2026 McDonald's KPop Demon Hunters Photocards

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  Posts are not coming together as quickly as I planned.  When my home laptop was working, I would be able to at least start the post at home and then complete it at work when things got slow.  Nowadays it's more complicated.  

I can edit the pictures I take of the cards at work, but the work computer and work laptop doesn't allow for uploading pictures to Blogger.  So for now I have to email the edited pictures to my personal email account, then borrow the youngest kid's school laptop to log in and download the pictures to his computer, then switch the Google account to mine (since the school laptop doesn't allow student accounts to access Blogger at all) so I can upload the pictures for the post.  It's a whole thing.

Anyway, in the year of milestones for Ol' Jafronius (The Wifey and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary last week...Happy Silver Anniversary to my Beloved!), today marks the 15th anniversary of my first post on APTBNL.  As you all know, I go with a non-sports product for the anniversary post.

McDonald's has been doing "adult themed" Happy Meals for a couple of years now, and back in March, they released a KPop Demon Hunters Happy Meal.  Promotions for the Happy Meal encouraged customers to pick a side, the Saja Boys or HUNTR/X.  

If you were Team Saja Boys, you had to show up for breakfast to get a spicy McMuffin.  If you were Team HUNTR/X, you could go for lunch or dinner and get a 10-piece McNuggets with either a Hunter Sauce (sweet chili) or Demon Sauce (bold mustard), as well as fries with Ramyeon seasoning.  There was also a Derpy McFlurry, a vanilla McFlurry with "berry popping pearls" and wild berry sauce.

I'm assuming these are two different sides of the box, I don't remember now.

The Wifey usually goes for the 10-piece when she wants McDonald's and she enjoys the movie as well, so it wasn't a surprise when I saw the box in the house one evening.  What did surprise me was there was a pack of cards that came with the Happy Meal.  

There's the front and back of the HUNTR/X pack.  Each pack comes with 2 cards:

#NNO - Zoey (front and back)

Per TCDB, there's 13 cards in the checklist.  The backs of the cards are all the same.

There's a second card in the pack:

#NNO - Derpy (front and back)

Derpy (not part of the checklist) comes in every pack.  Scan the QR code on the back and you're brought to a McDonald's page with bonus KPop Demon Hunters content.  Nowadays it brings you to the main McDonald's page.  Don't know if the code unlocked specific content. 

#NNO - Huntrix

She had one more HUNTR/X pack; this one had the whole group.  According to this, there are rarity levels assigned to each card and this one was an Uncommon.  Zoey was a Common card.

But wait, there's more!

The Wifey had a couple of the Saja Boys packs, which I was surprised to see because she's not a fan of spicy food or McMuffins.  Here's what she pulled from those:

#NNO - Mystery Saja

#NNO - Abby Saja

Both of these are Common cards.  I don't know if certain cards belong to one set or the other, like if Abby Saja pop up in the HUNTR/X pack, for example.

Anyway, those are the packs.  I'd like to think I can get a better routine going to get posts up, but it's getting close to Halloween, and that means end of the year craziness, am I right?  Until next time (whenever that will be), have a good week, and thanks for reading these past 15 years!

2026 Topps Series 2 Retail

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  First off, 60th years ago today, Star Trek premiered on NBC.  I was going to post something Star Trek related to APTBNL, but I didn't have any cards at arm's length to post, nor was there anything at retail to grab.  It's a shame that there's nothing in stores to commemorate the 60th anniversary.  I believe Rittenhouse has the license for Trek trading cards, but they're not readily available in retail; I doubt even the LCSs carry them with any regularity.  

We moved my eldest to Hofstra University a couple of weeks ago.  Drove through a lot of rain in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and the kid driving through Manhattan had the both of us on edge.  Fortunately, there was no rain when we rolled into Long Island and moved him in.  He was ready to go and didn't look back when we said our goodbyes and left for home (surprisingly, no one cried).  So far, he's getting the hang of freshman life; hopefully he has a successful first year.

Whenever he was out and about, I would tell him to look out for cards, and sometimes he would be successful, getting a pack for the 2 of us.  Yes, I knew when cards would be out, at least at the Target I work at, but it was better to have him find some; it was a like a father and son experience, I guess. 

A few weeks before we shipped him off to college, he came home with a couple packs of Series 2 retail.  Here's what he got:

#439 - Gleyber Torres

#420 - Luis Arraez

#615 - Taylor Rashi (RC)

#478 - Tyler Wells

Arraez was moved to the Phillies at the trade deadline, which caused a bit of an infield shakeup since Philadelphia was pretty set at the infield.  Bryson Stott moved from Second to Third, Alex Bohm moved from Third to First, and Bryce Harper went back to Right Field.  Nice problem to have, I guess.

#583 - Josh Simpson (RC)

#423 - Luis Robert Jr.

#533 Jasson Domínguez

#387 - Drew Sommers (RC)

Robert was claimed off waivers by Baltimore after the Mets were unsuccessful in trading him.

Simpson's wearing the Marlins' City Connect 2.0 “Retrowave” uniforms, which was worn on Saturday home games.  Sommers has the Tigers' "Motor City" uniform on, which debuted in 2024.  They were worn on Friday home games back then but I don't know if they kept that schedule up in 2025 (nor do I care enough to research it).

#514 - Zac Veen

#593 - Sal Frelick

A couple of nice shots here, with Topps including the baseball outside the border for Zac's card.

#451 - Jake Burger

#496 - San Francisco Giants

The Rangers' City Connect uniforms have been in use since 2023.  Those uniforms took elements from 3 minor league teams in the Dallas-Fort Worth area...I have no problems with that for a City Connect uniform.

#518 - Brandon Woodruff

#SMLB-33 - Dylan Beavers (RC) (Stars of MLB)

A Stars of MLB card once again comes in every pack.  Beavers' base card is in Series 1.

Here's the backs because Klingons:

Anyway, that's the pack, short and sweet.  Happy birthday to Star Trek, and Live Long and Prosper!

2025 Topps Stadium Club Fat Pack

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.

Apologies for the lack of quasi-regular posts here.  I attribute it to plenty of working both jobs, plus the small shift in the start time of the overnight job (like an hour or so) which I guess somehow led to less time to work on posts in the middle of the night.

Since I've been MIA, my home laptop bit the dust back at Easter (no resurrections there unfortunately), which meant the pictures I took of cards for the blog (among a bunch of other files and whatnot) were lost.  Finding the packs again to retake the pictures takes time, especially when there's little time available.

Plus America turned 250, we had the NBA Finals and the MLB All Star Game, and The Wifey and I both turned 50 in the last few weeks, but enough rambling.

I was initially excited when I saw Fat Packs of Stadium Club; 7 bucks for 36 cards?  Of Stadium Club?  Awesome!  Then I found out there were 100 less cards in the set, with no reason why.  Not as excited, but I still got some packs.  Here's one of them:

#26 - Yainer Diaz

#169 - Oneil Cruz

Starting off with 2 horizontal cards.  The minimalist nameplate works overall for Stadium Club, but it can lead to issues reading the name, like with Yainer there.

#48 - Shota Imanaga

#154 - Dalton Rushing (RC)

#88 - Nolan Schanuel (Pink Parallel)

#51 - Ketel Marte

It's unfortunate that Shota's card is a duplicate to his Topps flagship card from last year.  Also notice the 3 parallels are not all together in the pack.

#120 - Sandy Alcantara

#78 - Lawrence Butler

#178 - Mackenzie Gore

Nice Butler card, but hard to see his name, just like Diaz's card above.

#168 - Freddie Freeman (Pink Parallel)

#175 - James Wood (RC) (Pink Parallel)

Here are the other 2 parallels.

The jersey Wood's wearing was an alternate home jersey, which was their first pullover jersey (as opposed to the standard button-up style).  Info online seems to indicate this jersey was over and done with after a year.

#134 - George Kirby

#82 - Kyle Manzardo

#192 - Trevor Hoffman

#160 - Mookie Betts

#54 - Caden Dana (RC)

No offense to Caden, but questionable move by Topps to waste a spot in Stadium Club (remember, 100 cards less than last year) on a player with a career 1-6 record, an ERA of 7.17, and has yet to pitch in the majors this year.

#180 - Manny Machado

#65 - Matt Shaw (RC)

Here's the checklist if anyone needs it.

#188 - CJ Abrams

#44 - Jon Berti

That's probably the best Jon Berti baseball card ever, but again, why give a spot to a player who hasn't played since the Cubs released him last August?  Certainly that was enough time to remove him from the checklist, since Stadium Club was released in February.

#103 - Chandler Simpson (RC)

#93 - Spencer Schwellenbach

#56 - Steven Kwan

#2 - Joey Votto

The randomness of teams returns; glad they fixed the issue with the team groupings from last year.

#148 - Ryan Howard

#30 - Salvador Perez

#40 - Ozzie Albies

I also read that there were less inserts / variations in this year's set.  I bought several of the Fat Packs and only got 1 insert, so it's possible the claims were legit.

#13 - Logan Henderson (RC)

#183 - Masyn Winn

Henderson's having a pretty good year for the always tough Brewers, and I've been a Cubs fan long enough to never count out the Cardinals until they're mathematically eliminated.

#133 - Buster Posey

#115 - Luisangel Acuña

#167 - Matt Chapman

That's a great Acuña card.  It's like the Jedi ghosts of Mr. and Mrs. Met have approved of his training.

#175 - James Wood (RC)
#155 - Pete Alonso
#146 - Junior Caminero
#199 - Johan Santana

Last 4 cards.  Since it's a James Wood hot pack I'll show off his back, and since there's no inserts there's no need to show more.

Anyway, that's the pack.  Overall, the Stadium Club photography and Fat Packs win the day, but less cards and possibly less inserts and variations isn't so good overall.  

Hopefully this gets me off my rear end and I can get back to the quasi-regular posts.  As always, thanks for reading!

1988-89 Pacific MISL

Here we have a pack of 1988-89 Pacific MISL soccer cards. The wrapper is traditional wax of the time and the most obvious feature is the sticker they pit on the wrapper to cover up the fact someone forgot to change the date from the previous season. Gotta love the 80s.

Normally, I would start with the fronts, but uploading from my phone will not pit the photos in the correct order regardless of how I select them, so here we are:

This back features former Pittsburgh Spirit star Joe Papaleo playing for the Dallas Sidekicks because Pittsburgh dissolved the Spirit for the second time. As a kid, I saw every Spirit home game and even hung out with the team during various events like the annual Christmas party. I digress. The backs feature an almost 90s-esque teal blue accent. The card number is shown in the upper left corner. The player’s name, team, and position are centered at the top, and the Pacific logo sits in the upper right corner. Below that, we have player stats including their nationality, which I think is a cool bio addition for soccer players. Below the stats is the copyright info.

The first three cards are displayed below. The fronts feature a gray border around the whole face. Inset, the featured player or coach is surrounded by a thin colored border that matches the team primary color. In the ipper right, an offset caption shows the card’s season. At the bottom, the team logo, player name, and position are displayed in a larger offset box. Here we have Andy Chapman, Chris Vaccaro, and Slobo Ilijevski:

The full set contains 110 cards. There were no inserts, parallels, special editions, etc. This was a “take em as we give em” kinda deal.

The next three cards are  Neil Megson, Mike Dowler, and Dale Mitchell:

Fun fact: the very first baseball card I ever bought as a kid was a Dale Mitchell Bowman. I paid 25 cents and I was probably 7 or 8 years old.

The next three cards in the pack are Joe Papaleo, Kevin Smith, and Gary Etherington:

And the remaining cards feature Terry Rowe, Kevin Kewley, and Coach Keith Tozer:

Growing up with MISL in the 80s, seeing these players brought back many memories. This was a fun, even if somewhat plain, trip down nostalgia lane.

2026 Topps Heritage Fat Pack

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  We're a month into the baseball season, the NBA and NHL playoffs are moving into the second round, and the NFL draft wrapped up recently.  Yep, spring is here!

Heritage was released back in mid-March.  It's based on the 1977 release, but I'm sure you all know that.  Here's a fat pack for all to see.  7 bucks for 20 cards...let's see what I got:

#367 - Kristian Campbell

#169 - Edward Cabrera

#58 - Chandler Simpson

#28 - Nico Hoerner

The Marlins traded Cabrera to the Cubs in January for a package including Owen Cassie.  Cubs fans at the time were a little bummed, thinking Cassie was gonna a be a big part of the future.  So far, early returns seems to favor the Cubs; Cabrera has been solid while Owen has struggled after a hot start.

#292 - Mick Abel

#346 - Hunter Goodman

#183 - Trea Turner

#271 - Austin Riley

The Twins City Connect uniforms lean into Minnesota's "Land of 10,000 Lakes" nickname.  They call the "azure blue base and bright yellow accents designed to evoke sunlight reflecting off the water" the "Ripple Effect."  OK then.

#314 - Carlos Estévez

#79 - Carson Whisenhunt (RC)

#4 - ONeil Cruz /José Caballero (League Leaders)

I like the shot of Carlos pointing up for us to see how to spell his last name. 

#241 - Seiya Suzuki

#RA-BC - Bubba Chandler (RC) (Ready and Action) 

Overall, the set does a decent job of replicating the 1977 set.  I'm sure there are blog posts out there that go into detail about what they got wrong and what they got OK.

There's 25 cards in the Ready and Action insert set, and they come 1 in 11 Fat Packs.

#366 - Marcus Semien (Dark Yellow) 

#63 - Mike Yastrzemski (Aqua Sparkle Refractor) 

The inserts conclude with 2 Fat Pack exclusives.  They either come in 1 out of 2 or 3 Fat Packs, depending what "EA" and "SE" means on the Topps Odds sheet.

Looks like they spelled Mike's name right this time!

#99 - Bryan Woo

#342 - Michael Harris II

#365 - Kyle Isbel

There's 400 cards in the set, with 100 short prints scattered throughout.  Here's the checklist if you need it.

#327 - Willy Adames

#220 - Ketel Marte

And we end with an All-Star card, that's pretty nice.

Here's some backs because spring:

Anyway, that's the pack.  Collectors pretty much know what they're getting with Heritage.  I'll have another Heritage post on here eventually.  Until next time, enjoy the week and thanks for reading!

Ballers FIFA World Cup

 

This caught my eye during a trip to Target. I decide to purchase the blind ball pull to check it out. After peeling the wrapper.....

 .....I got another wrap to peel off. Zuru takes anti-tampering seriously. After peeling another wrapping.....

 .....I have to open this white plastic globe. After opening it consists of.....

 ....two black wrappers, a checklist, and absorbent silicate pack. Rip those black wrappers....

.....I got a figure, board, soccer ball, and a card. Put it together it looks like this.

I got Alisson Becker from Team Brazil. I might superglue the hands and the figure to the board as it gets loose to easily. Here is the checklist. There are 42 figures to collect.