Link roundup

1. From a Q&A on The Old Republic:

GnovaD: Are there any plans to introduce mobile apps to the game? Eg. Use smart phone/tablet to send companions on missions while offline.

Damion Schubert: Let's just say that this has always been a dream of mine for crew skills - it's almost as if this design was created specifically with this in mind, doesn't it? Good news, sometimes dreams do come true! The bad news is that I have no ETA for you, though, as this is a significant technical endeavor.

2. Assassin of Secrets was supposed to be a hot new spy novel, but then readers started to recognize entire passages lifted from other novels. The resulting investigation into the mysterious author is almost certainly more interesting than the novel itself.

3. GQ has An Oral History of Tim Tebow. Sample:

JOHN FOX (head coach, Denver Broncos): The minute you meet him, he has that presence. I went and met him for dinner during the draft process down in Gainesville. He's got a notebook, and he's into it. He just likes talking ball. And he picked up the tab—I've never had that happen before.

4. How to Prevent YouTube from Keeping a Record of The Videos You Watch .

Link roundup

1. The new shirts by Last Exit to Nowhere I featured recently are now on sale.

2. 25 animated gifs from Madonna's halftime show. My favorite moments were the pulsating numbers on the field, and when the field was sucked up and turned into a star field.

3. The Game of Thrones first season blu-ray set is $45 (half-off) at Amazon.

4. New painting by Dave MacDowell (NSFW).

Link roundup

1. Modder's Guide: Planescape: Torment.

2. Grantland's suggestions for improving the Pro Bowl.

3. Artist copies of Mondo's Adventure Time posters are on sale right now.

Link roundup

1. Chipotle's spinoff ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen is doing well enough to justify a second restaurant in DC.

2. Belichick Breakdown's are weekly posts by Bill Belichick explaining football plays. Relatedly, here's some detailed analysis of what to expect in the Saints/49ers and Broncos/Patriots.

3. ESPN suggests that Kobe is driven to humiliate Steve Nash:

When Bryant got the chance to go one-on-one with Nash in the first half Tuesday night, he even changed his signature sound. Normally Bryant calls for the ball by using his tongue to push staccato bursts of air through his teeth. It sounds kind of like the Smoke Monster on “Lost.” As soon as Nash switched onto Bryant, however, Kobe made sure he wouldn’t miss out on the opportunity. He posted up Nash on the right block and let loose a holler that could be heard throughout Staples Center.

“Whooo!” he yelled. “Whoo!”

4. Artist looking for commissions.

5. 50% off t-shirts at Zazzle with the code FFHSFRIDAY13. I recommend Miskatonic University, Vonster, Steve Thomas, Franco Brambilla, Adam Koford, and my own store. (FYI, at least in my store you can customize with a wide variety of shirt types and colors.)

Link roundup

1. Nick Denton's latest memo on the state of blogging.

2. NSFW, but really striking iPhone docking station.

3. Detailed analysis of how the Houston Texans' running game works.

4. Has anyone watched Nick's House of Anubis? Seems like every episode to date is free at iTunes. (At first glance it looks like maybe something my boys might like? Or more for tweens?)

Link roundup

1. 13 sno-cone machines bought by the Department of Homeland Security.

2. Vandal captured because he thought "slut" was spelled "sult."

3. Grantland predicts which team will acquire Peyton Manning.

Bumpy Pitch x Nike t-shirts

Raiders, Lakers, Giants, and Celtics-themed t-shirts by Bumpy Pitch and Nike on sale here. Via.

Link roundup

1. Cory Doctorow's auctioning off the naming rights to a character in an upcoming book (for charity).

2. "Even as experts predict that the 2012 presidential race will be the most expensive in U.S. history, a funny thing is happening on the way to the Republican nomination: It’s becoming one of the cheapest primaries in a more than a decade."

3. Fried Squid Po' Boy with Avocado and Black Chile Oil recipe.

4. A very specific breakdown of why the Philadelphia Eagles have been so bad. (There's a lot of experts who owe the Raiders an apology for ripping them for letting Nnamdi Asomugha go.)

Link roundup

1. Michael Lewis's latest great article. Does it even matter what it's about? Here's a taste - - the main subject of the article grew up Jewish in World War II:

On weekends Danny and his mother would watch the bus stop from their house, waiting for his father’s bus to arrive. Each time was a cliff-hanger: he knew his father was in constant danger and was never sure that he would come home. “I remember waiting with my mother, and as we waited we darned socks,” he said. “And so darning socks for me has always been an incredibly anxious activity.” His relationship to his father, whom he adored, was further queered by a mere typo; in the phony identity papers his father procured for them there was a mistake. Danny’s last name had been printed as “Godet”; his father’s had been printed as “Cadet.” Because of this typo Danny was required to address his father as “uncle.”

2. Detailed explanation for why Andrew Luck shouldn't even be in the Heisman discussion. Relatedly, USC's quarterback has him beat in almost every important statistical category.

3. And speaking of playing quarterback, a detailed explanation of what the 49ers have done to help Alex Smith succeed.

4. The new Superman iOS game is really fun (although shooting run of the mill crooks with heat vision seems a bit excessive) and is now on sale for 99 cents at iTunes.

5. And speaking of deals, Thor (the movie) is a 99 cent rental at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. Watch a player on the Buffalo Bills score a touchdown in Dallas, and then give the ball to his girlfriend, a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader.

2. And more on football and "romance" - - Bart Scott of the Jets:

Do you sense a rivalry between the Jets and Giants?

"Not at all. Like I said when I was in Baltimore I could remember with the Redskins you had guys fighting over strippers and all kind of stuff. I don't sense that here. I think it is a mutual respect. I think the town is big enough for both of us. I think we were just trying to make a statement that hey we wanted a little bit bigger piece of the spotlight because when I got here my sense was pretty much all Giants type of town. We played in Giants Stadium. We just want to get our piece of the pie. We respect them, but we would definitely love – we look forward to that game. I believe it is the 24th of December for bragging rights and hoping that's the game that could help us win this division."

Bart you gotta help me out. You guys fought for strippers? What does that mean?

"When you are in a small place like Baltimore and the temperature is relatively cold – hey you compete over the same chicks. That's a football players favorite spot. Especially young football players. It was always a rivalry. Guys fight about hey that is my girlfriend and that's my girlfriend, but here? Five million people, maybe more. There is plenty for everybody."

3. Prison in Acapulco:

Authorities say a surprise search at an Acapulco prison has netted two peacocks, 100 fighting cocks, 19 prostitutes and two sacks filled with marijuana.

4. Finally, taking a break from the sex and sports talk - - Joe Ledbetter's excellent Zodiac toys are finally in stock at Tenacious Toys. These are about twice the size of typical blind box toys, and slightly poseable (heads and/or limbs that turn). Probably my favorite designer toy set of the year (I'll be giving out some as gifts over the holidays). They're not blind box, so you can pick the one(s) you want.

Link roundup

1. I always wondered why you never see a view of all 22 players on the field when watching football on tv - - the NFL guards the footage as "proprietary NFL coaching information." (It's thanks to John Madden football that I actually learned how offense and defense work.)

2. From an article on women running marathons and ultramarathons:

If seeing athletes later described as "pretty little dedicated things" compete in that race took some getting used to, imagine the reaction a few months earlier in 1966, when, to quote another SI piece, a "shapely blonde housewife" named Roberta "Bobbi" Gibb Bingay snuck onto the course of the venerated Boston Marathon and not only finished the whole damn thing, but did so ahead of nearly 70 percent of the field. Not officially, of course. "Mrs. Bingay did not run in the Boston Marathon," SI quoted the event's organizer as asserting. "She merely covered the same route as the official race while it was in progress."

The next year, a Syracuse student named Kathrine Switzer officially registered for Boston by filling out her entrant form as "K.V. Switzer." When race officials realized what was going on, they tried to tackle her, a move they later defended as a valiant attempt to enforce AAU rules that banned women — for their own good, of course — from competing in any race of more than those 1.5 miles.

3. Destructoid on Super Mario 3D Land:

The biggest issue with Super Mario 3D Land is that, as fun as it is, it feels more like the beginning of something more rather than a full experience. One feels like they're merely getting a taste of what Nintendo can do -- an admittedly delicious taste, but one that still leaves a bit of a gap once finished. It feels like it was prepared to tantalize 3DS owners without giving them lasting satisfaction, to demonstrate that good things are in the handheld's future and that more games like this will come if they stay loyal. I would not go so far as to call the game a tech demo, but it certainly acts like a whirlwind tour of Mario's new 3D world, rather than a full vacation.

Three cents off at Amazon if you act now.

4. Let me save you some time and money - - the Adventure Time toys look terrible (videos at the bottom of the post).

Link roundup

1. Grantland:

Over the past five seasons, the Patriots have used 11 picks in the first three rounds of the NFL draft on defensive players. Only three of those players started on Sunday, and only one — safety Patrick Chung — has been playing at an above-average level this season. Three more (linebacker Jerod Mayo, cornerback Ras-I Dowling, and defensive lineman Ron Brace) are injured. Linebacker Jermaine Cunningham, a second-round pick in 2010, was a healthy scratch. The other four players have all been cut, including three players who would have been important cogs in the New England secondary if they'd developed. If Matt Millen had made these same 11 picks, we'd be laughing at him.

2. "Let’s cut to the chase: sugar doesn’t make kids hyper."

3. Apparently some guy was caught submitting another artist's work at the Golden Demon contest in Australia.

Link roundup

1. "Master of horror John Carpenter presents Blockhead’s Revenge — a 'gritty, sexy, scary' Peanuts reboot starring the cast of MTV’s Teen Wolf."

2. How to build a relationship with a blogger before asking for a review.

3. Grantland:

ex-Cleveland Brown and Minnesota Viking LeRoy Hoard — a physical, bruising former running back — famously (though perhaps apocryphally) described his running style as the antithesis of the space player: "If you need one yard, I'll get you three yards. If you need five yards, I'll get you three yards."

Link roundup

1. Tips for fighting bullies.

2. Smart Football:

I can think of really only one example of a guy whose arm now seems significantly stronger than it did earlier in his career as a college player and rookie, and that’s Tom Brady. And, well, Tom Brady is Tom Brady. But it does seem like this is generally true, at least at the higher levels once a quarterback is physically mature: There are almost no examples of guys whose arms went from “popgun” to bazooka through discipline and training, not matter how tall they are or how many weights they lift.

Also, Buddy Ryan's insidious defensive tactic.

3. Weird to see so much anticipation for new comics in the Watchmen universe - - the whole point of Watchmen is that the characters were just knockoffs of other characters. The genius of Moore and Gibbons is what made them special.

4. Lackluster review for the new Deus Ex downloadable content.

The Carolina Panthers logo is supposed to be shaped like the borders of North and South Carolina

Wikipedia says, "The Panthers logo consists of the head of a snarling Black panther outlined in blue. It is shaped to resemble the combined borders of North and South Carolina."

However, it's a bit of a stretch....

Rob Ryan's play chart had a photo of a woman in a bikini on it

Oh, those crazy Ryan brothers.