Reigning supreme as one of my favorite animated homages to It’s a Wonderful Life is Rugrats’ very own Chuckie’s Wonderful Life with its grim portrayal of the Chuckie-less alternate universe and its home-hitting message. Enjoy my tribute and let me know your opinions as well.
Articles by Antoni Matteo Garcia
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Before It’s a Wishful Life’s mean-spiritedness, there was Johnny’s Guardian Angel with its surprising amount of genuineness, heart, and indubitable hilarity. Enjoy my lookback on this rather affectionate parody of It’s a Wonderful Life done in the style of Johnny Bravo.
This pathetic excuse of an It’s a Wonderful Life parody made me want to kick Jorgen von Strangle’s family jewels as a 13-year-old approaching the seventh grade and it made me want to do it again as a 28-year-old university student and content creator. Enjoy my rant on one of my least Fairly OddParents episodes of all time. Special acknowledgment has to go to Cookie-Lovey for also bringing up that plot hole regarding Chip Skylark, Tootie, Mark Chang, and The Crimson Chin and how they would have reacted if Timmy were gone. If you want to read up on that, please do so. https://www.deviantart.com/cookie-lovey/art/FOP-It-s-a-Wishful-Life-741792361
Hey, everybody, Antoni here with a set of operatic dream casts I have in store for you. For someone who has been a huge aficionado of opera ever since I was nine years old, I thought it would be fun if I came up with a set of dream casts of twelve of my favorite operas. What better place to start than with some of my favorite Bel Canto operas if I were to travel back to the 2000s. This is also my contribution for this year’s Red Ribbon Reviewers month. Gaetano Donizetti’s Anna Bolena Anna Bolena- Anna-Kristiina Kaappola Giovanna Seymour- Nancy Fabiola Herrera Smeton- Christine Rice Enrico VIII- Jaco Huijpen Riccardo Percy- Roberto Alagna Lord Rochefort- Graeme Broadbent Sir Hervey- Matthew Beale Gaetano Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda Elisabetta I- Ruxandra Donose Maria Stuarda- Anna-Kristiina Kaappola Anna Kennedy- Valentina Kutzarova Talbot- Franz Hawlata Leicester- Roberto Alagna Cecil- Sebastian Holecek Gaetano Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux Roberto Devereux- Roberto Alagna Elisabetta I- Anna-Kristiina Kaappola Duca di Nottingham- Carlos Alvarez Sara- Stephanie Blythe Gualtiero Raleigh- Giovanni Furlanetto Lord Cecil- Colin Judson Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor Lucia Ashton- Marlis Petersen Edgardo Ravenswood- Paul Groves Enrico Ashton- Lado Ataneli Raimondo Bidebent- Hans Peter König Arturo Bucklaw- Chad Shelton Normanno- Saverio Fiore Alisa- Atala Schöck Gaetano Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix Linda- Marlis Petersen Carlo- Paul Groves Pierrotto- Elizabeth Bishop Maddalena- Michaela Schuster Prefetto- Carlo Colombara Marchese di Boisfleury- Maurizio Muraro Antonio- Carlos Alvarez L’Intendante- Chad Shelton Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma Norma- Luba Orgonasova Pollione- Antonio Nagore Oroveso- Roberto Scandiuzzi Adalgisa- Zheng Cao Flavio- Will Hartmann Clotilde- Patricia Risley Vincenzo Bellini’s La Sonnambula Amina- Elena Mosuc Elvino- Ramon Vargas Conte Rodolfo- Roberto Scandiuzzi Teresa- Iris Vermilion Lisa- Dawn Kotoski Alessio- Michele Pertusi Notaio- Kevin Conners Vincenzo Bellini’s I Capuleti e I Montecchi Giulietta- Natalie Dessay Romeo- Beatrice Uria Monzon Tebaldo- Roberto Sacca Capellio- Albert Dohmen Lorenzo- Hao Jiang Tian Vincenzo Bellini’s I Puritani Elvira- Mary Dunleavy Arturo- Marcelo Alvarez Riccardo- Roberto Servile Gualtiero- Clive Bayley Giorgio- Giacomo Prestia Bruno- Matthew Polenzani Enrichetta- Stephanie Novacek Gioacchino Rossini’s Semiramide Semiramide- Hellen Kwon Arsace- Sonia Ganassi Azema- Laura Claycomb Idreno- Chris Merritt Mitrane- Jeffrey Francis Assur- John-Paul Bogart Oroe- Kristinn Sigmundsson L’Ombra di Nino- Walter Fink Gioacchino Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia Figaro- Paolo Gavanelli Almaviva- Roberto Sacca Rosina- Natalie Dessay Dottor Bartolo- Gilles Cachemaille Don Basilio- Kristinn Sigmundsson Berta- Jadwiga Rappé Fiorello- Christian Gerhaher Ufficiale- Detlef Roth Gioacchino Rossini’s Il Viaggio a Reims Madama Cortese- Klara Kolonits Corinna- Diana Damrau Marchesa Melibea- Kate Aldrich Contessa di Folleville- Anna Christy Conte di Libenskof- Michael Schade Cavalier Belfiore- José Bros Don Luigino- Steve Davislim Don Alvaro- Andrea Concetti Antonio- Carlos Alvarez Don Profondo- Hans Peter König Lord Sidney- Carlo Colombara Don Prudenzio- Stephen Milling Barone di Trombonok- Maurizio Muraro Zefirino- Dietmar Kerschbaum Gelsomino- Peter Marsh Maddalena- Stephanie d’Oustrac Modestina- Ailish Tynan Delia- Sabina Puertolas So, fellow opera fans, these are my dream casts for my favorite Bel Canto operas if ever I wanted to go back in time to the 2000s. Please let me know if you also have a dream cast for these twelve Bel Canto operas. Happy Holidays and stay safe, everybody.
I am back in the reviewing game with Jennifer O’Loughlin striking up the band as Anna Bolena. How did she and her co-stars fare in their roles? Find out in my review.
Happy Holidays, everybody, Antoni here and I am welcoming the merry month of December for the final -ber month weight loss goals. Yesterday, I weighed in at 12 stone 11.46 lbs (179.46 lbs or 81.4 kg). Today, I weigh 12 stone 11.02 lbs (179.02 lbs or 81.2 kg), which means I have managed to lose 7.04 ounces or 200 grams. It may be early days because I still have another thirty days to go, but I am most likely going to accomplish my stone-and-a-half (21-pound or 9.525-kilo) weight loss mark by the end of the three -ber months. Do you want some more numbers? My BMI has dropped to 28.4. Yes, I still have 3.5 to 9.9 to go in order to achieve the healthy weight range I am supposed to be in, i.e. 11 stone 3 lbs (157 lbs or 71.4 kg) to about 9 stone (126 lbs or 57.15 kg), but I am more than determined to lead the skinny life I have always wanted to lead. Though a stone-and-a-half weight loss is quite inevitable by this final -ber month, I would also be happy if I surpassed that target such as anything itching to an overall 2-stone (28-pound or 12.8-kilo) weight loss target. The holidays are in full swing and I trust that my Christmas and New Year’s should be slimmer than before. I want to close this with something I have come up with. Gone is the comfort eating. Gone is the excessive binging. Gone is the secret eating. Gone is my lust for takeaways. Gone is my want to eat out. Gone is the junk food. Gone are the simple carbs. Gone for good is the boozing. Gone are the massive portions. Gone are the furtive feasts. Nothing’s gonna eat me anymore. I’m in charge of my body. I’m proud to aspire to be skinnier. There’s no going back for this queer dude now. There’s no falling off hurdles. It’s health, self-love, and confidence for me now and forever! It’s gonna be a brand new me! Let the final -ber month weight loss commence. Happy Holidays, everybody.
Happy First Week of Advent, everybody, Antoni here with another -ber month weight loss update. This is the third -ber month, university has come in full swing once again, despite it being another digital semester, but at least I am still on my grind. I started November weighing in at 13 stone 1.21 lbs (183.21 lbs or 83.1 kg). I have ended this -ber month weighing at 12 stone 11.46 lbs (179.46 lbs or 81.4 kg). This means I have lost 3.75 lbs (1.7 kg) throughout this month. It may not be the biggest monthly weight loss I have done, but I realized the fringe benefits. From September to November, I have managed to lose 1 stone 4.3 lbs (18.3 lbs or 8.3 kg), which means I am 2.7 lbs (1.225 kg) near my stone-and-a-half (21-lb or 9.525-kg) weight loss goal. Furthermore, even though I continue to not be classified as obese anymore according to my current BMI of 28.5, I still have a long way to go until I get to a much healthier weight range. I now have between 1 stone 11.05 lbs (22.05 lbs or 10 kg) to 3 stone 11.57 lbs (53.57 lbs or 24.3 kg) of excess weight to go, but I am more than willing to make sure that the skinny life shall be led. I do not want to rest on my laurels because I have to remind myself that any weight lost is much better than any weight regained. Furthermore, I want to continue setting an example to my nieces and nephews that being healthy, independent, and feeling great about yourself is the way to go. I knew what it was like being obese and I do not recommend ending up that size. I will continue to motivate myself and I will do my best to keep the weight off for the rest of my natural life. I am really happy that I got this far in my weight loss in a matter of over two months and I am really excited for December. Have a most blessed Advent, everybody.
This screenshot motivational poster is highly Pro-Jeff McCallister and Pro-Edmund Pevensie but it has nothing to do with shipping whatsoever. However, this has something to do with my own perception of how I wanted to see myself in these characters when I was a lot younger. Furthermore, this is my contribution for this year’s Red Ribbon Reviewers’ Month. My dear friends, I would like you to immerse yourselves to when I was a 13-year-old seventh-grader who was a hardcore Home Alone and Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe fan, considering that the former film has celebrated its 30th anniversary and the latter film is going to celebrate its 15th anniversary. Picture yourselves in my position when I religiously tuned in to see these young men respectively played by Michael Maronna and Skandar Keynes gracing the screen with their rambunctious attitudes, ambivalent moral alignments though still leaning on the side of good, yet likable charms. Do you know what sparked in my mind back when I was an impressionable 13-year-old boy? That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. I wanted to be thin like them. I know that what I am about to say is going to be quite triggering. However, you need to understand that I am not going to trigger, let alone implicate, some type of eating disorder to be passed down on you. Granted, as I am talking to you in my present adult self, I am currently 12 stone 12.13 lbs (180.13 lbs or 81.7 kg), but the truth remains that I still have about 1 stone 9.13 lbs to 3 stone 12.13 lbs to go until I reach my healthy weight range. Going back to the time when I was thirteen years old, I may have been a bit lighter than I was in comparison to today, but I was still very unhappy with what I looked like and I almost started to become very wary of the types of foods I was eating at that young of an age, i.e. being super aware of the calorie content of certain meals my relatives in San Francisco were preparing during the arrival of my dad, my mom, myself, my younger sister, and my younger brother as well as the many times my family and I would go out to restaurants or do food shopping. There were times I thought to myself that having something to eat that did not meet the rules I had to be thinner was akin to committing appearance suicide just because I wanted to know what it was going to be like to end up skinny. Enter Jeff and Edmund who I not only identified with in terms of their ambiguous personalities and even the dumb decisions they have made when I was their age, but also the actors who portrayed them who were a lot slimmer than I was when I was thirteen. It even got to the point where one of my biggest performing arts dreams when I was young was to lose a whole lot more weight and participate in a staged production of Home Alone and Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe playing Jeff McCallister and Edmund Pevensie respectively. That would have been one of the biggest successes in my life as a young budding actor and it would have been so much fun to have played a younger brother role rather than the real-life older brother that I am. Even when I came back to Cebu from my Christmas and New Year’s break in San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C., I wrote that one of my New Year’s resolutions was to be thin like Jeff and Edmund because I aspired to look like that at that age. I did not want to be a massive fatty by any stretch of the imagination and the thought of ending up like that made my skin crawl with disgust and my hair stand on end with fright. Nowadays, as an adult, I still aspire to be slim, though not slim as they were, but for a more different reason other than sheer vanity. At least going back to why I wanted to be thinner and aspire to have slimline frames like Jeff and Edmund had made me realize that I was just an idealistic thirteen-year-old boy with a lot of big dreams, huge aspirations, and no time for setbacks or disappointments. These days, wanting to aim for slimness is no longer a question of vanity or getting the next modeling deal once the pandemic subsides but a question of long-term self-sufficiency, good health, active energy, and the love I have for this short yet insane life of mine. In conclusion, it has been fifteen years since I wanted to become as thin as Edmund and Jeff, especially when I flashed back to the time I was a thirteen-year-old seventh-grader attending a missionary-run school with a whole lot that I wanted to live for. Nevertheless, those memories that I had still hold fresh in my mind to this day because of how impressionable I was at that age. These days with more mature eyes, I can always fall back on health, happiness, and independence as reasons for me to keep on losing weight and live the skinny life I have always wanted to live. I hope you all enjoyed this and I hope what I had to say was not overly triggering. Until then, I will see you in the next submission. Take care, stay safe, and stay healthy, everybody. Edmund Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe belongs to C.S. Lewis, Walden Media, and Disney. Jeff McCallister from Home Alone belongs to John Hughes and Chris Columbus.
Barely two months ago, I casted my absentee ballot in order to vote for Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. and Kamala Devi Harris respectively as the President and Vice-President of the United States of America. I may have casted my vote to lift my voice to ensure that the Democrats gain steam in the White House after four years of fear-mongering, despair, Neo-Fascism, conspiracy, humiliation, desecration, disgrace, crime, corruption, oppression, divisiveness, slander, and animosity America had to suffer through. However, I casted my vote as an American citizen, who is in turn proud of his Filipino-Spanish heritage. I may have done my part, which I shall continue to do so in every single election, but the existential anxiety remained for four days within the first week of November. Witnessing news outlets such as ABC, MSNBC, and CNN tally up the votes from state to state made me undergo four teeth-gnashing days and four sleepless nights even when my third semester in university commenced once more. I was also scared that Biden and Harris were not going to make it in certain states, notably Pennsylvania. I even thought to myself that four more years of that bloated, orange-skinned, ignoramus bastard and his goons would have been the biggest existential nightmare I and many Americans would have had to endure. Now, I am full of hope, relief, and sufficient joy, as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris ended up being the President-Elect and the Vice-President-Elect of the United States of America! Therefore, they and their families will have to do everything in their power to dismantle Trump’s nepotistic era and bring forth an era of recovery, healing, unity, and equality. Something in the back of my mind knew that Biden was going to ascend to presidency, given that he accrued the highest amount of votes any Democrat presidential candidate had as well as the amount of votes that ended up increasing in Biden’s favor in Georgia and in Pennsylvania. Speaking of Pennsylvania, that was the deciding factor where he ended up winning the race to become the USA’s next president by making it to 273 electoral college votes! I can comprehend that Joe Biden’s political career has been met with a lot of rockiness, loss, and tragedy, as he experienced the death of his first wife and his daughter from a car accident and had allegations directed towards him when he was serving his time as the senator. Nevertheless, he was strong in his stance and stood tall and proud for what he believed in when he called attention to the genocide occurring in Bosnia and Herzegovina, thus identifying Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic as war criminals, in 1995 and calling out the apartheid government in South Africa for being oppressive to the black population as well as for being a repugnant and repulsive regime. Even when he stumbled in presidential races, he served well as the vice-president during Barack Obama’s rule as president and he managed to bounce back up this year with his debates against Bernie Sanders for running as the Democratic candidate for president as well as Donald Trump in the main presidential debate deservedly telling him to shut up and state that he was a clown. That strength of character, humility in times of adversity, overall humanity, directness, and even being so conscientious about the constantly rising COVID-19 cases in the United States all made him a good candidate for defeating Trump once and for all. Ergo, this is a man who had less than 50 years of experience in politics and what he has been displaying throughout those years have made him shine in his own special way. Kamala Harris was especially notable for being such a phenomenal figure in the White House from serving as senator to being a presidential candidate to rising above as the first colored American woman of both Jamaican and Indian heritage to rise above as the Vice-President Elect of the United States of America. I may not have been a huge follower of her career, but watching her ask the toughest questions to her detractors and critics while maintaining a sense of composure, class, and intellect made her a striking figure to look up to. For that, she has all of my acclaim and honor. I know that it is going to be a rocky four years in the White House for Biden and Harris. I know it is not going to be an easy task for them to commence the healing process. I know that there is a barrage of issues they have to tackle with all of their being. I know that the COVID-19 pandemic, the overall division, the oppression, and the condition of human rights are some of the issues Biden and Harris will need to address and find ways to ensure a better tomorrow. However, given the support world leaders such as Justin Trudeau, Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, and even freaking Boris Johnson had for Biden, Harris, and their party, I can surely say that they can do it because their humility, humanity, integrity, and compassion have made them shine. To conclude, I speak for every American when I say that I was so glad to have made my voice be heard in order to give that push for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to ascend to the White House. I also speak for everyone in the world that we have watched what was going to occur and, for what it was worth, the catharsis was extremely worth it. Four more years of Trump, Pence, and their goons would have turned the United States of America into the Fascist Regime of America and that is not what my home country was based. Having Biden and Harris restore integrity, sensibility, compassion, and equality to the United States of America was the greatest turnaround not only in American history but also the history of the world. So, here’s to freedom, equality, justice, compassion, humility,…
Georgia, I totally salute your people with all of my reverence for two reasons. First, the presence of Stacey Abrams has displayed how much respect this woman shall garner not only from me but also all of my fellow Americans because of how she encouraged the prevalence of Democracy to be present in that state. Secondly, Biden took the lead after what it seemed like such a monumentally whopping task. Bravi to all of the people of Georgia for making Democracy thrive! Now, it is a question of how Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Alaska, and North Carolina will hold up. I am still slightly rooting for Arizona, but it seems like Biden’s lead there is fizzing out despite still being at the top. However, Pennsylvania continues to give me a good amount of hope. So, all I can do is continue to hope that Democracy shall be restored and the blue wave shall lead Biden to victory for the good of all the American people.