Thanks to Will Leitch at Deadspin for sending a whole lot of people over on Friday to my Illini football preview. It’s good to know that there are still some people out there that care about University of Illinois football. Speaking of which, Illinois held serve against Eastern Illinois on Saturday, which means we’re one-sixth of the way to a bowl. On to today’s links:

1) Crocodile Hunter Not Eaten by Crocodile (Siberia, Minnesota) – R.I.P. Steve Irwin. I always loved this commercial, by the way.

2) Hulk Hogan/Lee Elia (YouTube) – Whoever made this clip must have been smoking some strong peyote because the connection is nowhere to be found. However, I still laughed my ass off. Search for “Lee Elia” on YouTube and you’ll find gold, I tell you.

3) Field’s Final Days (Chicago Tribune) – This coming Saturday, the name Marshall Field’s is going into the scrap heap in favor of Macy’s. I’ve been fortunate enough to visit the flagship Macy’s in Manhattan along with Harrod’s in London and I can tell you unequivocally that neither hold a candle to the Marshall Field’s on State Street as a department store. When I lived in the city, I loved walking through there so much that I used to pass through the store almost everyday on the way to the El. In practicality, the name change isn’t really going to affect much in terms of the merchandise or the layout of the stores in general. I don’t find it to be all that of a big deal for the suburban mall locations. The State Street store, however, is truly a Chicago icon and should always be Marshall Field’s.

4) Sox Looking A Lot Like Boston’s ’05 Failures (Chicago Tribune) – As the White Sox blew another winnable game last night, I was thinking this exact same thought.

5) The 5 Worst Lyrics Ever to Ruin Good Rap Songs (Cracked) (from Minneapolis Red Sox) – As your resident hip-hop connoissieur, I whole-heartedly agree with all of these, particularly Kanye West’s line in #3.

And finally…

6) Finally, Tom and Katie to Show Off Baby Suri (Daily Mail) – For everyone’s sake, I hope that the cyborg infant doesn’t look anything like Katie Holmes does in the picture in this story. Tom, what have you done?!