For the feast day of Saint Valentine this year, I found myself inside HMV.

The outlet was running a cute "blind date" promotion where you could buy a mystery DVD or Blu-ray, covered in wrapping paper and sold at a discount. I picked one up for later: Horror / Brothers / Deep South.

While we were there, I was treated to a romantic Collector Booster, gifted to me by my Valentine. My wife has been very supportive of this project, and in fact I may have gotten her hooked on cracking CBs in search of the Avatar.

Alas, Cupid was not kind. After opening a full box of CBs and skimming the bulk foils from two others, the return on investment from any single pack is now very low for my collection. I already have most of the easier pulls from these packs, so it's a gamble each time whether I hit something new. I got a few new cards, but the big pulls were unfortunately duplicates. Is this finally the end of sealed?

Fittingly, the mystery Blu-ray was also a duplicate: 2025's Sinners, which we already own in 4K UHD. Unusual enough these days to buy physical media, never mind buying it twice! It is an excellent movie though.

Anyway, we found something else to watch. Lessons learned when it comes to blindly buying mystery products on the high street.