Here’s what made my day better today:

“Talkin Cards! w/ Bob Masters” – Vine by @nickspears | Nick Spears, aka: Bob Masters, talks baseball cards, basketball cards and more! We’re talkin’ cards!

The show, each episode presented in the form of a however-many-seconds vlog on Vine, delivers on both the talkin’ and the cards. It’s one of those things you’ll either roll your eyes at or love forever, and I hope you’ll choose the latter. After the jump is a YouTube compilation of the first seven episodes, so you don’t have to watch it in an autoplaying, auto-muting column (or whatever). Enjoy.

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did I do that

This week, With Leather’s semi-weekly look at the best sports moments from not-sports television shows goes back to its 80s roots to chronicle the jet pack rope climbs, Bushwhacker tag team matches and Grandmama slam dunks of ABC’s TGIF founding father ‘Family Matters.’ You may remember it best as “that show Urkel was on.” Consider it a spiritual sequel to our Full House list.

If you watched the show, you’ll remember these moments. If you didn’t, you should find enough insurmountable 80s/90s cheese in Reginald VelJohnson ALONE to satiate you. So sit back, relax, and repeatedly click the “next” button for the 20 greatest sports moments of ‘Family Matters.’ No sweat, my pet!

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Welp, that’s a headline I never thought I’d write.

But here we are, traveling back to 1992 to watch Williams Entertainment pitching the original “NBA Jam”, trying to win the lucrative NBA sponsorship necessary to license professional basketball players by basically listing off every scene in the movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day. You see, Williams Entertainment are the guys who made that Terminator 2 arcade game you still find tucked into the corners of yet-to-be-updated bowling alleys next to Demolition Man pinball machines, and if it hadn’t been for the This Ain’t Nintendo blast processing rah rah of that game, Williams wouldn’t have had the tech necessary to put that two second clip of Horance Grant dunking in the halftime report.

You can watch the pitch below. At no point do the programmers catch fire.

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Remember the glory days of 90s basketball, when Michael Jordan was stretch-dunking over Monstars, Larry Johnson as a basketball-playing granny was showing up to help Urkel on “Family Matters” and the true mark of sports celebrity was that you had animated friends or a weird alter ego or a living toy familiar? It’s one of the only things we remember about Penny Hardaway, who tragically passed away sometime in 1996 (if I’m remembering correctly).

Anyway, hot off the never-ending presses of Funny Or Die comes this clip of Blake Griffin trying to film a commercial and being terrorized by a clandestine albino puppet that’s supposed to look like him. Blake won’t win any acting awards, and I’d consider this a step down from leaping a tiger to try to get into a first-person shooter, but there’s an undeniable joy in watching people and things murder Jerry O’Connell. I still haven’t forgiven him for what he did (or didn’t do) to Tara Reid in Body Shots.

Check out the video, and join me in hoping that the NBA lockout goes on forever, and Kevin Durant has to make a career out of wearing a curly gray wig and dunking on the Devil.

[via Funny Or Die]

Larry Johnson signed a one-year deal with the Bengals earlier today. Johnson said he was just happy for the opportunity blah blah blah. Nobody really seemed surprised that it was the Bengals that picked up Johnson, considering that (a) Cedric Benson is hurt and (b) Johnson is kind of a prick. But there are concerns.

The Bengals are taking a needless chance and risking a good thing. Johnson is the kind of player M. Lewis has spent a few years trying to get rid of. It’s odd he would add a guy like that. The Chiefs are paying him $2 mil to go away. Lewis was adamant Monday that if Benson is OK, Johnson will be a scout team guy and likely inactive on Sundays. He also said he approached Ced about it last week, meaning a bruised ego was a concern. –Cincinnati Enquirer.

The Bengals play next at Oakland next week, which seems appropriate. The Raiders are terrible and they abuse their women, plus that who human sacrifice thing. Wait, that’s not the Raiders. I’m thinking of the Aztecs. My b. That’s the Aztecs, right?

Word is out that the Kansas City Chiefs have officially parted ways with their petulant running back, Larry Johnson. I guess guys that criticize the coaching staff and address the media as “faggots” aren’t the locker room staple that they once were. But either way, it’s not a foregone conclusion that the Penn State product’s days in the NFL have gone the way of silk pantyhose and not having sex on a first date.

The Chiefs (1-7) sparked a futile comeback in yesterday’s loss against Jacksonville while LJ was suspended for an outburst in front of reporters, alluded to earlier. But debate over whether Johnson would return from his suspension as a starter, coupled with the fact that he was Johnson will now get tossed onto the waiver pile, a pile that he’ll eventually clear since he’s owed about $2 million on his current deal.

Adam Schefter is on ESPN right now saying that reaction is mixed as to whether Johnson will catch on with another team; he turns 30 later this month and seems to have too much baggage to fit in with a team that actually has its act together. I wouldn’t expect demand for an whiny, second-rate running back to be terribly high in this economy, which means he’ll probably end up in Cleveland in like three days. Crap flows to Cleveland like blondes to an ugly guy with money. It just can’t be helped.