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Vorpal

Covaro on Murrican National TV in 1999

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Yesterday I saw this mentioned somewhere, and since I had my VHS digitizing scheme set up for another project I figured I would grab the tape that I made on that occasion.

The entire broadcast is up with commercials because they're funny in a bad way and I can't be arsed to edit 2 hours of video.

As cringey as Covaro's time with the president was, try to keep in mind he was only ~18-19. Actually only like 2 of the children had well spoken, thought out things to say. Being nervous and a teen is a recipe for stammer/ramble ;-P

Action starts around 0:52:50



If for some reason the mp4 is needed (youtube's re-encode seems alright in this instance though) I can probably be convinced to supply it. It's about 1.5GB, 720x480 h.264 with mostly default settings from Handbrake, though I did use Handbrake's default decomb algorithm. The ultra raw interlaced dealio is 8GB and in a .ts file container, slated for deletion soon unless I get a good reason to slap it on google drive or somewhere.

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I can't bear to actually watch this, but thank you for ripping and uploading it. It's of historical interest in general, not just because of one nerdy kid on it.

Related fun fact: GMA actually contacted me originally and was very close to flying me out to appear on that program, but then they learned that Scott already lived in Maryland, which made things easier for them.

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Was this already uploaded to a non-Youtube medium so it has a more permanent place on the internet in case ABC wants to be a dickhead about uploaded show stuff?

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Linguica said:

GMA actually contacted me originally


Same for me, but they dropped interest like a brick after my inquiry if they were even aware that I was hailing from glorious Europe.

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Well done Covaro. It wasn't cringe worthy. It was good on the President and first lady to put the blame on the people rather than video games. Heck I'd dare say they placed the blame more on parents than video games.

Covaro also gets a mention at 61 minutes by Bill about how Bill himself likes action movies. Covaro also appears on camera at 63 minutes and notices the camera.

They had a good mix of kids. A student from Littleton Co, a rifle team captain, a hunter and someone who accidentally shot his best friend. So far I can't find anything cringe worthy, just nerves and one person just about in tears.

Its brought up that parents with guns in the home should be put on the list. My best friend's family were gun nuts. Even with their gun closet locked, I knew where the key was and I'm sure I could just walk out with a gun and no one would suspect me. Then again I'd have to have the balls to first do it but then go on a shooting spree.

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The cringe factor is because I went through Covaro's thought process and emotions during that time as well; namely the public guilt-tripping of our hobby (only perpetuated by the media and Christian moms). But looking at it now through the lense of being a crotchety old fart, he's in a room full of people with murdererd/injured friends and talking about the plight of us poor doomers. I probably would have done the same damn thing though, our whole community here was strangely consumed by that weird media guilt trip and it seemed extremely important to us at the time.

I dont think anyone else was cringe worthy, just a lot of sadness and "whoa this is the president whoa this is TV" jitters. I was rather proud of the girl who brought up the concept of (not) yielding rights in the face of extreme psychotic acts, since this was (even if just ceremonial) a meeting with statesmen looking for ideas on how to proceed with legislation.

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I remember being really emotionally tense during that period, too. I was too young to properly comprehend how serious the shooting was, and I hated that my favorite game was being scapegoated by people who barely knew what a video game was. I also remember Marilyn Manson being targeted too.

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