Links

The Thermals, 'Personal Life': I've been all in with the Thermals ever since their 2006 release of 'The Body, the Blood, the Machine,' which might be the best punk album with a religious theme since, well, Bad Religion released anything. Two albums later, the Portland trio are still rocking punk anthemic. The new album streams on NPR through Sept. 7.

LeBron starring in a remake of "Big": Though the GQ article itself isn't available online, the author's post-mortem is a must read to help bring closure to the bizarre Decision special we all witnessed this summer. Is anyone else starting to see similarities between LeBron James and Tom Hank's overgrown kid character in the movie Big? Nearly everything I have read since the Decision points to LeBron's immaturity and ever expanding entourage insulating him from the outside world. Am I the only one that can envision a future NBA ad featuring LeBron and D-Wade playing Chopsticks on a giant piano?

I Thought MoveOn.Org Was Supposed to Prevent This?: The Lost Season 6 DVD came with an extra 12 minute epilogue to the series finale, *finally putting to rest all questions ever asked about the show or its ending (*please please let this be the case).

Another Arcade Fire Video: Arcade Fire's internet video for 'We Used to Wait,' involves an ingenious use of Google Street View in reviving images of the home you grew up in. The video won't work on Firefox (Google Chrome or Safari browsers work fine), and it's best that you close all other applications before watching.

Thanks For Being Had By Us Part 2: After spending $1.3 billion on building and upgrading soccer stadiums for the World Cup, South African officials report that the white elephants are unfit for the planned conversions to host cricket and rugby events.

What Scottie Don't Know: A fantastic retrospective on the Hall of Fame career of one Scottie Maurice No Tippin' Pippen. Scottie's famous denial of Charles Smith to win a pivotal game 5 in a playoff series at MSG remains my single favorite NBA moment ever.

Is Bébé to Chicharito the new Giggs to Rooney?: Manchester United makes headlines by paying $11.5M for a street player known known as Bébé (baby), who was signed by a Portuguese side for nothing just five weeks earlier. The 20 year old immigrant from Cape Verde has gone from hoping to play in the Homelss World Cup to the world's most famous team in just two years time.

In anticipation of football season starting, check this old highlight reel of Water Payton running the Wildcat formation way back in 1984. Pretty sweet stuff: