Oh, Target card aisle how I've missed you, part 2 (the shiny)

I'm going to have a difficult time avoiding Topps Chrome this year. I'm trying to cut down because the last few years I've purchased quite a bit of it and haven't accomplished much. I'm still trying to finish off that '09 set.

In fact, Chrome might be the most enticingly frustrating card product that there is.

It's so shiny.

So pretty.

So inviting.

So tantalizing.

So touchable.

So smooth.

Soooooooooooooo -- soooooooooooo ... uh ...

Hey, stop that.

I was talking about CARDS.

Really.

You people.

You're supposed to be above this.

You've got families, and jobs, and grown-up furniture, and ...

Ah, well. I can't argue with anyone named Brooklyn.

The cards are so beautiful that even after the debacle of last year's Pringles Chrome set, I still can't resist buying them. Even WHILE the cards were curling up on me and rolling away so I had to spend all of my free time searching for them (not a true story), and WHILE I was trying to devise various complicated, scientific ways to pound them flat in order to send them off in card packages (true story), I was still buying them like they were free. They might as well have been wearing a bikini and holding a Sam Adams.

I fully admit that part of this had to do with the orange refractors in rack packs. There's no way I can say no to colored parallels in a rack pack.

So, here we are in 2011, and Chrome is out again and I have vowed not to buy as much of it this year. I am an unmovable, impenetrable, asexual rock (as opposed to a sexual rock). I am angry at the curling, and I have just got to cut down on all the cards. Really. It's time to be thrifty and spartan and all of those synonyms for YIKES, I AM SO POOR.

But then I heard that the orange refractors had returned.

Erp. ... I am back in.

Fortunately, I was able to stop at a single rack pack this time. I make no promises of what will occur in the future. In fact if Target puts a photo of Brooklyn Decker above the card display the next time I'm there, they can pretty much check off making their quota for the day -- simply based on what I purchase. Just a friendly tip there.

And just to get me even more fired up, Topps done gone and fixed the curly-cue thing this year. The cards are gloriously flat.

Good gosh, I am SO in trouble.

Here's the rack pack:

PACK 1

#90 - Kevin Youkilis, Red Sox.

All the Angels' fine work is going to waste.

#75 - Roy Halladay, Phillies, Xfractor.

Or whatever they're calling it these days. Topps isn't labeling them on the back anymore. I guess they're open to interpretation. I'm calling it Cubes Gone Wild.

#137 - Chris Young, Diamondbacks
#121 - Chris Carpenter, Cardinals

PACK 2

#80 - Joe Mauer, Twins.

Here's the first Chrome card that I've seen that is different from the 2011 base set card.

Here's the base set card:

Did Topps get a call from the umpires' union?

#89 - Gaby Sanchez, Marlins

#129 - Mark Reynolds, Orioles, refractor

The refractors have been a lot more obvious the last couple of years. That's good, because I would have been flipping out if they were like they were in say, 2008, and Topps took the "refractor" notation off the back.

#191 - Andrew Cashner, Cubs
Checklist (it has a forest green border, if you care)

PACK 3

#56 - Gio Gonzalez, A's.

That is a gorgeous card. And I'm saying that fully realizing that Brooklyn is still in this post. I don't even care if she heard. Man up, Brook. Cards can be gorgeous, too.

#71 - Colby Rasmus, Cardinals

C182 - Andre Ethier, Dodgers, Chrome Heritage insert

Very nice. A special shiny of the suddenly crippled Ethier. I fully expect people (meaning me) to confuse these Chrome Heritage cards with the chrome cards in Heritage. In fact I don't even know what to call both of them. Is one Chrome Heritage and one Heritage Chrome? Are they both Chrome Heritage? At any rate, I like these better than the blocked-out shiny background of the Heritage Chromes ... or chrome Heritages ... whatever, I barely know what I'm saying.

#68 - Ardolis Chapman, Reds

AND NOW FOR THE ORANGE REFRACTORS!!!!!

#19 - Joey Votto, Reds

#187 - Scott Cousins, Marlins

#68 - Ardolis Chapman, Reds

Another Reds-intensive trio of orange refractors. I encountered the same thing last year.

And that's the product that I'm supposed to be buying less of this year.

...

...

Yeah, there's no chance of that.

Just like there's no chance three-fourths of you got through this.