I love dusty chrome

This is not a post professing my love for an alt-rock chick named "Dusty," although if I ever create a comic book series, the heroine will be named "Dusty Chrome."

No, this about my long-delayed discovery of cards at a drug store.

Many, many, many months ago, I read about bloggers finding 2009 Topps Chrome for sale at Rite Aid. It made me positively giddy. First, you don't find cards at drug stores very often anymore. Secondly, there  actually is a Rite Aid in my outpost hell. Two of them in fact.

However, I've reached the point in my life where my brain resists absorbing new information. It's a fun side effect of turning 40. I've rejected a great many new-fangled items that I have stumbled across in the last couple of years, just because my brain has turned its nose up at them.

So months went by and I never even entered either Rite Aid store. Neither of them are conveniently located. One is way on the other side of town. The other has a parking lot layout conceived by monkeys.

But the other day, I happened to be at the other-side-of-town Rite Aid. Staring back at me at the checkout line was a box of 2009 Topps Chrome. I grabbed two packs. They were covered in dust. After getting them home, one of the cards pulled was the Barry Zito xrefractor. I have the Zito xrefractor already. How on earth do I pull doubles of an xrefractor? Very disappointing.

However, when buying those two packs, I discovered something else. They were half price.

This was news that my brain WOULD absorb. But I had to act fast. I was back at the store the next day before my brain had time to decide that it would rather retain the lyrics to Quiet Riot songs instead. I grabbed a handful of dusty packs, leaving two forlorn packs for the next time I find myself lost on the wrong side of town.

I didn't get anything great. But the cards were HALF-PRICE (unlike at stingy Target), and it's one of many sets I'm attempting to collect.

Here are the cards that I needed:

Another stinking Giant.

A Giant that I will accept because it's one of the few Chrome cards that features a different shot than the 2009 base set.

Kenji Johjima, who decided the major leagues wasn't for him.

The man who spawned a thousand broadcaster cliches. I plan to be absent in about 2020, during his Hall of Fame induction speech.

Last year's "in" rookie. Now replaced by Jason Heyward.

A WBC guy who was actually signed by a major league team, the Twins. I feel better about these WBC cards when I know that.

Here are the refractors that I pulled. They're all tradeable, although I still need the Lester card for the base set, so the refractor may be a filler until I can find it.

I pulled three xrefractors:

Of course, one was Todd Helton. I'm quite sure a chip has been implanted in my body that serves as a Todd Helton parallel homing device. I'm sick of seeing this guy and all of his Rockies cronies.

You probably can't tell that this is an xrefractor. The dark scoreboard affects the shininess. But I always liked this card, so it's nice to have the xrfractor version.

The last one is another guy who follows me around. The xrefractor combined with an old-time baseball image of Mantle is a bit disorienting, but I suppose it's a nice card.

So, that takes care of my dose of shiny for today. As luck would have it, I also received a package from Play at the Plate today that includes some more '09 Chrome wants. So I actually overloaded on the shiny this weekend.

To balance things out, I suppose I should reveal the results of the "Best George Scott '70s" poll.

In third place with five votes each are the 1971 and 1977 Scotts.

In second place with six votes is the Franken-photo of Scott plastered onto the background of another stadium on his 1973 card.

And in first place by a long shot, with 13 votes, is the 1970 Scott, which would be my vote as well.

I'm a little disappointed that the 1976 card didn't make it into the top three, but even that card is not as good as the 1970 card.

Thanks for voting.

Also, if anyone is still collecting the 2009 Chrome set, I have lots of dupes. But don't worry. I've cleared off the dust.