A Good, Bad and Ugly Week

Here's my world in a nutshell this past week...

1. NFL "Championship Monday" (Sunday, EST)

The Good: Excellent football games all around. Both my picks won. Steelers vs Cardinals for the Superbowl, baby!

The Bad: Who the hell do I root for come the Superbowl?

The Ugly: I've been a Steelers fan for several years now, but I cannot help but root for Kurt Warner. Here's a 37 year old quarterback who has a life story that can make "The Rookie" and "Seabiscuit" look like "Air Bud". If he and the Cardinals lose after coming this far, there's no justice in this world, and I'm probably going to cry like a little girl. But...the Steelers, man....

Suggested Movie Title: "If 'Rudy' Was More Successful and Not a Dick: The Kurt Warner Story"

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2. I Got Sick

The Good: I got a full day's rest, and got to miss what was, by many accounts, a horrid class session.

The Bad: The headache was one nasty bitch.

The Ugly: One of the supposed causes of my headache was my high blood pressure. So, that means all that makes eating good must end (or just severely curtailed for now). Imagine, me, on a fucking diet!

Not even a pair of exposed PETA boobies can make this appetizing...

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3. I Got To Watch a Filipino Adaptation of One of My All-Time Favorite Satires: Animal Farm

The Good: Umm...it was for free?

The Bad: It has got to be the most god-awful translation of Animal Farm in existence. "Hacienda Animal" is a title more fitting for a Mexican soap (and translates to "Animal Estate", which the farm manifestly wasn't).

The Ugly: The ending is the epitome of stupidity among all the other stupidities inflicted by that moron of a translator (if it was the director's addition, then that moron of a director). Read the Wikipedia page, and you will see that "Napoleon" is an allusion to either Napoleon Bonaparte or, more credibly, to Joseph Stalin. The ending of the adaptation (which still retains the original names for characters, places and things) has a female "Napoleon" prancing around as "madame President" (was Stalin ever "president"?) before being overrun by "migrating" animals. So, the poignant satire which was "Animal Farm", in the hands of a most incompetent translator, becomes a blunt, poorly-written exercise in mocking President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. All nuance and irony are crushed under the heel of political point-scoring. It's V for Vendetta the movie all over again. I know GMA is not the best president, but to compare her to Stalin is to minimize what a monster Stalin truly was. I pray this translation is burned in a bonfire of vanities somewhere and never comes to international attention. If it does, then I hope the estate of Orwell sues the pants off this UP prick Jorge Himenez for crimes against literature. I am willing to add an amicus brief for the prosecution.

Didn't Stalin have a killer 'stache?

Isn't GMA supposed to be smaller, and without that genocidal twinkle in her eye?

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4. The Inauguration of "The One".

The Good: A black guy is now US President. All those Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock comedies have not gone to waste!

The Bad: Different pigment, same politician.

The Ugly: There is this whorish cult of personality surrounding "The One". If I wanted to see a people openly prostituting themselves with such ecstasy and in such magnitude, I would simply watch Leni Riefenstahl's masterful Hitler documentary "Triumph of the Will". At least, that was better shot than HBO's love fest for The One. You should also see this compilation of Hollywood celebrities conveniently finding their civic spirit and openly declaring their love and servitude, not to the country they spent the last 8 years hating, but to The Dear Leader himself (praise be upon him). Watch it til the end to get to the "Children of the Corn"-like part.

Yo, buck-tooth Michael Strahan, wouldn't it have killed you to consider yourself an unhyphenated American when Bush was in office? Or even Clinton? And Red Hot Chili Peppers guy, "I pledge allegiance to Barack Obama"? WTF?

This, my friends, is an example of a bunch of free serfs begging for tyranny. Looks like they've found the right tyrant. We'll see.

Nope, no creepy cult of personality here. Move along. Remember, he sees ALL!

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5. The IMC "Rally" for those who passed phase I of the application process....

The Good: Everybody seemed giddy with joy.

The Bad: It was sort of like that classroom chanting scene in Animal Farm ("Four legs good! Two legs bad!") combined with a reality show opening.

The Ugly: We don't get to see them fight each other through a bunch of menial corporate tasks with special twists. Yes, folks, I've seen one episode of Stylista....

Dean: 59 contestants, 20 slots...who will be the next batch of IMC students? Who's gonna cry? Who's gonna be an ass? Stay tuned!