2010 Topps Allen & Ginter Part 2

Part 1 dealt with the base cards from the hobby box I bought. Part 3 will deal with the hits. Today we'll look at the inserts and minis.This is the "This Day in History" insert and comes one per pack. I like it better than the National Pride inserts from last year. The player image is different from his base card. On December 17, 1903, the Wright Brothers conducted the first heavier-than-air flight at Kitty Hawk. But you knew that, didn't you?
Last year they had Highlight Sketches, this year they are called Original Sketches. This card celebrates Jeter becoming the All-time Yankees hits leader.
Allen & Ginter didn't invent the 'mini' card but perhaps does it best. This is a regular card, parallel with the base set. There are more mini cards than base cards which is usual although I've never seen one numbered higher than the base card count. At least until now. More about that in the next Allen & Ginter post.
As usual, the mini cards come in multiple flavors. This Berkman card has the Allen & Ginter back, the most common variant. The other variant is the Bazooka back which I didn't get. In fact, I've never gotten one of these.
And of course there is the black border variant. Shawn Johnson won a Gold Metal at the Beijing Olympics. She was also named "America's Most-Liked Sports Figure" in a 2009 poll.
There is a mini card in each pack but some of them are insert sets. Here is Apollo from the 25-card Lords of Olympus set.
Allen & Ginter has always featured a set having something about countries. This year it's National Animals. Somehow, the Ostrich is the national animal of Caribbean island-nation of Grenada.
Another new set is the 10-card Sailors of the Seven Seas. De Soto explored Florida where he massacred everybody in sight.
They usually have some sort of creature set, this year it's the 25-card Monsters of the Mesozoic. This is card #1, featuring the king of the dinosaurs himself, Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The last mini card I got is this from the 15-card set, World's Greatest Word Smiths. Cervantes, of course, wrote Don Quixote De La Mancha, considered to be, according to the back of the card, the first modern novel.

The other two mini sets I didn't get are "Mini World's Biggest" and "Mini Creatures of Legend, Myth, and Joy".

2010 Topps Allen & Ginter Part 1

My hobby box of 2010 Topps Allen & Ginter arrived the other day. I'm real happy with it. I'm planning three posts. This one will focus on the base cards. The next will focus on the minis and other inserts. The box Said there would be any three of the following: autograph cards, relic cards, pr1nting plates, rip cards and cut signatures. The third post will show what I got. The design changed again this year. They retained the borders but put a blue-greenish background in. They also did away with the box at the bottom of the card with the player name and card logo. The card logo is also slightly different. I think the cards look great. According to beckett.com, the cards above 300 are short prints. This Drew card is #345. I can't see anyway to distinguish them from the regular cards.
In general, the cards feature posed pictures. Several of them could be action shots, like this Ichiro card.
This is the only 2010 Ken Griffey I've seen.
I only got two Astros cards in the box, this Oswalt and Pedro Feliz.
I did real well with Phillies, with 7 of them. The only important card I didn't get was Howard. All of the horizontal cards feature action shots like this one.
Andy looking very menacing.
Manny with the classic bat across the shoulders pose. There are several players using this pose in the set.
Another Phillie.
There is the usual collection of entertainers, athletes from other sports and historical figures. I chose this card because I have no idea who she is. As I was scanning this card, the Coldplay song "Sparks" was playing on iTunes. Really.
There are also the usual technology and natural objects.

Song of the Week - Come Away Melinda by Uriah Heep

From heavy metal pioneers Uriah Heep. I actually own this record and I remember liking it. According to Wikipedia the album was near universally panned when it was released. They quote Melissa Mills, who began her review, "If this group makes it I'll have to commit suicide. From the first note you know you don't want to hear any more." They went on to release 22 albums. I wonder how Ms Mills is doing. "Come Away Melinda" is a classic post apocalyptic heavy metal ballad.

Thursday Night at the Movies - Knight and Day

Trailers for the movies Killers with Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl and Knight and Day with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz started showing at about the same time. Both seemed to be humorous action-adventure flics with virtually the same plot line. A beautiful woman (Heigl/Diaz) meets a handsome mysterious stranger (Kutcher/Cruise). People start shooting at them. The woman is frightened but the man is competent. The woman gets over her fear and even joins in the mayhem. Both movies looked like a lot of fun and we had planned to see both.The reviews for Killers were not good. So bad in fact (our local paper gave it one star out of 4) that we decided not to see it. But the reviews for Knight and Day were good (3 stars). And it was good.

Diaz plays June Havens, an auto mechanic (really) who specializes in restoring vintage cars. She's in Wichita retrieving parts for a project. Cruise plays Roy Miller, a secret agent, who may or may not have gone bad. It's a standard caper movie but the action sequences are exciting and funny and the location shooting is gorgeous.

Roy has the MacGuffin and and uses June to get it past security at the airport. The scene where a TSA agent is pulling various car parts from her luggage is pretty good. The MacGuffin is a battery, about the size of a c-cell which can power a small city and it's barely socially competent inventor.

The movie is a series of set pieces where Roy is trying to keep the battery/inventor from various bad guys while trying to protect June. Bullets are flying, cars are screeching, airplanes are crashing, but Roy is unfailing polite to June (and others) and almost never ruffled. June, in constant panic in the beginning, gradually learns how to keep her head while the madness is going on all around her.

If you've seen any of the trailers and liked what you saw, then you'll like the movie. There is a lot of violence but it is all of the 1st-person-shooter video game sort. There is good chemistry between Diaz and Cruise but the director mainly keeps it chaste.

2010 Topps Fielding Plays

Now that I've finally gotten some Series 2 Topps, I can make some more imaginative posts. Here are my favorite defensive plays by position that I have from 2010 Topps

#220 Randy JohnsonI've noticed that there are not many cards featuring defensive plays by pitchers. This is the only one I have in 2010 Topps. Looks like Randy is making a desperate play on a bunt.

#303 Chris Snyder
This is an exciting play. Snyder has thrown off his mask and is launching himself after a pop up. Watch out for the bat!

#295 Kevin Youkilis
Youk looks like he's trying to launch this throw to the moon.

#300 Chase Utley
Utley is one of the best second basemen in baseball. Here he's making a force on Reed Johnson of the Cubs while trying to avoid getting bowled over.

#549 Derek Jeter
An acrobatic move by Jeter as he leaps over a sliding Shane Victorino.

#527 Brandon Wood
The Angels Brandon Wood looks to be trying to turn a double play after a force at third.

#117 David DeJesus
DeJesus gets impressive hang time here but we can't tell if he actually caught the ball.

#547 Brett Gardner
Interesting body position as Gardner gets a bead on the ball.

#625 Grady Sizemore
Strain and concentration register on Sizemore's face as he tracks down this fly ball.

Book Club - Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life

Ok, I know I'm 58 years old, but I still love quirky and this is quirky. We've been seeing trailers for the movie "Scott Pilgrim Versus the World" and have been looking forward to the movie. My daughter told me she had the series on which the movie is based so I said I'd give it a shot.Scott Pilgrim is a 23-year-old slacker living in Toronto (I think) with a 17-year-old girlfriend named Knives. His friends, members of his terrible rock band, always tease him about dating a high schooler. Then he starts dreaming about Ramona Flowers. Ramona delivers books for Amazon.ca through hyperspace highways that run through Scott's head. That's why he's dreaming about her. Did I say quirky? He and Ramona start dating and he learns she has 7 evil ex-boyfriends that he must defeat. I'll probably read the rest of the series. And still go see the movie.

Song of the Week - "Flash Brindisi" at Reading Terminal Market

This took place at the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia on April 10, 2010. A very cultured "flash" mob.