1. True Hoop: "Poor handwriting on a birth certificate changed Shane Battier's family name from 'Battle' to 'Battier' and they just went with it."



2. I didn't see the movie, so I don't know if I'd agree, but both reviews I read of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (produced and co-written by Guillermo del Toro) criticized the monster design.



3. From the introduction to a podcast: "Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk co-founded BioWare, the RPG-oriented group that now consists of five locations within Electronic Arts. They started out as doctors (actual practicing medical doctors, mind you), and BioWare was once a developer of games as well as medical software."



4. The upcoming Aliens game for the DS sounds terrific.

READ MORE - Link roundup

1. Comment and win a comic book-themed prize pack.



2. "According to a new report and subsequent story in the Washington Post, in the first six months of 2011, the USPS paid $4.3 million in compensation to workers on 'standby time' – work hours where, due to low mail volume, employees show up to work but just sit in the break room. In 2009, $30.9 million was paid in 'standby' salary."



3. Grantland on the NBA: "Michael Jordan is . . . one of the most adamant owners in favor of reducing player salaries."



4. Since Olly Moss's Resistance 3 cover art is in the news today, allow me to mention that I posted wallpaper-sized versions in May.

READ MORE - Link roundup

"The new trophy designed for the winner of the annual Iowa-Iowa State gridiron showdown was scrapped Tuesday as organizers acknowledged it had too much to do with corn and not nearly enough to do with football."



Here's the old trophy:







Via.

READ MORE - Embarrassing football trophy

ESPN asks, but the writer says, "I asked them not to call it What If Vick Were White but they did." Via.

READ MORE - What if Michael Vick were white?

1. Reddit: "If you have a parrot and you don't teach it to say,"Help, they've turned me into a parrot", you are wasting everybody's time."



2. Discussing Google+, Boing Boing explains why many professional people, especially scientists, need to use pseudonyms.



3. The Miami New Times says it uncovered emails showing a Newsweek writer trying to set Shaq up with some ladies.



4. One-week clearance sale at Entertainment Earth.

READ MORE - Link roundup

Ken Block's latest insane driving video is a tour through Universal Studios. (I posted a few of his older videos here.)









Video shows how recycled paper is turned into toilet paper. Via.













The latest advertisement for Rock of Ages takes a tour through video game history.









Face forms in the clouds (starting at 57 seconds). Via these sites.









Baseball player collapses/slides into home. Via.

READ MORE - Video roundup

1. Getting banned from Google+ not only leads to being banned from other Google services, but also apparently prevents you from even viewing other people's public Google+ pages.



2. Bill Simmons's latest podcast is an hour-long interview with David Stern about the state of the NBA lockout.



3. The Germanic conquest of England, circa 400 AD:

The massive movement of people was apparently triggered in 407 A.D., the year in which the ailing Roman Empire withdrew much of its army from Britain. Soon afterwards, it stopped paying its soldiers altogether. As a result, the last legionaries took off.



This left the island unprotected, an opportunity that the starving people on the continent couldn't pass up. Angles, Saxons and Jutes left their mound dwellings and broad bean fields in the wetlands of northern Europe in droves.



Entire family clans set out to sea, usually in the spring and summer when the water was calm. Their ships were bulging with household goods, cows and horses. According to an old chronicle, the land of the Angles was soon "abandoned."

Via.

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1. "Earlier this year, aerial photos of a newly discovered tribe living in Brazil's Amazon rainforest electrified the internet. Now that entire tribe, numbering around 200, has gone missing—and a panicking Brazilian government fears that cocaine smugglers are to blame."



2. Really vicious article by Rick Reilly about Tim Tebow.



3. An interview with the maker of The Stanley Parable.

READ MORE - Link roundup

At the September 4 San Francisco Giants game, you can get a Brian Wilson in Carbonite statue:

The statue is three sided, with one side featuring the iconic Han Solo in carbonite pose featured in "The Empire Strikes Back." A second side features Brian Wilson, in his trademark post-save celebration pose, frozen in carbonite similar to Han. The third side features graphics celebrating the Giants and Star Wars.

There are already several on sale at eBay.

READ MORE - Brian Wilson of the Giants, frozen in Carbonite

1. I love these sketches based on the original Conan movie.



2. Part of a good article about a successful NFL agent:

Like many agents, Segal went to law school, but never intended to find his fortune in the sports world. He was hired by a large "white-shoe" firm out of college, but says he quickly lost interest in the day-to-day grind of life in a big law office.



So he quit and moved back to his parents house. He had followed the careers of legendary sports agents like Leigh Steinberg and Bob Woolf and decided that was where he wanted to try his hand.



He printed up some business cards with his mother's phone number on them and began cold calling football players. It's not easy for an unknown lawyer with no office and no experience to convince professional athletes to trust him with their financial future. "A lot of guys hung up on me," he says.



Eventually, Segal landed his first client in Brad "Mr. Smooth" Baxter, a little-known running back for the New York Jets. Once he got that first client, however, the doors were opened and it wouldn't take long for other players to come through it.

3. This is actually a pretty interesting legal question (NSFW). Via.



*Buy sketch cards at eBay.

READ MORE - Link roundup

1. Photos of Shaq and his tiny girlfriend, who was apparently on Flavor of Love.



2. "An employee of the Mark Twain House and Museum in West Hartford, Conn., has admitted in court to embezzling $1 million from the organization that maintains the author's historic home."



3. Penelope Trunk has a good take on negative blog comments.

READ MORE - Link roundup

1. "AOL shares closed down 26 percent today."



2. Adam Dunn continues to have a historically bad MLB season.



3. Apparently at least $31 million has already been spent on the recall elections in Wisconsin.

READ MORE - Link roundup

Watch Real Madrid play 109 children in China.

READ MORE - Real Madrid versus 109 children

1. Sad Etsy Dogs, the blog.

2. Great article at Grantland about the collapse of Barry Zito and how Scott Boras promotes his clients.

3. If enough people like Id's Rage Facebook page, the iOS version will be free for a week.

READ MORE - Link roundup

1. "There have been whispers at times about possible cheating by the Brewers at home because they have been so much better at Miller Park than on the road. They are 40-14 at home, the best winning percentage in the majors, and only 21-35 on the road."

2. Long hatchet article about Martha Stewart. For example:

At the flagship magazine, Martha Stewart Living, one editor after another would come in and try to Real Simplify it, to make it more about hamburgers and chocolate-chip cookies and less about tassel-strewn, Venetian-themed dinners for twenty. A Thanksgiving story shot at Stewart’s stables in Bedford featured a long table and was so complicated that it became almost a comedy of errors. A child’s hair caught fire. Stewart sliced her thumb and was sent to the hospital. At the table, Stewart was flanked by Brooke Astor’s son, ­Anthony Marshall, and his wife, hardly avatars of the simple life. (By the time the story was published, Marshall was on trial for misappropriating his mother’s fortune, and the pictures had to be blurred out.)

Via.

3. Deeply disturbing cake.

READ MORE - Link roundup

Two videos about Fire in Babylon:

An inspiring triumph against the odds story of the West Indies cricket team - transformed from underdogs pummelled by their rivals Australia and England into being world class and unbeaten for 15 years. They were the first all black sports team who enjoyed such a glorious winning streak: their story sits alongside the likes of Ali and Jesse Owens as a sporting triumph that also struck an enormous blow against racism and inequality.

Via.

READ MORE - Documentary about the rise of cricket in the Caribbean

Devastating sucker karate kick by soccer goalie. Via these sites.

READ MORE - Devastating sucker karate kick

1. How to move a Blogger blog to Wordpress. Via Blogger.

2. "Justin Bieber Takes A Picture Of Traffic, Instagram Usage Explodes."

3. I realize they have a new coach and that Ohio State's implosion has helped, but still, in light of Michigan's recent failures, it seems notable that they have the top-ranked recruiting class.

READ MORE - Link roundup

This video shows highlights from several of the qualifying rounds of Red Bull's King Of The Rock. Mildly interesting, but mostly I liked the trophy (the finals are on Alcatraz):




*Buy trophies at eBay.

READ MORE - Red Bull King Of The Rock trophy

1. Preorder links for The Old Republic ($60-$150) with an expected release date of 12/31/11. (I didn't see what the monthly subscription would cost.)

2. Grantland looks at NFL free agent busts through the years.

3. "Have we got a contest for you! Break out those Photoshop skills and place your favorite writer on our super-duper Paris Review beach towel for a chance to win exactly this towel!" Via.

4. Laughing Squid uncovered more information and video about that bowling pin car I posted a few days ago.

READ MORE - Link roundup