VinnyVideo's blog

Yes, Vinny's back with a new batch of controversial comments and dubious criticism. It's been a while (over three months) since I've posted anything, since I've been pretty busy with Christmas and with my new FAQ for The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. Some of this post is already out of date, in fact.

A small number of you may have noticed that the city of Jacksonville was recently eliminated from contention for hosting a possible 2018 or 2022 FIFA World Cup. While that's a lost opportunity for extensive economic impact and international acclaim, we can take consolation in the fact that Wrestlemania 2012 may be coming to the First Coast. Wooooooooo!

I used to think professional wrestling was worthy of a Stupid Medal. It still might be, but I don't care any more because I'm now a professional wrestler myself - sort of. I recently became one of the first members of the New MFGG Wrestling federation (www.forums.mfgg.net), and I'm the #1 Contender for the MFGG World Title belt! (Update: It's already folded, but I might revive it at some point.)

Please don't give me that garbage that says watching pro wrestling is going to make some lunatic jump on the roof and kill someone while practicing wrestling stunts. People like that need to be at the funny farm (where everything is beautiful all day long) anyway and spend all their time watching the beans grow. If violence on TV really bothers you, go pick on Jack Bauer and his 24 brethren. He's usually exalting the joys of enhanced interrogation procedures (I mean torture) and doesn't seem to mind squashing unarmed women.

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I know I'm a little late, but every year those media people (and Congressmen) make a ruckus about how much they want the national championship of football to be determined through a playoff format. I'm not too keen on 8- or 16-team playoffs, which would destroy the current bowl system and would result in teams playing an NFL-length schedule.

However, here's my plan:

1. Abolish the current BCS Championship game. I never understood the reasoning behind playing two BCS games in the same city in the same week.

2. Abolish automatic berths for each of the "BCS conferences." What that means is in some years, NO representatives from one of the BCS conferences will get to play in a BCS game. This year, for example, there would have been five teams from the BCS conferences (Iowa or possibly Georgia Tech would have been relegated to a non-BCS bowl), and Boise State, TCU, and Florida would have been the at-large teams.

3. Go back to the old system of playing four BCS bowls, and play a true "BCS Championship" after the conclusion of those games involving the top two teams in the BCS rankings. Another way it could happen would be to arrange a #1 vs. #4 matchup and a #2 vs. #3 in two of the traditional big four bowls.


And while we're on the topic of college football bowls, I'd suggest the NCAA eliminate a handful of the real stinkers involving even-record teams from small conferences. I don't want to go back to the old days when high-ranked teams might miss out on the postseason (like Wyoming in 1996), but I don't think anyone would shed a tear if 3-8 of the weaker (and less solvent) bowls go the way of the Bluebonnet Bowl, the Aloha Bowl, and the Silicon Valley Classic.

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I'm still willing to bet a nickel that Florida head coach Urban Meyer won't be coaching the team this fall. But I'm not betting any more than that, and even if he doesn't return, I think Steve Addazio is likely to be a quality head coach.

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The Jacksonville Jaguars ended this season like a dying mule, losing their last four games and looking downright awful in the process. A team as inexperienced as the Jaguars should finish the season on the way up instead of getting worse at the end. True, Indianapolis and New England were strong teams, but there was no excuse for losing to Cleveland and for playing as badly as they did during those games.

Although as Gene Frenette noted, it's a wonder a team could give up 44 sacks (with just 14 of their own) and win even seven games.

Like most of you, I have mixed feelings about the Jaguars drafting Tim Tebow. While there's no question he could be a leader on a team that runs a little low in the leadership department, I'm not sure he could really duplicate his college feats in the NFL. My main concern is his almost exclusive use of the shotgun in college. Drafting him is undoubtedly taking a big risk, but not drafting him is probably an even greater risk. The Jaguars obviously have many gaps in their youthful team, and David Garrard is obviously a capable quarterback. Still, considering the 15,000 people who would get season tickets if the Jaguars drafted Tebow, and considering that both Jack Del Rio and David Garrard will probably be out of town if the Jaguars don't reach the playoffs next year, I wouldn't be surprised if Tebow was a Jaguar next fall.

I'd also like to say congratulations to Jaguars great Mark Brunell finally winning the Super Bowl as a New Orleans Saint, even if he's just a holder nowadays.

I can't say congratulations to GoDaddy, CareerBuilder, CarMax, or quite a few of the other Super Bowl commercials, however. It's OK to wear pants, and soft-core porno is NOT mandatory in a Super Bowl ad and won't make your car go any faster. And while those Bud Light commercials were funny, they seemed to serve as counter-commercials that prove what happens when you overuse the products they're trying to sell.

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Two useless facts for you: Each of past 13 Christmas Days has been rainy or had a high under 60 degrees Fahrenheit (or both). In addition, the last two days of the year (December 30 and 31) have had above-average temperatures every year since 2002. Yes, I spend a lot of time looking at NOAA records to satisfy my curiosity.

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If you'd like to compliment or berate me, you're invited to shoot off an e-mail to VHamilton002@gmail.com. Please practice some degree of civility, though, or I'll jump down from the roof and practice my trademark 7 Star Frog Splash on you the next time I see you walking down my street. Then you'll remember to be civil next time.

- Vinny


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To be honest, I'd almost forgotten about this blog. I've been pretty good about keeping up my GameSpot blog the past few months, but this blog has lain fallow since the end of 2010 - and that's quite a long time!

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There's not a person on this planet who would've benefited from the passing of SOPA or PIPA, so I'm very glad that the bills seem to be destined for the graveyard of bills buried at the bottom of Capitol Hill. The bills' demise is good for everyone from random teenagers making YouTube videos to startup businesses to the big media companies themselves. SOPA and related proposals gave more power to Big Media to arbitrarily shut down things they didn't like, but the bills did little that would be likely to reduce the kinds of counterfeiting and other organized crime that really harms content creators on a large scale. If America really wanted to reduce piracy, we'd get tough on China and other totalitarian regimes where censorship gives people no choice but to pirate things they want.

While I don't generally support or condone piracy of music, movies, software, and so forth (except in cases when it's the only way to obtain such media, as with, say, a small number of Japanese-only game releases), media companies have a hard time grasping the fact that some losses from piracy are a cost of doing business. Whenever you sell something that can be copied easily, rapidly, and inexpensively, you're inevitably going to lose some sales because illegal copies will be made, whether on a small scale (copying a CD and giving to a friend) or a very large scale (organized crime that mass-produces convincing counterfeits of media, especially in the Third World). In this respect, piracy isn't much different from a restaurant losing money when a new waitress drops a plate full of dishes, or a grocery store having to throw away a small percentage of produce due to spoilage, or a plumber having to redo a job that wasn't done right.

Piracy does hurt content creators, but it's an expense that really isn't avoidable - most methods for fighting piracy will either alienate fans, suppress free expression, or, perhaps most likely of all, result in a poorer product (through things like draconian DRM). Sure, losses through piracy do hurt corporate profits (and have an indirectly impact upon jobs and tax receipts), but it's also unclear how high those figures really are. A good example might be video game ROMs for old games - someone who downloads and plays an old video game for an obsolete system (a product that is still legally under copyright but is something the original holder can earn little, if any, future revenue from) might subsequently be inspired to go out and buy the latest sequel to that game.

It's a little hard to muster up too much sympathy for Big Media, which has remained relatively unscathed through the Great Recession while individuals and other companies have been hit hard in the past five years. However, the solution to piracy isn't enacting constitutionally-dubious laws made by politicians with little understanding of how the Internet works. Rather, the best way to mitigating piracy is embracing free speech and free expression throughout the world, and creating an environment where media companies are encouraged to produce creative, innovative products.

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Yes, it's election season again. I have a hard time embracing any of the Republican candidates (or Baracko, for that matter), since most of them seem like rather morally dubious people. Ron Paul has the most interesting ideas of the bunch and seems to have the most solid principles of them, but I have a hard time seeing a Libertarian running as a Republican actually winning a presidential election. Mitt Romney's moderate views probably make him the most electable candidate, unless opponents can convince the electorate that his Mormon faith is an issue, or that packing your dog on the roof of your car while going on a vacation to Canada is an unpardonable offense on the level of King George III's Intolerable Acts. A more legitimate concern is that Romney has a hard time demonstrating that he possesses any actual beliefs or convictions about much of anything, as he has tended to avoid committing to any particular position - which could be unsettling to voters and may also provide fodder for Obama to throw out the old "flip-flop" word.

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In the past, this blog has traditionally done little except cover random opinions about the National Football League, especially that little-followed team in my own city. While I'm not a big fan of firing coaches at the drop of a hat, getting rid of Jack Del Rio was the right way to go - he had lost control of the situation, and it's not like he's ever been a star coach at the head coach level. JDR is clearly much better suited to a role as a defensive coordinator or other assistant position. While new coach Mike Mularkey has consistently generated mixed results in the past, at least the assistants selected seem sensible - including keeping interim coach Mel Tucker on board.

And yes, the Jaguars should've drafted Tim Tebow two years ago. Just saying. It's true that "hindsight is 20/20," but anything would've been worth getting even a fraction of the publicity "Tebow Mania" has wrought, even if Tim Tebow might not have been as successful on the Jaguars, a team with a considerably weaker defense than what the Broncos have.

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It's kind of rare I blog any more, since I'm busier with real life nowadays (like finishing over a year's worth of education in the course of a single semester), and since I find the online world less interesting these days (most of the forums I use have been hurt by cannabilization from the hyper-commercialized and narcissistic cancer that is Facebook, or else poisoned by the attitudes that exemplify 4chan and other image boards). Still, I'll see if I can find time in the future to keep this blog more interesting. In the meantime, here's signing off again.

- Vinny
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And no one's around to read it, did it really happen? Either way, I felt like revisiting one of the first issues I ever blogged about and giving it a sad but instructive conclusion. Then I felt like tacking on some other random things that no one will read anyway.

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So Mac Brunson's finally made a public apology and coughed up a nominal settlement to blogger Tom Rich. It's about time. Was Brunson sincere in his contrition, or was it just part of getting people to shut up about an ugly lawsuit? I can't say. I'm not the One who has the capacity to judge man's hearts. It would be nice if he really is sorry for doing wrong rather than just sorry for getting sued.

Either way, it feels good to get this debacle over with. Unfortunately, no reparations can undo the inestimable harm Brunson caused to the image of his faith, his church, his city, and himself. Personally, he shook my faith in the institutions of organized religion and organized government at a time when my confidence in those things wasn't very high, and he gave the nonreligious ample ammunition to attack Baptists and stereotype all of us as being enemies of the freedom and dissent. That's a pretty big price to pay for trying to get a personal enemy to keep quiet!

Were all of Tom Rich's attacks on Brunson completely fair? I'm not sure. The appeal to silence is a strong argument in favor of Rich's allegations, however. If the FBC Watchdog ever posted something that was untrue or misleading, I'm pretty sure Tom would've been open enough to accept a comment or arrange a personal meeting with Brunson. Since Brunson never delivered anything resembling a rebuttal, other than publicly calling his opponent a coward and a sociopath, it's pretty safe to say that Brunson was the one in the wrong.

All of us are going to face criticism, especially if we seek out positions of influence, power, and authority. Some of this criticism will be fair, and some of it won't be. How we handle that criticism shows the world what we're made of.

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I'm getting the vibe that this year's presidential campaign is going to be even uglier and more misleading than the past couple of elections, which had enough mudslinging to keep us going for a few decades. The incumbent is already playing hardball with constant attacks on his opponent, even before Romney emerged from the free-for-all of GOP primaries. When the wrasslin' starts this early, I think we can be pretty sure that we'll be looking forward to a barrage of misleading, slanderous attack ads this fall!

Barack Obama doesn't need to play this hard in the campaign. Besides the system always being slanted in favor of incumbents, Obama has the advantage of an economy that's beginning to show signs of life again. A growing economy is good news for an incumbent president in an election year! Sure, the recovery's been a lot slower than most of us would like, but the economy is what voters really care about, and Obama should milk this growth for all it's worth.

Still, the hyper-emotional language we're already hearing ("war on women," "war on caterpillars," "war on whatever else pundits can make up") never fails to amuse. It would be refreshing to see candidates who can address serious topics in a rational manner... but I'm afraid we'll just get another load of democracy-destroying vitriol this year.

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I'm probably going to regret writing about such a charged topic, but the Trayvon Martin case warrants a passing reference. Was Trayvon's shooter a saint? No. But Trayvon was far from the innocent, baby-faced kid the most popular photograph of him would indicate. Would Trayvon be alive today if he was white? Yes, but remember that this isn't the only time that would be true! Blacks are still treated and perceived differently from white people in America, no matter how much we pretend that racism is a thing of the past. That said, young African-Americans aren't doing themselves any favors by emulating the thug lifestyle. To help prevent situations like this from happening in the future, we need nurturing citizens that improve the lives of young black people - not new laws that are unlikely to have any real effect.

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Will Blaine Gabbert ever be an NFL-quality quarterback? I don't know. His first season in the NFL was pretty terrible, as we all saw. Most of the time he looked like he was terrified of the prospect of actually being hit. If you dread getting squashed by surprisingly athletic 290-pound men, you shouldn't be taking snaps in the National Football League. There are bigger concerns than keeping your gorgeous blond locks looking sharp! You're a quarterback, not a teen pop idol.

That said, Blaine's recent interview with Gene Frenette really boosted my respect for the young quarterback. He showed a lot of humility and admitted to some of the mistakes he made (and did a much more effective job than that pastor I mentioned in the first part of this blog!). Even if so many of us would've rather seen a certain Jacksonville-born quarterback wind up here, I'm hoping we'll see Gabbert make a big improvement this season. How much so will determine how far the Jaguars go this year.

Perhaps the Jaguars signing decent receivers will improve the Jaguars' prospects for a decent air game. Then again, I see a lot of parallels between Lee Evans and Jerry Porter, and we all know how much the latter deal helped the team.

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Sometimes I make the mistake of blogging about Cubs baseball. On paper this looks like the weakest Cubs team in 10 or 15 years. It looks mighty strange to see people like Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Zambrano, and Sean Marshall wearing other uniforms. But who knows. Some fresh blood probably won't hurt.

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I've probably said enough for this post. Maybe I'll start blogging every week or two, or perhaps I'll even move this blog to somewhere it'll earn more attention. Don't bet your bottom dollar on either of those happening, though.

- Vinny
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