It's My Burfday! Here's a Holy Grail card!

Happy baseball birthdays to Tom Glavine and Hyun-Jin Ryu!  Also, happy birthday to Jim Lovell, Elton John, Tatjana Patitz, Anders Fridén (\m/), Bob Sura, Wladimir Klitschko, Lee Pace, Danica Patrick, Arnošt of Pardubice, first Archbishop of Prague (only included him because his name contains "Arno"), and many, many others!

I thought I would wait until today, my birthday, to post a recently acquired baseball card of most epic proportions:

1998 Donruss Signature, Significant Signatures #R3 Sandy Koufax autograph, #'d 0905/2000.

"Yurp," believe what you are seeing ladies and gentlemen!  Gaze upon madness.  Gaze upon prismatic card-stock perfection.  Indeed, I obtained a "Holy Grail" card of mine.  It is quite possibly a "Holy Grail" for many other collectors too.  No, I did not purchase this Sandy Koufax auto for my birthday.  I received a substantially large tax refund this year because I apparently overpaid thousands in taxes last year.  This card represents my big refund splurge.

I bought it a few weeks ago, in fact, at All Star Cards in Santee, CA.  They are one of my favorite card stores in California, so check them out if you happen to be in the San Diego area.  My girlfriend and I were in the card shop when I noticed an Albert Pujols signature card.  I said, "Man, I should just buy that instead of a risky box of cards."  However, I then looked behind the Pujols autograph on the shelf and saw the beauty you see above.  It was an epiphany of sorts, and love at first sight.  The awesome father-daughter team at All Star Cards even knocked several dollars off the asking price.  The black ink of the "K" and "O" in "Koufax" is imperfect, but to me the card is perfection in cardboard form.

I got my Koufax!

(Sweet trade post from Brad to come soon.)

Birthday box break: 2011 Leaf Ink Baseball

I celebrated my burfday this past weekend with copious amounts of rum and beer, and also The Raid.  If you are any fan of action and/or martial arts movies, you will very likely enjoy The Raid.  I should note that the full title is The Raid: Redemption.  If you happened to watch Merantau on Netflix, The Raid is by the same director and stars the same dude.  However, The Raid is like Merantau with a quarter of the plot and five times the athleticism and pencak silat destruction.

Apologies for straying off topic.  Without further ado, here is my video box break for 2011 Leaf Ink Baseball:

Man, I pulled some awesome cards of good players and Hall of Famers.  A quick rundown for those of us who are too lazy to look them up:

-Billy Herman: Hall of Fame second baseman for the Chicago Cubs and Brooklyn Dodgers, served during World War II.  (GO DODGERS!)
-Bobby Thomson: Hit the "Shot Heard 'round the World."  -_- ... super cool though!
-Pete Runnels: Red Sox great, good hitter.
-Don Nottebart: Threw first no-hitter in Houston Colt .45's/Astros history, gave up Willie Mays' 500th homer.
-Ken Walters: Outfielder, played for a few years in the 60's for the Phillies and Cubs.

Yay!