Category: Niko’s Soap Box

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Kardboard Outlook

08/25

It’s the start of the work week. Plenty to do today as we get ready for the World Championship Decks 2024 coming out this Friday. Well not really a lot to do, it’s not like it’s a regular release with all new cards we have to take a look at. But, still we have some things to do before hand.

Other than that, the day was spent finishing up the weekends orders.

08/26

I usually get a call on Tuesdays if there’s a release coming out that week. And, today is Tuesday, and I haven’t received a phone call yet.

That means that they’re either really busy, or they haven’t received them yet. I’ll give them a call tomorrow to figure out what’s going on.

Opus XII restock on TCG Player and eBay.

08/27

I have Opus XIII ready to go, and did that restock for it on both TCG Player and eBay.

Called my distributor today, and they don’t have a clue on when the World Championship Decks are coming in.

I still need some product, so I ordered plenty of Gunslinger in the Abyss. It’s selling like hot cakes, and these singles are fire.
Got to wait a day for those to come in.

Took the kids to soccer practice spent an hour there, just watching them go. All they need to do now is have fun.

08/28

Gunslinger in the Abyss came in today as it was scheduled. Now it’s time for us to crack open some packs, and list those singles. But, not until later, so we can upload it to YouTube.

Spent the afternoon, posting singles on eBay. And, some of them sold in minutes! That’s something that we always like to see.

Played some 99 Nights in the Forest with the little ones before bed time, and we finally made it to day 11. Only 88 more to go. Thing is you have to restart from the begining each time.

08/29

These boosters are half way gone already! Might have to order some more. Just have to wait for the money to clear on TCG Player and eBay and PayPal. eBay and PayPal are pretty quick, but sometimes TCG Player takes up to two weeks for the money to reach my bank account.

We’ll worry about restocking once we sell out, we still have a Master Case available, so if you’re on the lookout for some, we got you covered!

Yes, sometimes I’ll just insert an image that has nothing to do with what I’m writing.

Restock for Opus XIV – Crystal Abyss on TCG Player and eBay.

08/30

Time’s flying by, I can’t believe that GConnn will be tomorrow. I have to get everything set up for it. Luckily, most of it is already ready from other events. about 70% is Final Fantasy, trading cards and toys. The rest is .. well it depends on what I feel like bringing,

I’ll probably bring some Pokemon for it.

Other than that, I spent the whole day at the restaurant.

08/31

6AM, Wake up, time to go.

Had to be at the Orland Park Civic Center at 7AM to start setting up. I probably could have arrived later, but it’s always good to be ready before hand. You never know when the unexpected can happen. It’s not like you can expect it.

It was a good show, had about 275 people show up. Made some money, made some trades, and found an Final Fantasy VIII Siren GF Action Figure still sealed.

I picked that up before anyone else had a chance to.

Went home took a nap, and headed out for a little BBQ. It’s Labor Day weekend, we got to relax a little.

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Kardboard Occean

08/18

Started off with finishing the restock of Opus XI. On both TCG Player and eBay. I still need to get some new Opus XI listings on eBay, I just have to find out where I placed those cards.

Tried Organizing the office again. The shelves in particular. Sometimes items come in, and I just throw it all on the shelves. And, that makes a big mess, because if you don’t do it right the first time, you won’t go back to it anytime soon. It does look a lot better now compared to before, but it is nowhere near to finished. And, I don’t think it ever will be.

We can always hope.

We’re really getting into 99 Nights in the Forest. I’ll play a game with the kids every night. We’ll make it to the end. So far we reached day 7, and I always die trying to save them from whatever is attacking them.

08/19

Toploaders came in today, now we don’t need to worry about them until we run out again. We got our last batch in April. 4 months. Let’s see when we’ll have to order our next batch. Let’s try for 3 months this time.

Also a batch of Heroes came in including Foils. I just wanted to pick up one card, the Full Art Ultros from Crystal Dominion, and I can’t stop at one card. I ended up stopping at around 350.

We might even have bulk Hero lots coming soon.

Did the restock for Opus XII – Crystal Awakening. Tcg Player and eBay.

Also got a deck up for The Twelve. They look like they’ll be fun to play.

08/20

Had a 125 card order today, that took me a couple of hours to put together. Mainly because it was an eBay order, and you can’t download a pull sheet that is sorted like they do on TCG Player. Maybe you can, I just haven’t figured out how. If it was a TCG Player order, it would have taken me maybe 30 minutes.

It was a busy day with the kids today. Meet the Teachers, and Soccer Practice. They’re starting to do really well, and they enjoy playing soccer. School it’s 50/50 on that one.

Going to have more Bulk lots soon. They’re all halfway done at the moment.

Also, I found a case of Rebellion’s Call Prerelease Kits! It was a nice surprise. Now if they were Opus XI, that would have been a whole lot cooler. But, if you need one they should be up on the site, so go ahead and grab one.

08/21

After a long hot summer, the kids are finally back to school. Now we can start focusing on Trading Cards. It’s always a slowdown during the summer for me, just because I can’t get as much done as I can during the school season. It’s mostly cause I like hanging out with the little ones.

Have I ever mentioned Before Dawn?

It’s something I have been working on for 20 years. On and mostly off. I keep trying to restart it from the begining, the last couple of years I’ve been getting it going. It started off as an RPG, now it’s taking on many forms, and I have some plans for it. I’ll have more info on that soon. I won’t say much more about it … for now.

08/22

I’ve been working on Before Dawn all day, almost forgot to head to the Post Office because of it.

And, that was all I did. Yesterday and today, I probably spent a good 10 hours on it.

Oh, and Dreamlike Oceans was announced. Not today, a couple days ago. We already made our announcement on it. And, yes we are excited!

08/23

The kids have a game today. Got to wake up early, open up the restaurant, and then head to the game which is about 30 minutes away.

I got there, my kids were both starters. We started off the game good, and then well, we need a Goal Keeper. They play in quarters. The first quarter they had a kid that was great. The second quarter, the kid was day dreaming, playing with the net on the side, the third quarter same thing. Last quarter they put in someone else again. We ended up losing 5-0.

At least they’re having fun.

08/24

Sunday was quiet.

Slow day.

Ended up taking one of the kids out to play soccer.

Got some dinner, and finished the orders.

Also worked on Before Dawn a little bit.

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99 Kards in the Korner

08/11

Gunslinger in the Abyss release weekend is over, but that doesn’t mean we’re done. We still have plenty of work to do. Our stock is dwindling down, and our singles are running low. We’ll be ordering more boosters soon enough, and we also have the World Championship Decks coming out later this month. You know we will be getting those. Lots of good cards in that one.

What about the singles?

The Legends are pretty much out of stock at the moment, and that means we need to open up a couple more Booster Boxes. We’re saying couple because, they are half boxes now, as you all already know. We will be recording it as always, so you’ll be able to see what Full Arts will be added to the site.

After seeing everyone yesterday at Game Knight’s Local Qualifier, I had the itch and needed to go and see everybody. Plus I had a couple of decks to try out. The Bomb Squad and OctoPirates. So, I headed out to today’s Local’s and was glad I did. Both we’re fun to play. And when all was said and done, I came out 0-6!

I told you all, I’m terrible at this game.

Got home after midnight, and took care of orders. Didn’t finish until 2AM.

08/12

It was raining all last night, and that means the Flea Market in Robbins will not be open today. Mostly because it’s on a dirt lot, and all that water will have gotten the lot all muddy, and no one wants to sit in that.

Finished up Gunslinger in the Abyss – Limit Break

30 day plan? We’re ready to start on it again.

Took a look at our Shipping Policy and Return Policy. There were none! How? I though I had done this years ago. Apparently not, so I drafted them up and they are now on the site. This took care of Day 8 and Day 9.

Ordered some toploaders today, hopefully they’ll get here before I run out. And, that’s a challenge. So let’s run out of toploaders! I don’t see it happening though, I still have a bunch of Beanie Babies Toploaders, I’ll just use those. And, yes they are a real thing. They’re very thin though. Can hold only one card in each, where as the other toploaders I can put 3, maybe 4 if they’re thin Pokemon cards.

08/13

Spent the morning working on the website. Adding listings, fixing the calendar. Mostly back of the house stuff.

The 30 day plan for today and tomorrow was about pictures, and since we use stock photos, there’s nothing to update. Maybe we should start taking pictures, but how are you going to take pre-orders without a stock photo?

Did 2 box openings tonight. One for Gunslinger in the Abyss. And, one for Union Arena – Full Metal Alchemist. Gunslinger in the Abyss is already on YouTube, and Full Metal will probably be there next week.

Also realized that the World Championship Decks are coming out soon. Put them up for Pre-Order!

08/14

Restock on Gunslinger in the Abyss, these cards are flying off the shelf. We might have to open some more. Same thing with Union Arena, we’re already selling singles from the box. Might have to find more. Might have to start picking it up as our second game.

We had gotten some Jujutsu Kaisen as part of a collection and those did pretty well. I’m going to have to look into this game a little bit more. Or, if you have some you want to get rid of, you know where to hit me up. If you don’t, then kardboardkorner@gmail.com

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08/15

Friday was a busy day at the restaurant, so I couldn’t get much done here, except post a short video on YouTube.

Also started a restock on Opus XI. managed to get half way done.

I had picked up “The Kids Are Alright – A Turks Side Story” about 5, maybe 6 years ago, read the first couple of pages and then forgot about it. It doesn’t start off too good, that might be why I haven’t read it. But then, I picked it up out of nowhere and started reading. The first couple of pages almost made me put it away again, but I kept reading. Eventually, it did get better. I don’t know if it’s because the Turks appeared and I got excited, or if the story actually got better. Either way, I finished the book in one night. And, I’m glad I finally did, the novel kept getting better and better with every page. It does fill in the gap of the 2 years between Final Fantasy VII and Advent Children. Plenty of guest appearances throughout the whole book, but you probably expected that anyway.

08/16

The kids had their first soccer match today. And they were excited. People showing up late for work had me miss the first 10 minutes of the match, and that’s when my kids scored. Then the coach put my son in as a Goalkeeper, and I have to say he is a natural. He must get it from his dad. (Feeling Proud)

Got to teach him a couple more things, but on the other hand, he doesn’t want to be a Goalkeeper. My daughter? I haven’t seen her run so much. She did great, and I’m glad that she enjoys soccer.

Didn’t get much done today either.

08/17

Sunday, it was storming all night, and the Flea Market was pretty much empty. No use going.

We reached 200 subscribers on YouTube today. I’m thinking we’ll do a giveaway at 250. Maybe a Q&A as well, where you can all send in your questions, and I’ll answer them. We’ll figure something out.

Decided to go to Costco. Asked my wife if she wanted to come along. She replied, Costco? On a Sunday? I looked at her puzzled. Off I went, and I understood as soon as I tried to turn into the parking lot. It can’t be that bad, can it?
We got a cart and headed inside, and it was worse than Rush Hour Traffic trying to go through the Jane Byrne. Needless to say, we just turned around and left. I’m not going to stand in line for an hour to save a dollar on water. I will come back another day.

Played 99 Nights in the Forest with the kids, I must say that is a fun game. We played 2 games, and we got to day 5 I think. I’m still trying to get a hang of the controls, I’m no PC player and the controller doesn’t respond as much as I’d like when I connect it to my laptop. Might have to look into a way on how to change the button layout on a controller for Roblox.

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Gunslinger in the Korner

08/04

Midnight Prerelease took a beating on me once again. The older I get the longer it takes me to recover.

Talked to my distributor today, We’re getting our full order. No allocations this time, which is good. Gunslinger in the Abyss is already up for Pre-Order, Hopefully by the time you read this they’ll be sold out. And, hopefully we’ll be able to get a restock.

We’ll be getting the Full Arts up sometime this week.

08/05

Back to the 30 day plan. Checked the contact page, and everything looks good. You can use this page for any questions or comments. We read every singles one of them. If we didn’t why would we even have one?

Took care of our First look at Earth today. That is up. 4 more to go. We should have Lightning up tomorrow. Our Booster Boxes should be coming in tomorrow, along with a small restock of Legacy Collection.

08/06

Everything is here, and we are ready to Rock N’ Roll!

What better way to start than to open up a couple of boxes. And we did.

But first we needed to go to Home Depot, and pick up some paint for the kids’ room. Then we need to find something for dinner. Then we have to take care of orders. And I think that was all of it.

Time to get to recording, cause well we like it, and apparently so do all of you, so thank you. It’s always great reading the comments and we reply to every one of them.

And, what a video it was. We pulled the Chase! Full Art! Golden Signature! One in every 2,160 packs! Bartz!

We’re going to have some fun, so stay tuned.

08/07

It’s the day before Gunslinger in the Abyss officially releases, and we have a ton of work to do.

Spent the day sorting and listing. And, we’ve got our orders on top of that.

Plus took a couple of hours in between all the work, to start painting the kids’ room. I didn’t make it to bed until 2AM, and I have to be up early as always.

You’ll ask is it worth it? Yeah, I love every second of it.

Oh, and our thoughts on Lightning are up now. We got 3 left. that’s 3 more days.

08/08

It’s that time!

Release date. We got all our listings up, and we’re going to put the Full Arts up on the site today.

These Legends are selling like hot cakes! And, that’s what we all want. Right?

Finished up with Water today, and that is online as you read this. You might have already read it, and if you didn’t well it’s there for you to check out.

08/09

Haven’t gone to the Flea Market in a while. So, I decided to head over there today. And, today is one of those days that I should have missed. I found nothing. No Video Games, No Cards, No Shoes, No Toys.

That’s all right, there’s always next time.

We’re almost out of stock with Gunslinger in the Abyss. Kits are flying, Boosters are rolling. And we should be looking into getting a restock soon enough.

I was so out of it when I got home, I just sat at my desk and stared at my screen, till I decided it’s time for bed. I’ll take care of the orders tomorrow.

08/10
Had to take care of yesterdays orders in the morning. Luckily it’s Sunday, and I won’t be able to ship anything out until Monday.

Game Knights Chicago was holding their Local Qualifiers today. I decided to stop by and say hi to everyone. And, I’m getting that itch to play again. So, I’m going to try and make it out to the locals this week. Also picked up some Playmats from them. I didn’t get a chance to get some of these in stock. So, I picked some up for myself. Vivi and Lightning!

Finished up some more orders and called it a night.

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Kardboard Chronicles II

07/28

It was a long day today.

We have good news though. We got our numbers for Gunslinger in the Abyss and it looks like we’re getting our full order. That means we’ll have plenty that will go up on the website.

We’re trying to have everything ready before the release next week. That includes our reviews on all the cards and all the cards listed and ready to go on TCG Player and eBay, along with the Full Arts on KardboardKorner.com.

Took the family out for ice cream, and took care of the orders.

Opus IV Dadaluma is unbanned. And then all my copies on TCG Player and eBay sold in a matter of minutes.

07/29

I had forgotten about the 30 day plan for the website. Well now it’s time to get back to it.

Check that the contact link in the footer is visible and clickable. I never had a contact link in the footer. So, I got one ready and it is now there. You can now send us an email straight from the link on the bottom. Checked it on Mobile as well and it’s working great. So, go ahead and send us some love.

Had to look for a Japanese Pokemon card I misplaced. Luckily I found it pretty fast.

Took care of the orders, and I passed out early.

07/30

Flea Market Swap. First thing in the morning. And there was nothing there for me. I did find an Xbox One but, I don’t really mess with them. I still have a bunch of Xboxs and games sitting at the office. It’s one of those items that aren’t high priority for me.

Headed to the bank, got my check for the Prerelease Kits that are coming in today. And, that means, I’ll be back on YouTube. Tonight. The video will be up by the time you read this, and I’ll probably have another one up as well.

Tested out that Metal Detector I got a couple weeks back, and it seems to be in good condition. Now, just need to find time to actually go and look for things.

07/31

Woke up to a flat tire. That’s never fun. Swapped out the spare and now I got to do some extra running around later today. Of course this happens when I’m already stretched thin with everything that’s going on.

That’s life though.

I just saw that one of my shorts on YouTube has gotten 1,500 views so far! That’s exciting, they usually top out at 500. I’m guessing everyone is getting excited about Gunslinger in the Abyss.

Got a couple of decks ready for Midnight PreRelease, hopefully they’ll be fun to play. The Bomb Squad, and OctoPirates. I’ll let you know how they turn out.

08/01

It’s August.

I thought my kids teams were going to be released today, but that got delayed to August 5th. Which is good, cause if they were released today, they would have had their first practice tomorrow and I would have been spent from Prerelease tonight.

Spent the day, doing the Gunslinger in the Abyss opinions. We’ve got 3 up already, 5 more to go.

Midnight Prerelease is tonight. We’re excited and ready.

Submitted 2 decks to Shantottocast’s Fix-It-Friday. (Give them some love, great people, and they help out the community tons!) Just to see what they had to say and how to improve them.

08/02

It was Midnight and Prerelease was ready to go. It was a small crowd, but fun none the less. Our winner walked out with an extra prerelease kit.

I was exhausted. The day went by slowly, and it takes me longer to recover from any late night activity.

My plan is to just get through the day, and go to sleep.

Again.

08/03

Woke up feeling a little better. And headed out to the Flea Market.

Actually found some first generation BeyBlades. I haven’t gotten a chance to look at them yet, but you know if they have metal on them, they are from earlier generations.

Took care of orders, while I watched SummerSlam.

All that’s left is to take care of everything before Gunslinger in the Abyss makes it’s way into my hands. We’ll have a very busy week.

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