Like that scene with the awesome Regina Spektor song in 500 Days of Summer. Your expectations for the Morning Links: 12 links to galleries of Kate Upton, possibly with a Kate Upton video at the top. Okay, 11 links to galleries of Kate Upton and one about MMA. Reality: That lady can only do so much in a weekend, so you have to read about angry, heavyset soccer parents in Iowa and 11-foot tall Chinese guys.

Sports

Yao Ming: Expectations Vs. Reality - Outside of the Taiwanese Animation recap we haven’t said much about the retirement of Yao Ming, because “he was a nice guy who did pretty well at basketball” and “you guys don’t comment on posts featuring actual sports news” are hard to express in 350 words. [Smoking Section]

#Podcast: The Chris Kluwe Interview - @PUNTE continues his run of talking to real sports folks about real sports things by talking to the Minnesota Vikings punter. My New Year’s resolution now is “talk to somebody who plays for the Houston Texans, or at least knows somebody who does. Possibly one of the cheerleaders”. Who am I kidding, definitely one of the cheerleaders. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

Hitpost Will Make You a Sports Reporter - So will getting an editor position at a popular sports blog because you made a funny webcomic, but don’t tell anybody. [Uproxx]

Olympics In The Deep South: A 15-Year Retrospective Of Atlanta’s Summer Games - 15 years later and about 10 after I found out, and I’m still jealous of Jon Bois for going to the Kurt Angle Olympics. He won a gold medal with a broken freakin’ neck! [SBN]

With Leather

The Chained Heat of Iowa Softball - If you didn’t read this because 1) it was Friday, 2) the story was a day old or 3) it is about preteen softball, you’re missing out on a great example of lookism and a video featuring Thora Birch and Christina Ricci before they were dragged onto the Hollywood F and D-teams, respectively. I miss you, Thora. Be in movies I don’t have to buy at Wal-mart to see. [With Leather]

The Great Foul Ball Debate - Last week’s best feature, still making me angry well into Monday and only slightly hurt by Burnsy not being able to recognize a developmentally-disabled guy. [With Leather]

Bynum’s Life is a Flagrant Foul - Parking across a crosswalk and a handicap spot is bad, but at least he didn’t forearm shiver any child-sized people in the parking lot. As recommended, I’m permanently associating the “Andrew Bynum” and “assholes” tags. [With Leather]

Tim Pawlenty Is The ‘Miracle On Land’ - Don’t care about politics or magical hockey stories? You should still read this, because I make the closest thing I’m ever going to make to a good political joke. Usually I just type “Obama? More like NO-bama! Keep ‘The Change’!” and stare at my monitor until my brain farts and convinces me that’s an okay thing to put on the Internet. Also, SMDH @ Tim Pawlenty. [With Leather]

Not Sports

Comic-Con Photo Diary: Part One - New professional goal: be cool/good enough that my bosses send me to places like Comic-Con to do things like photo diaries. Sure, I’m taking 200 pictures at the Round Rock Express game, but nobody’s paying me to do it. [Film Drunk]

Corgi Cosplay for Comic-Con - Keep your skinny girls trying to pass themselves off as hot by wearing dumb clothes, give me cute dogs. Arguable point: outside of Halloween and young adult mixers, only animals should be put in funny clothes for our amusement. [Warming Glow]

Super Fun “Where the Wild Things Are” Tattoos - I was going to make fun, but 1) Where the Wild Things Are (in book and movie form) is great and 2) I have a Charlotte’s Web tattoo, so who am I going to make fun of? [Gamma Squad]

Adult Swim’s Never-To-Be-Aired-On-TV “Black Dynamite” Pilot’s Online Premiere - In a better world, the Black Dynamite cartoon will get four season and be hilarious. Also in that world, cooler people appreciate “The Venture Bros.” and “Tom Goes to Mayor” never existed. [Adult Swim]

… Yet.

Rush Limbaugh is an opinionated, loud-mouthed cartoon character with the benefit of a massive bank account. Two years ago, he was rumored to be using a slice of that estimated $700 million net worth to purchase a limited partnership stake in a potential new ownership group for the St. Louis Rams, but he was eventually booted from that endeavor by St. Louis Blues chairman Dave Checketts because he’s… well, he’s Rush Limbaugh.

Limbaugh is the rumored name du jour as the potentially interested buyer for the Minnesota Vikings should the team’s current ownership fail at securing a new stadium deal in Arden Hills. Team executives are adamant about getting a deal done now and will not wait another season. Enter Limbaugh and a seemingly harmless comment during a radio interview with former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty that is fueling our thirst for blockbuster NFL rumors.

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The LeBron commercial (you know which one I’m talking about) had its parodies when it came out, but even though it’s been a couple months since it’s been relevant, this new spoof on Youtube featuring Brett Favre is probably the best recreation I’ve seen. It’s got everything: a guy flawlessly playing the creepy old part of Favre, tons and tons of wiener jokes, and a dedication to staying to the original commercial’s structure. I guess the only thing it’s really missing is boobs. The boob quota was definitely non-existent.

Video after the jump.
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Get it? It's a cockfight.

Don’t get too excited about Brett Favre’s latest headline grab, since he’s pulled this sort of thing before. No, not just the retiring, but Favre actually filed papers after the 2008 season, and then had to be reinstated by the league for his comeback with the Jets in 2009. Filing allows players to collect a one-time severance check, unless you’re Brett Favre, apparently.

Favre’s base salary for last season? Sixteen million bucks, according to Fox Sports. That–and three veteran players visiting his house–is what it took for Favre to come back for a 20th NFL season and pretend to be an NFL quarterback. Favre’s 69.9 passer rating was 29th in the league (worse than Chad Henne, for f*ck’s sake), and his 2,509 yards passing and 11 TD tosses were both career lows.

So, yeah, this is probably it for Favre, who has not one but two former teams in the playoffs. Hopefully, Aaron Rodgers and Mark Sanchez will make the balance of the NFL news as we head into the conference championships, and Favre will do what he wanted to do heading into the 2010 season–sit on his ass and watch everyone else play.

I love these Taiwanese animations more than many of my own life achievements. I want to caress them late at night and wipe away their tears and tell them that everything’s going to be alright while they fall asleep in my arms. And then the next morning I would wake up and find a note on the pillow telling me how sweet I am but it could never work out because I’m an obese blogger from the midwest and they’re snippets of computerized video footage depicting current events with English subtitles. But that’s love.

So if you missed it, Brett Favre and the New York Jets are getting sued for sexual harassment. That is not love, but something a bit creepier.

Kurt Warner, probably the greatest Amsterdam Admirals quarterback ever, got some attention for the week when he said that Brett Favre’s legacy had a little smudge on it after, you know, the retirement, unretirement, retirement, unretirement, his wiener, etc…

USA Today:

Brett Favre may still have the credentials to earn induction into the Hall of Fame. But Kurt Warner said the troubles of his final three NFL seasons may blemish the legacy of the NFL’s first-ever three-time MVP.

Warner, the former NFL QB-turned-NFL Network analyst, said on NFL Total Access on Monday that Favre — who said Sunday he intends to retire, a day before he was sued for alleged sexual harassment by two female massage therapists — had tarnished the good feelings around his legendary NFL career.
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