Let's See If I Can Go "Viral"

Here's my first attempt at 15 minutes of fame (I'll even take 15 seconds). I've always been good at random Tiger Woods tricks, so I figured I'd whip together a youtube video of some of my stuff in my spare time. Comment/rate/enjoy and make Token Sports famous! Please...

This Movie Should Be Made...Like Now.

Speilberg, are you reading this? Here's the trailer for the next truly great piece of cinema: "Serenity Now." Starring the legendary cast of Seinfeld, this triller has all the makings of a masterpiece. Coming to a theater near you...

Great job by user "lorocker" on youtube for compiling this.

Whoops: Facebook hated like airlines and cable companies

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

This really cracks me up.

Facebook, the most visited site on the Internet , may also be the most despised: A new poll says the site scored 64 on a 100-point scale, which “puts Facebook in the bottom 5 percent” of private sector companies “and in the same range as airlines and cable companies, two perennially low-scoring industries with terrible customer satisfaction,” according to results of a survey released today.

The results of the American Customer Satisfaction Index’s E-Business Report, done by the University of Michigan in conjunction with ForeSee Results, comes as Facebook nears 500 million members, and as founder Mark Zuckerberg prepares to take to the airwaves Wednesday to talk about his company and its woes.

“Facebook is a phenomenal success, so we were not expecting to see it score so poorly with consumers,” said Larry Freed, president of ForeSee Results. “At the same time, our research shows that privacy concerns, frequent changes to the website and commercialization and advertising adversely affect the consumer experience.”

Really doesn't surprise me. I dislike Facebook a lot. The whole privacy issues bugs me to no end. And the Federal Trade Commission is investigating Facebook's privacy and data collection practices. I've really watched what I type and do on Facebook, and I encourage all of you to do the same. Facebook is still an amazing networking too, and the main reason why I haven't gotten rid of it is because I'm afraid of losing touch with friends. But if Facebook does something that makes me mad, I may walk real soon.

In the mean time, read the entire MSNBC.com article here.

Garfield and commercials

Sometimes, Garfield tells it as it is.  Todays' Sunday strip does it spot-on.

I'm sick of commercials being so much louder than the actual programming.  I'm also sick of there being more commercials then ever before.  And I'm certainly sick of seeing the same commercials over and over and over and over and over again.

I do like the new Geico commercials, though...

"Covert Affiars" is network ready summer fun

"Covert Affairs" is USA's new summer series to join the likes of "Burn Notice," "Royal Pains," "White Collar," Phych," "In Plain Sight," and "White Collar," and it is one of the most enjoyable shows the network has put on the air. USA first got the comedy/drama/action series right with "Monk," putting itself on the map as a network that does more than just reruns of "Law & Order" and "NCIS."

"Covert Affairs" is a fun diversion from the summer, but doesn't seem as formulaic as "Burn Notice" and "Royal Pains." Instead, it dives into the spy genre, and adds a strong female lead in Piper Perabo (of "Coyote Ugly" fame), instead of the customary male lead that we see in most of USA's other shows. But Perabo's character, Annie Walker, is young, reckless, confident, and deeply complex. She's enjoyable to watch, and in one scene during the pilot, where she tries to recover data left behind during an opp turned bad, the clever scriptwriting and her strong acting make the scene laughable and meaningful. We see that she has talent as a CIA operative, and we hope to see her grow and learn as the show continues.

Perabo's biggest help in the show is the blind "Q"-like character, Auggie Anderson, played by Christopher Gorham. Gorham makes Auggie a lovable mentor who seems like the perfect best friend to have. He's one of those character's who may just be along for the ride, but at the same time, after watching the pilot, I have confidence in the writers to make him more complex and important than just a blind assistant.

Speaking of the writers, the show is produced by Doug Liman, who brought Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne to the silver screen. Liman uses his spy-genre experience to make "Covert Affairs" seem more complex in one episode then you'd expect, making me hope and pray that the next episodes will be just as compelling as the pilot.

Why Are We "Token"?

Usually, there's a long, drawn-out explanation as to how a great website like ours got our name. Not this time. It started right before I set off to college. I remember watching Varsity Blues for the first time and seeing this hilarious clip.

After laughing for days, everything was "Token" in my life from there on out. Mike was my "token Yankees fan roommate",  I was the "token Red Sox fan", and we joined forces after our first semester at school to create the "Token Sports Radio Show." The name has stuck ever since. So welcome to the Token Spinoff, which is a spinoff of Token Sports. Basically, we're just your "token college graduates who know who to find legit crap on the internet." There ya have it!

Oh yeah...this was the icing on the cake too. From Not Another Teen Movie...

The Hills Has Ended...It Was Fake Life All Along

While Mike jumps up and down in joy, I mourn the loss of one of the funniest shows in the history of television. Last night MTV aired the finale of the show about snooty L.A. area 20 somethings that everybody loved to hate...and love.

The lingering question with The Hills was always...is this real or fake? The acting is so unbelievably bad that it's good, so could this possibly be real life? Well, the final 10 seconds of last night's finale revealed to us that the whole thing was fake. Phony. Sham. Scripted. No more blind accusations: the lives of everybody on the MTV show were already written down (at least, what you saw on TV). As Brody Jenner waved goodbye to Kristin, the camera crew pulled down a fake backdrop of the Hollywood Hills and panned to a production studio lot somewhere in La La Land. Brilliant!

What a way to go out for The Hills! The joke really is on us now. Here's an excerpt from an NY Daily News piece:

Fans immediately took to Twitter to express their shock, outrage and awe. "The Hills finale made me feel like what it was like when I found out Santa Clause was not real," wrote SillySarahHilly.

"'The Hills' series finale finally revealed what we've known all along: ITS FAKE. Kudos producers for finally owning up to it," wrote Ericksonvision.

I interpreted that finale scene as a tip of the hat - or a slap to the face - from producers finally confirming to fans what we've suspected all along. That yes, "The Hills" had become much more fiction than fact. More Hollywood than Laguna. On the "After Show," Brody even said it was up to the fans to decide what had been real and what hadn't.

Happy Birthday Harrison Ford!

Harrison Ford, a God on screen, and perhaps the actor who has portrayed more iconic characters then any other (like Han Solo, Jack Ryan, and Indiana Jones). The Top 5 lines countdown above is pretty good, but it's missing my hands down favorite line from Mr Ford, and it comes from Clear & Present Danger. Unfortunately, I cannot find a video of the line anywhere, so here's the script from IMDb.com:

The President: [on who gets punished for 'Reciprocity'] You'll take the blame. Cutter and Ritter will take some too, but it won't amount to much. They'll get a slap on the wrist and $20,000 an hour on the lecture circuit. The rest, you'll dump on Greer. Yes, you'll take him down with you. You'll *destroy* his reputation. But it won't go any further than that. It's the ol' Potomac two-step, Jack.
Jack Ryan: I'm sorry, Mr. President, I don't dance.

Weekly Seinfeld Clip: July 12

Alex's favorite Seinfeld reference: George's answering machine!

Injury: Mike sidelined at least 6 weeks!

(It really is that bad.)

Sometimes, being a pussy leads to more pain then you would have received if you just stood still.

Saturday I was in New York, filming a paintball tournament for a professor of mine back at Quinnipiac. Right after hitting the field for the first game, the skies, which had threatened all morning, and had already had rumbles of thunder, opened, and out came rain, rain, and more rain. Torrential downpours soaked the players and the photographers and the videographers.

So with a soaked back end to the ski resort, where the paintball fields were located, we continued. Several games passed. And then, headed back up to a field for the final game or two before lunch. The field was long, and had a road down the middle, and to the right the field slopped away with high grass. The left end was elevated slightly, slopping most of the way along the road, but one area was raised more with open rocks.

My friend who had been the videographer for the event for the years before, game me a piece of advice: "Don't be a pussy and don't get the shot because you don't want to get shot."

I was using the video camera, gathering some quality shots of the action, when all of a sudden, I was directly in the line of fire. I was tried to get out of the way, because I was a pussy, and didn't want to get shot. Moving rather quickly across the soaked ground that was raised above the road, right next to the rocks, my right foot slipped, and fell down the rocks, and got lodged in a hole. I twisted my body, attempting to dislodge the foot and get out of the way of the paintballs whizzing by.

But something had happened. I couldn't move the foot. I fell to the ground, gingerly placing the camera on the ground actually, and looked at my foot.

"MY GOD!" I thought to myself.

Read the rest at Token Sports!

"Despicable Me" Could Be Damn Good!

Rarely am I sold on an animated film, but I think that "Despicable Me" has all the makings of a good flick to check out. At least, it has everything that I would enjoy:

-3D: It just makes everything that much better...for a reference, see Avatar.

-Good voices: Jason Segel, who stars in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and "How I Met Your Mother" on CBS, and the British comedian Russell Brand, who everybody loves to hate, and the one and only Steve Carell, king of wacky voices.

-Score! Literally, the movie even has a good score. Super Hip Hop producer Pharrell Williams put together every note of music for the movie in his debut scoring a feature film.

-The synopsis: A man who delights in all things wicked, supervillain Gru (Steve Carell) hatches a plan to steal the moon. Surrounded by an army of little yellow minions and his impenetrable arsenal of weapons and war machines, Gru makes ready to vanquish all who stand in his way. But nothing in his calculations and groundwork has prepared him for his greatest challenge: three adorable orphan girls who want to make him their dad.
Animated fighting..I'm in! In theaters today...

Facetime Rocks...Or Does It?

This past weekend, while one half of the Token Sports Executive Board was in Austin (myself), I got to try out the new IPhone. My friend and employer at AT&T gave me a sneak preview into a new feature called Facetime. It comes built in with the new phone, and 2 cameras make it possible for live video phone convos:

People have been dreaming about video calling for decades. iPhone 4 makes it a reality. With the tap of a button, you can wave hello to your kids, share a smile from across the globe, or watch your best friend laugh at your stories — iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 over Wi-Fi. No other phone makes staying in touch this much fun.
Fun? In most circumstances, yes, but think about when Facetime would not be good option to use:
-Calling out of work with a "bad cold."
-Talking to a girl of interest...pretty much anytime, unless she's actually able to put up with your morning hangover face.
-When you accidentally push Facetime on your phone and having your friend looking at all your disgusting ear hairs and ear wax.

Bottom line, Facetime is amazing technology, but should used with caution. Also, I would try not to facetime and drink at the same time!

Weekly Seinfeld Clip: July 1