Final 2011 Topps football case break sales report

Well, it's been three weeks since I busted my 2011 Topps football jumbo case.  As a refresher, here are the results:

• Hits
• Base and Wolverines (plus design grades)
• Inserts and final grades

I made it clear from the get-go that this would be an experiment for me to experience busting a case and trying to sell the contents (anything that wasn't personal collection-worthy, of course).  So how did I do?  Entirely through Blowout's forums (because I don't trust screwBay and I didn't wanna pay even more fees) I sold the following (all prices are shipped and obviously don't account for eBay fees or what I actually paid for shipping:

• Aaron Hernandez, Matt Forte, Randall Cobb, Jordan Todman, Bilal Powell autos, Ryan Williams Rookie Patch:  $25
• Most of the Golds (29) and Minis (57):  $30
• Kyle Rudolph Rookie Red Zone auto, Santonio Holmes and Jason Witten autos, Kyle Rudolph Game Day jersey, Jordan Todman Rookie Patch:  $65
• Black Chad Greenway:  $8
• Cameron Heyward Printing Plate:  $25
• Greg Little, Marcell Dareus, Leonard Hankerson Rookie Patches:  $12

All told I pulled in a grand total of $165 (again, not including fees/shipping).  This was my return on paying a bit over $500 for the case.  So what did I learn?  More bullets!

• Busting cases is fun!  Well, I already knew that, but busting cases entirely for me is fun!
• It's not remotely easy making a profit.  That wasn't my ultimate goal--really I was hoping to get half my money back, which is still possible if I can finish up and sell a few of my sets.  Wanna buy a set?  If I can't get a good price for them now I'll hold onto them for a time when they're worth a bit more and then try to get something for them.  I also have a couple more decent hits that could bring me some cash eventually.
• It's not the easiest thing in the world making deals as a seller either.  However, I really didn't get lowballed all that much, at least not as much as I was expecting.  Because I know as a buyer I'm only happy with a low price, I worked with each person as much as I could, especially when they bought multiple items.
• I didn't get top dollar for my items by not using eBay, but I felt much more comfortable knowing I wouldn't get screwed as a seller by forgoing that option.
• Don't give buyers so much leeway.  Early on, I had a guy with a pretty good reputation on Blowout ask about a good number of my best hits.  We eventually worked out a decent price on the condition that we would also work on each others' set wantlists. Although several people made offers on some of those same cards, I held onto them for him despite a couple weeks of "I'll have your lists tonight."  I eventually found out he had a personal situation, but I ended his dibs on those cards right then because he should have been more up-front and said "I have a situation, but by this date I can deal again."  Fortunately, I found an excellent buyer who was willing to take most of that stuff, plus I got a bit more for almost everything else he wanted as well.
• These cases are really hit or miss.  About three of my boxes produced pretty nice stuff, but the others were relative duds, especially compared to what I've seen.  It still doesn't look extremely easy to come close to profitability on these cases, though I realize they're not exactly designed for that.
• Most importantly, I won't be getting into the business of busting cases to resell items for cash--I just don't have the time or skills to maximize my profit (or even make one apparently).  But I'm totally glad I tried this, and I hope it proved to be useful info for some of you too.

What's left?  Well, I have the following stuff remaining, which is still for sale, but now available for trade as promised:

All available except the Jenkins--headed to BA Benny

I'd really like to get cash for the Black Jones and may try to sell that individually, but wow me with an offer and it's yours.

I also have three base sets available right now (with hopefully one more up for grabs soon as well).  I'm asking $35 dlvd on those, but I'll work with you.  If you want to trade for one I might be willing as long as you pony up for shipping and give me fair trade value.

Thanks for following along with this crazy experiment--I hope you had some fun with it too, especially vicariously since I'm the one that took the shot to the wallet!  One thing I should stress though, is that, as I intended, any money I brought back in selling stuff was spent on more cards, as you've likely deduced from my recent (and future) Blowout acquisition posts.  Cards über alles!

2011 Topps jumbo football case: inserts and sorta wrapup

This will be the last look at what I pulled from my 2011 Topps football jumbo case; however I plan to post an update/summary of my progress in selling things off pretty soon.

Today I'm showing off the plethora of inserts the case yielded, then giving my final opinion on quality control and the product as a whole.

Inserts (390):  

Faces of the Franchise:  60 (1:1, 60 expected)

A very meh insert that borrows from its equally uninspiring baseball cousin Legendary Lineage.  The player combos aren't terribly exciting, and instead of making one for each team, or at least focusing on teams with quality combinations...well...they produced this crap.  I pulled two full sets, 19/20 of a third and one quadruple (the crap you see above).

Game Day:  60 (1:1, 60 expected)

Now here's an insert I like.  I think what works for me is that the player is the obvious focus while the background is very secondary, though it often ends up looking very cool itself as it's depicted in the team's colors.  I also like how it highlights a key game in a player's pro or college career (kind of like Peak Performance highlighting a single game or season achievement in baseball).  I got 39/50 in the set plus 20 doubles and one triple.

Gold:  30 (1:2, 30 expected)

You've purchased a Topps flagship box before, yes?  These have remained fairly constant and the only thing I really don't like is that they abandoned stamping for printed-on numbers, which just isn't the same.  It wouldn't be a Topps set without these.  I was happy to pull a Steve Breaston, but the next best player I got was probably Reggie Bush or Eli Manning, unfortunately.  Why these were 1:2 I couldn't say.  Fortunately, every card was different, so I didn't have to deal with the annoyance of beating the odds and pulling a double.

Minis:  60 (1:1, 60 expected)

Carrying on the momentum from the baseball set, I'm sure, these work well here.  I just wish there weren't so many (140) or else I'd shoot for the set.  As it is, I'm trying to sell the 57 of them (including Cam Newton and Mark Ingram) I didn't really want, but I'm keeping the Charles Woodson, Tom Brady and Mario Manningham you saw last time.  I am happy to report that I got 60 different players here--no dupes!  They seem to suffer from bad cutting/centering, though.

Super Bowl Legends:  60 (1:1, 60 expected)

Here's another set I was pretty happy with, both due to concept and design.  Because my football knowledge isn't even a tenth of my baseball knowledge, I enjoy the history lesson it provides for a sport I've come to love over the last few years.  What I didn't love so much was the collation:  I got 25/45 in the set, then 21 dupes and 14 triples.  I just feel that out of a case it wouldn't kill them to get me one 45-card set.  Collation aside, it's a cool set with the bonus of forcing collectors to learn Roman numerals.  Bonus #2:  three Tom Bradys (one for each ring), though I only pulled two.

Super Bowl Legends Giveaway:  60 (1:1, 60 expected)

This one's still a bit of a mystery as all details of the promotion haven't been released.  It doesn't necessarily look like you redeem them for crappy Topps commons, but there are definitely prizes (virtual and tangible) for redeeming certain numbers of codes, with one of the better prizes being a Joe Namath autograph--the stipulation I'm reading into being that you need to unlock 45 "unique" items, but maybe that's not necessary, or maybe you can trade for them.  We'll know more in the future, but for now I'm holding onto mine until I know more and can decide I should redeem them or sell at a fair price.  Lots of sellers are liquidating these but I don't think that's the best idea without knowing what they could get you.  On a related note, I pulled five 10-card sets, then nine of a sixth, but got a seventh of a different card.  By the way, if you're lazy/stupid/cheap enough to be searching for free Giveaway codes, by all means please use the one above.  If you do, my reaction will be thus:

ToppsTown:  60 (1:1, 60 expected)
Ok, let's get this out of the way:  these suck, though not quite as much as the flimsy, throwaway versions Topps has done in the past. These are more like StarQuest, except with a dumb game you can play online.  Go ahead and swipe my code, see if I care.  I got 41/50 out of this set plus 19 dupes, so not terrible there.


NOTE:  I already showed the Black parallels in the hits post, so that's why you're not seeing them here.


NOTE #2:  I didn't pull an SP somehow, despite quite a bit of searching.  Go figure.


Quality control:  D-
Things seemed to look ok as I got started, but not long after that I started accumulating a small pile of cards with wrecked-as-hell corners:

I'm not sure this scan does the damage to the upper-right corner justice, but it's pretty bad, and symptomatic of a good pile of cards from the case overall (with some being bad on the lower-left instead).  Additionally, I found a nice little stack of poorly miscut cards:

Any worse and Brian would have been poking his head into his neighbor's card above going "HAY GUISE, WATS GOIN' ON IN THIS CARD?"  Since Topps has a stupid policy of limiting you to sending in 25 damaged cards at a time, plus I'd have to go through the hassle of proving they didn't fall off a truck (literally, apparently, judging by what you see) with scans of the boxes/packs/my retinas, I'm gonna say screw it since I really only needed something like 15 cards to complete sets 4 and 5 and I should get those soon in a deal anyway.  
I think the total number of damaged and miscut cards came out to be less than 50, but it was still very annoying after ponying up for a case, and I'd be even more pissed if I'd grabbed just one box and those cut into my base set.  Then again, this is Topps, whose reputation for quality control (if they ever had one, I don't rightly know) has plummeted in the last few years.  Way to set the bar low, guys.


Overall grade:  B+
At this point I don't think I could live without putting together a Topps flagship football base set.  While I'm sure I won't be repeating the case experiment very often, I'm glad I tried it with these first, especially because of what you saw in the hits post:  two autographs and a generally excellent rookie patch guaranteed plus some extras make for a nice experience for the money (and these will surely come down to more reasonable levels before long; I just wanted to strike while the iron was hot for selling purposes).  The base set and many of the inserts are also big pluses, and really only the usual Topps annoyances--bad QC, one or two stupid inserts--detract from a very good product.  So I give buying something of this product a big thumbs up and I strongly encourage you to save up for the jumbo box--you'll be glad you did.


And now, my promise that I'll return to this topic in a couple weeks with what I learned after trying to sell some of my hits, sets and inserts!

2011 Topps jumbo football case: base and Wolverines

I'll get to the inserts and my overall thoughts next, but for now we'll take a look at the design, collation and Wolverines from my case:

Case:  2011 Topps football (jumbo)
Packs/cards:  60/50 (10 packs of 50, six boxes)
Price:  $510, Dave & Adam's

Base cards:

Some fronts:  regular, team card and RC

Aaron Rodgers back

Design grade:  A
I've always been a sucker for Topps' design.  Well, maybe not always--they had some pretty ugly sets prior to the late 90s--but for the last few years I've appreciated their consistent, yet subtly different base set designs.  With base Topps, you pretty much know what you're gonna get:  solid photography, a white border and a section with team, position and logo.  Added to that you can expect stamps or icons for RCs and major awards.  The backs are pretty standard, too: a clean design with bio info, a blurb about the player and full stats, not to mention team colors being part of the theme.
As usual, there's a few different types of cards or subsets:  regular players, RCs, checklists, Rookie of the Year, MVP, Pro Bowl and teams.  These are all mixed among the base set as Topps has been doing for the last few years--no more blocks of rookies at the end of the set, for example.
Not everyone is a fan, but for me this is what a Topps base set should look like (and I'm fully aware it was borrowed from its older brother, 2011 Topps baseball).


Base set completion:

• Set 1:  440/440 (100%)
• Set 2:  440/440 (100%)
• Set 3:  440/440 (100%)
• Set 4:  439/440 (99%)
• Set 5:  429/440 (97%)
• Set 6:  325/440 (74%)
• Extras:  13 x7s, 7 x8s

Average:  ~419/440 (95%)

Collation grade:  B

This is actually pretty solid for Topps--at least the average number makes it look like it.  It was nice to be able to do a case to get a more useful statistical sample to determine what you might be able to expect.  I do want to note that while the numbers came out pretty nicely, they're a bit higher than they should be in that a large handful of cards came out of the packs damaged (almost all of those being significantly wrecked corners) or with inexcusably poor centering (but all that falls under QC, not collation).  I'm debating sending those back to Topps, but I'm in the process of working out a deal on Blowout to get the rest of the base I need for sets 4 and 5.  I am a bit annoyed that I needed a single card for the fourth, but I'll live.  I decided not to go for a sixth set since it seemed like it would be cost prohibitive, but I'll have those to trade for other stuff, so that's a plus.  I'm happy that with relatively little work I should finish with five base sets, meaning I can keep one for myself and try to sell four others (want one?).  

And the bottom line is that getting about 95% of the base set is reasonable to me when you do the math:  you pull roughly 500 cards but each pack has roughly seven inserts, plus maybe a hit (some being thick and eliminating a few more).  My average box based on the whole break shows that you should get about 420/440 base cards, fewer than five doubles, three-to-four hits and around 70 inserts.  As far as Topps' very low bar goes, that's pretty good!

Wolverines!:

Lots this time since there were quite a few in the base set and I even pulled a bunch of inserts (no hits, though).

Base part 1

Base part 2

Inserts, with the Minis being Manningham, Woodson and Brady

More to come soon with a look at the inserts and my overall recommendation!

2011 Topps jumbo football case: just the hits

It's late and I'm tired, so most analysis will have to wait til tomorrow.  Until then, here are the highlights of my six jumbo boxes:

Edit, 8/6:  all are now available for sale right here.  As promised, things will be available for trade once selling winds down.

Box 1:

Box 2:

Box 3:

Box 4:

Box 5:

Box 6:

Edit:  somehow forgot to scan this one.  I'm guessing I got it in box 5, but who knows?:

A big thanks to BA Benny, Colbey, Derek and Dustin for hanging out and watching the break which made it that much more fun.  More to come, until you're sick of this set!  At least it's not Gypsy Queen, A&G, Bowman/Platinum or the like...

Let's break some 2011 Topps jumbo football!

+

TONIGHT ONLY!  8 pm EST on Livestream (link and player below).  Come for the vicarious fun, stay for the contests!

If you would like to be eligible for the giveaways, please make sure to sign in with a name that identifies you as someone I know, or make sure you identify yourself when I run through a quick roll call before the break (or whenever you stop in).  Some contests require you to guess something before or while I'm busting packs, so show up on time!  Please also note that you'll need to be part of the chat, so click the link below the video if necessary.

Watch live streaming video from toomanygrandersons at livestream.com

Direct link:  http://livestre.am/zkbc

For those of you that can't make it, I'll put up a recap soon after the break, likely within 24 hours.  Stuff will be available for sale so keep an eye out for that.


Come join your fellow bloggers revel in an outstanding case or make fun of me for wasting my money, tonight at 8!

Case break is Friday night; 2008 UD First Edition football review

Case is here:  This is the case.  I will be opening it starting around 8 pm EST Friday evening on Livestream (I'll provide a link/embedded player here).  I've lined up a few contests/giveaways, and how many I do will depend on how many of you bloggers/readers show up.  I'll likely also share a link to the break on the Blowout forum, but they'll be excluded from the giveaways since they're not awesome like you guys.  If you want to be a part of those please make sure to show up reasonably early as some will depend on guessing something before I get crackin'.  Also, please make sure you can identify yourself somehow so I can distinguish you from the ineligible Blowouters.  I'll probably try to get some kind of roll call going before I break the boxes so I can figure out who's around, and I figure that's a good thing anyway--you can advertise your blogs to the other viewers and maybe even to the Blowout folk who might not know about them.  Good?  Good.  See you all tomorrow night.

And now, a box review!

As I mentioned when I announced the case break, I took advantage of Dave & Adam's' deal where if you spend a certain amount, you get free stuff.  I felt like my best choice for what I spent was a box of 2008 Upper Deck First Edition football.  I've made it no secret that the 2008 draft class (Wolverines Long, Henne, Hart, Manningham, Arrington, etc., plus Matt Ryan, Chris Johnson, Joe Flacco, et al) is pretty much my favorite in recent memory, plus considering how much base I'd be getting, I thought I'd be a lock for pulling a complete set.  It doesn't really have any bells and whistles, pretty much being the recent equivalent of Collector's Choice, but I was cool with that in a free box.  Read on to see how I felt about the results of a box that was, for all intents and purposes, free.

Box:  2008 Upper Deck First Edition football
Packs/cards:  36/10
Price:  Free (free gift), Dave & Adam's


Base cards:

Veteran and Star Rookie fronts

Backs

Design grade:  A-
I definitely like what UD did here.  The card stock is different--maybe more of a cheaper feel, but that doesn't bother me.  I like the fronts quite a bit, especially the full-bleed photos.  My only real ding is the semi-transparent white band on which the player's name, position and team reside, because I think they take away from the photo.  The shots of the players are often excellent, though, and I picked a fun example in T.O. above.  The Star Rookies are a nice mix of poses, like Rice above, and action shots, including players in pro and college unis.  Another plus is the ordering of the set--I often like when they're sorted by team, although in this case that's where sorting stopped because players aren't in alphabetical order (not that it really makes a difference to me).  While it's not always necessary, I like team groups for the purposes of team sets and checklisting.  Overall this is a low-end but enjoyable base set, definitely targeted toward the bottom of the market, especially kids, I'm sure.


Base set completion:   204/225 (91%)
Extras:   82 doubles (25% of base cards pulled), 38 triples (12%).  Total doubles:  120/324 (37%)
Collation grade:  E
If you think I'm being harsh, you should have seen me while I was busting these.  A little more than halfway in I hadn't seen a double and things were going swimmingly.  Then, pretty quickly, things went downhill and I started pulling the exact same packs, in some cases twice.  I wasn't too worried at first since I was going to be getting 324 base cards, which meant 99 dupes--that means I should have been seeing lots of extras.  Still, when I noticed that I was missing some players I knew were on the checklist, including one Chad Henne, I started getting mad.  All the same, I wasn't that frustrated, at least not until I actually sorted these out.  Holy gap power, that's a lot of doubles!  While I need a few from the first 200, it looks to me like 201-225 may have been short printed--I only pulled 10 from that group, and that meant lots of other rookie doubles.  I can't complain too much about having extra Joe Flaccos and Chris Johnsons, exactly, but I'm not a fan of the non-random pack-outs you see sometimes, and I got bitten hard by them here.  As a nice segue into the inserts, I didn't have the greatest luck there either, as you'll see.


Inserts (36):

StarQuest:  36 (1:pack, 36 expected):  The box clearly touts this insert and nothing else (which makes sense, since there isn't anything else).  I remember this insert from the Collector's Choice days, and as usual, the design is hit or miss.  I call this bland, shiny design a miss, but maybe others like it.  When I found out it was a 30-card set, I hoped I'd land all 30, and just six doubles, but that wasn't meant to be--instead I got 25 unique players (I didn't feel like scanning all of them) and 11 different dupes.  Since I'm so close to the set I figured I'd tack them on to my wantlist, then maybe dump the set later if I decide I don't want to keep it.


Overall insert grade:  D-
I'm not as harsh here because the box doesn't purport to include any big extras and you get exactly what you're promised.  I just wasn't wowed with the design of the one they did include, and I was annoyed at not even pulling a set of them, odds be damned.

Hits:  In this box?  For real?

Value grade:  D-
I may as well be consistent!  While I got this box for free, I want to compare the value of picking up the packs vs. buying a factory set, which is apparently an option.  I can tell you hands down that the factory set is the way to go, and not just because you get a free jersey card; there was just no way I was going to pull either set from this box.  I have a few useful dupes of the rookies, but other than that, not much to be excited about.  Hell, even as a free box this isn't doing much for me, considering the money or effort I'll have to put into completing it.
Recommendation:
Stay away, stay very far away.  Go with something else if you spend this much on D&A.  Woof.


How about some Wolverines to cheer me up?:

Braylon Edwards, Charles Woodson, Tom Brady, Mario Manningham, Adrian Arrington, Shawn Crable, Tom Brady StarQuest


Wantlists are here.  Please help if you can--I have plenty of dupes for trade, or other stuff of course.


2008 Upper Deck First Edition:  41 53 57 163 193 198 202 204 205 206 208 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 225
2008 Upper Deck First Edition StarQuest:  4 16 17 21 25

2011 Topps football case break update and poll

As a quick update, my jumbo case of 2011 Topps football has shipped from DACardworld.  That means it should arrive roughly by Friday (EDIT:  tracking says Thursday right now).  No promises, but since it's in the hands of UPS and not USPS, it's less likely to get abducted and burned as an offering to the god of incompetence and nose-picking, I think we'll be good (I'll have that nailed down once the tracking updates).

Because I'm occasionally an attention whore, I'd like to see about doing a live break of the case.  As such, a poll (please keep in mind my time zone is Eastern, if that helps):

If you're interested in a live break, which date/time works best for you?
	Friday evening
	Saturday afternoon
	Saturday evening
	Sunday afternoon
	Sunday evening
pollcode.com free polls

I'm hoping if enough of you are interested, you don't make me wait until Saturday or Sunday!  My tentative plan would be to bust everything on UStream, giving everyone a look at what's pulled and allowing those present dibs on buying some of the stuff I get.  I'd also like to mix in some contests/prizes, maybe a couple random giveaways and maybe prizes for guessing the number of hits pulled, who the SPs or printing plates are, etc.

ASK ME HOW YOU CAN GET FREE CARDS TODAY!  THE GOVERNMENT DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW!!!!!!!!

So please vote and get your fellow bloggers and readers to do so too--this should be a blast of a break and I'd hate to keep it all to myself.  The more people that show up, the more contests/giveaways I'll do, so let's make this a big TMG event!

A card experiment: FOR SCIENCE!* (*not actually for science)

I just wanted to let you all know about a new development in TMG land today, a sports card experiment that promises to be as exciting as it is enlightening, at least for me.

*Not actually sexy.  Or science.  For!

As usual when there's a new product, there's been a lot of buzz about 2011 Topps football.  I've seen a good number of breaks and like some of what I've seen pulled.  Add to that the fact that I always pick myself up a box of these because I like grabbing a set for myself.

Well, while looking over some of these breaks, I started to consider the circumstances and consequences of picking up a case.  I knew this would guarantee me a couple sets and potentially some pretty nice hits, some of which I could try to sell back.  I cruised over to the general football/collecting discussion board on Blowout and solicited advice from people who usually do that sort of thing, including those that had already cracked some 2011 Topps.  I really only got one response that included any kind of advice, but the overall tone was a thumbs up based on his experience.

My next step was to see what kind of pricing I could get among Blowout, Atlanta Sports Cards and Dave & Adam's Card World.  I'd previously ordered from the first and last, but not Atlanta, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  Overall, Atlanta had the best price, but I had hoped to buy from D&A because they're located closer to me (for shipping purposes, natch) and because they throw in free stuff once you spend $75 or more, which is always nice.

I decided to ping D&A's customer support to see if they'd price match Atlanta's then-low price (which has since gone up a few bucks).  When they got back to me, they told me that while they wouldn't match THAT price, but would go as low as a few bucks more, which knocked off enough to make them the best value for me (taking into account the freebies as well).  They really are great people over there and, considering this is now my second time purchasing from them, and keeping in mind that my customer service experience with them was so positive, I can't recommend them enough, so please keep them in mind for your future orders.  To be fair, I can also give Blowout my seal of approval, and they also cut me a deal on a case break in the past.

Anyway, after all that, I placed my order with D&A's this afternoon, and hopefully I'll be seeing my case very soon (along with a free box of 2008 UD First Edition football!), because after that, y'all will get to see every part of it as well.  So what's the big deal with all the talk about card experiments?

This is essentially my first case I'll be busting on my own that's not part of a group break (discounting a rack case of 1988 Donruss my brother and I split way back--junk wax doesn't count!) and my intention is to see how I fare trying to recoup some money after keeping what I want.  My expectation is that I'll be able to make some money back on a couple complete sets (maybe even a master set), SPs, hits (relics/patches and autographs) and other stuff (plates?).  I'm not even dreaming of making back close to what I'm paying for the case, but I feel that, rather than drop $90 on a jumbo box (which seems like the best value), I have the best chance of pulling valuable stuff to sell by getting six of them.

So whenever that case arrives, I'll treat everyone to a box-by-box look at the case, then keep y'all posted on my progress as I see what I can sell things for.  I'll make everything very much available to each of you that's interested since I feel you deserve dibs, but I want to be clear that for the purposes of this experiment, I'll be selling only to start with.  After a reasonable amount of time, I'll cease the sell-only attitude and make things available for trade.  My plan is to try to sell stuff through Blowout's forums first as I have a pretty good rep there and wouldn't have to pay Feebay's outrageous, um, fees, but I'll have to see how that goes.

I'm very interested in finding out how a casual collector who doesn't sell cards as his day job can do cracking a case and trying to sell back some of it.  Still, I want to be clear that, especially during my time with this blog, the trading and collecting aspects of the hobby are still my primary focus; I'm not going to flip out on you and become a distributor or worse, an eBay seller (::shudder::) anytime soon.  I just saw this as an ideal opportunity to combine set-building with the experience of selling to see what happens.  I hope some of you find this interesting and follow along as I bust boxes and list stuff for sale.  If there's enough interest I'll consider some sort of live break, maybe even with contests and stuff to make it more interesting, so please let me know if you'd be down for that.  Right now I'm very excited and can't help thinking that no matter what happens, this will be tons of fun...FOR SCIENCE!