last post I wrote--I'm duly obligated to remind you to enter my contest if you haven't yet.  If you're awesome and follow this blog,

which included this post the other day, then you already know to enter the contest here.  Seriously, it can only benefit everyone the more people that enter, so get in!

On with the retail:

Armed with a small amount of gift card money, I set out to Meijer in search of tins of 2005 Topps football that I'd read about on Blowout, and I wasn't disappointed.  For $5.99 each (not sure what they used to be), I got two of these, each including 60 shrink-wrapped base cards:

The main attraction with these was, of course, RCs of Aaron Rodgers, but in my case, despite already owning a complete base set, I thought it would be fun to shoot for those as well as any of my other favorite football players because I really enjoyed busting rack packs (REAL rack packs, not overpriced "value packs") of these when they came out.

The first tin featured this card on top, which was promising:

While I didn't hit anything big, and in fact hit a run of doubles in each, I did end up with a few cards I liked,

plus a couple pretty cool collectible tins celebrating Topps football's 50th anniversary.  Because I don't need two, I'm happy to offer one to anyone who's interested--please just make me a trade offer and that can be part of it.  I'll have to figure out the logistics of shipping it because I'm not quite sure if it'll fit in a standard baseball card box, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Anyway, for a way to spend a few gift dollars, these were kind of fun, so if you have a Meijer near you, keep an eye out for a relatively cheap and fun shot at some quick Discount Double-Check cash!