back when chocolate drinks came in tin cans and glass bottles

I'm a sucker for chocolate drinks; I think most kids are or at least have been at some point.

Back then we had Milo - in its still-familiar green-and-gold trademark packaging, only it came in gold tin cans instead of foil sachets (In those days, the only things you could buy in sachets were shampoo and conditioner; today almost every consumer product comes in sachets - detergent, fabric softener, peanut butter). To my memory, Milo has always had the same jingle, just in different arrangements. And it's always had that "pro-athletic" thing going on. "Milo for Olympic energy".

I remember Milo bars. They were heavenly. I also remember that somebody's mother made wonderful Milo cookies.

The TV commercials were pretty indelible - The ups and downs in a boy's basketball lifestyle, the up of course involving a glass of ice-cold Milo. A day in the life of a soccer player, the highlight of which was the Milo-powered goal he made in a rain-soaked game. There was also the one with Bea Lucero, when she wasn't yet knows as the tae kwon do master with an Olympic bronze medal under her black belt, but the cute, twelve-year old gymnast who also co-hosted a kids show with Bam Aquino (then known as "BamBam") and Diego Castro (then known as "Kokok").

Milo disappeared for awhile, and it reemerged as vibrant as ever. Except that I think it doesn't quite have the same yummy quality - it seems to be mostly just sugar now. Or maybe it's just that those foil sachets cheapen the experience.

Milo's rival was Ovaltine, the TVCs of which showed adventurous, inquisitive kids who thought they were Indiana Jones. Ovaltine pow-errrrr .... Ovaltine!

This drink had a snack form called Ovalteenies - little round Ovaltine-flavored tablets - which were advertised by cartoon mascots who were just creepy - they were round, dark oompa loompas, and if you paid attention to what they were doing, you'd realize they were cannibals.

The nice thing about powdered chocolate drinks like Milo and Ovaltine is that you didn't have to mix them with water to enjoy them; you could eat the powder form. A spoonful of crunchy, cocoa-y Milo or Ovaltine (with or without milk or sugar) was kiddie bliss. I remember reading this hilarious book back in fourth grade (an old publication I chanced upon in the school library) with a heroine named Rosemary; in one story, she made a snack out of powdered chocolate, powdered milk and sugar and called it "cokeshug".

Chocolait was chocolate milk that came in a cute glass bottle. If I remember correctly, it was the only chocolate milk sold locally. "Magnolia Chocolait is a drink like a chocolate bar that you can drink - so highly nutritious!"

Magnolia thought of a brilliant way of making kids drink milk. Kids loved that whole array that looked so attractive lined up in the grocery stores, pastel colors showing through the sleek, clear glass -- fresh milk, sweet dairy milk, strawberry milk, melon milk. There was even this purple-colored thing that must have been ube milk (*shudder*). But everyone's fave - popular enough to have its own TVC - was Chocolait. Yummy and creamy, especially enjoyable when cold. It was an absolutely kid-friendly calcium treat.

The glass-bottle packaging wasn't so kid-friendly though. Preschoolers who brought this for recess had to pester Teacher to open the seal. You couldn't help spillages and breakages either; glass bottles, even small ones, might just be too heavy for kids to drink from. I have memories of schoolmates making a liquid chocolate mess across the snack table, or kids walking around in brown-drenched uniforms. I guess that's why the tetra-pack became more popular (well that and the fact that paper-based packaging is much cheaper than glass ones), resulting in the eventual demise of the cute glass bottle. Those bottles, by the way, are now considered collectibles. I saw some on sale at an antique shop.

Those numerous present-day tetra-packed chocolate drinks are just echoes of the original Magnolia Chocolait; most of them actually taste nothing like chocolate. Even today's Chocolait, I've heard (I haven't actually tried it since I am now a faithful Swiss Miss fan) doesn't even come close to the glory that was.

All this is activating my craving. I think I'll take a trip to a corner store and buy me a Nestle Chuckie. Not the cookie burst or peanut butter variant though.

Magnolia Chocolait image, mine.

back when i despised iced gems XP

In this nostalgia-trip article I chanced upon was a roster of 10 (Pinoy) Kiddie Snacks We Can't Forget. It did a good job of working out some fond memories from my childhood.

Orange Swits ... yum yum! Grade school days and sharing them with my friends Tricia and Chay.
Bazooka Bubble Gum ... wheee! My brother and I collected those little comic strips.
Tarzan ... sigh! I used to buy those at the store next door. St. Ignatius Village, Avi and the Korean girls.
Tootsie Roll ... aww!

And then it mentioned Iced Gems. Ick. Iced Gems was a kiddie snack? I never thought of something so disgusting as a snack for children. As a kid, I disliked Iced Gems with a fury; in fact I still do. I can't help but associate them with childhood memories that are anything but warm and fuzzy. Blech. For that matter, I lump them all together with those ugly, plastic-packed, mass-produced, local-brand baked items that call themselves "biscuits".

Okay, i get that they're cute, but I saw them more as something to play with rather than something to eat. I used to scrape off the frosting part with my teeth before putting the cookie part in my mouth, just to see how the cookie looked naked.

Some time ago I was with my friend G and we watched this kid eating Hi-Ro cookies. He had this I-don't-know-if-I'm-about-to-laugh-or-cry look on his face and he couldn't help sharing why. He explained that those brown-and-white Hi-Ro cookies in their orange plastic packaging triggered some not-so-good childhood memories. As he was bout to apologize, I said I knew exactly how he felt. We went on to enumerate those cardboard sandwiches biscuits we hated so much, and at the top of our list were Jolly and Iced Gems.

We - and many other children of the 80s, I'm sure- both shared the fate of being the offspring of struggling middle-class parents who opted to send us to private schools. Our parents also chose to save money by packing our lunchboxes with cheap, bland cookies for snacks.

Back in those childhood school days, I would open my ratty plastic lunchbox during break time to reveal an embarrassing Jolly, Hi-Ro, Iced Gems or an offensive Jack n' Jill Pretzels. I also had a pathetic little thermos of water that I hardly opened. If I was lucky I had a tetra pack of cheap juice. My Dad never believed in investing in expensive, good-quality snacks - for him the flavor and appearance of food were irrelevant; the sole purpose of food was to fill the tum. It was bad enough that I was stuck with stuff that tasted horrible day after day; I had to watch my classmates eat their rice meals, fruit, imported cookies, pudding, yummy chips or jelly sandwiches. And their Magnolia fresh milk or Chocolait, which came in glass bottles back then.

My parents didn't believe in giving a child money to buy lunch either, so I watched my friends buy - and eat - their brightly-colored, sugary desserts. Slushies, Sour Balls, Twin Popsies. Frosted cookies, waffle cheese, lollipops.

I wondered why my Dad insisted on buying that rubbish over and over again when nobody even liked to eat them. I felt sorry for myself for having such flaaaaat, cheap food that I hardly even ate. It made me feel like a poor, underprivileged kid in a roomful of rich, private school snobs. I'd go home hungry and with my plastic-wrapped snacks untouched, and I had the exact same pack of preservative-padded crap in my lunchbox the next day. I never wised up into that lunchroom vice of swapping snacks, but I brazenly asked for bits and bites from others' food stuff. "Can I try that?," "Can I have some?" My spoiled, imported-cookie-eating classmates never teased me for eating cheap food, but they did let me have it for being such a beggar.

It was only after the second grade when my Dad finally allowed me to carry cash for buying lunch at school. By that time those brightly-colored Sour Balls I'd always wondered about (and still wonder about to this day) were no longer being sold in the school cafeteria, but there were a lot of other goodies like sizzling meals, creamy cakes and chocolate truffles. It was a relief to finally graduate from those darned biscuits, but their memory still followed me around. I did have them day after day for a couple of years, and that was enough for a good deal of reinforcement and trauma that I carry until adulthood. One more time for the Iced Gems: Blech.

monday music fix come around again RIZAL UNDERGROUND

... Or the day that Come Around Again came around again.

One day as I gazed lazily into space and left a couple hundred brain cells to commit suicide due to their sense of unfulfillment (Did you know that? Brain cells die of disuse!), my random musings opened for a random song to drift into my mind. I haven't heard it in a while - maybe more than a decade - and the band that performed it is now defunct; I even forgot that such a song existed. And though it's one of those cheese-and-corn rock love songs, I found myself missing it, so I Googled a bit and found it.

The lyrics are kinda sappy, but then that's how most love songs are. I love the melody though.

Come Around Again
RIZAL UNDERGROUND

i've taken it through, i've taken it in stride

the feelings i can't show are the ones i can't hide

but they say if sorrow cuts through your heart

until you think its going to tear you apart

or i'll join your heart in the daze

to fill this space i erased



(refrain)



so i close my mind to the pain

(to find shelter from the pouring rain)

and i close my mind to the pain

(to find shelter from the pouring rain)

in your will i am entwined

i'm lost to the thoughts that you left behind

until you come around again(2x)



im waiting for your return

im waiting while the candles burn

im waiting for the hour to pass me

to know how long i could last

you see i'm, i'm awf'ly good today

and salvation has its price

so im holding out with my fingers crossed

until this love turns to ice

(repeat refrain)



until you come around again(4x)

back when patrick swayze was dirty dancing

photo from imdb

Dirty Dancing (1987) was showing on a local channel the other day. The network must have figured that would be a nice way to remember Patrick Swayze, who recently passed away; and that his fans might want to remember him all young and hunky as dance instructor Johnny Castle.

I never thought I liked that movie, but - now that I'm old and nostalgic - I realize that it's got a lot of memorable scenes. I don't just mean that "Nobody puts Baby in a corner" one. I mean I watched it only once or twice before, and never even straight-through (I swear!) - but I could easily recall certain indelible visuals.


I'm no film critic and I can't really say what makes Dirty Dancing so iconic, but people who were at least ten years old when the movie came out would probably agree that it's a sure classic from the decade of big hair and leg warmers. It usually lands a spot in those "best chick flicks ever" countdowns.

I don't think it's the story - the story's not all that great, if you ask me.

It could be the soundtrack. The theme song isn't really that likeable, but its just as unforgettable since it was overplayed in those days. Just seeing those pictures makes I've Had The Time of My Life play in my head. Yes I swear. It's the truth.

It must be the sexy choreography ...


... and the steamy, sex-charged-without-any-actual-sex "dance practice" scenes that were sure to have produced reactions in viewers male or female, young or old.


Lemme just say it's uncomfy to watch Jennifer Grey act all sexy like that, especially with an apparently much older man. But yeah, i guess that's kinda what her role was about, even being named Baby and all.

Speaking of -- What ever happened to Jennifer Grey? She had a drastic nose job after she already became famous. I must say it did make her look a lot prettier, but since then she's been hardly recognizable as the actress who played Baby Houseman (Dirty Dancing) or Jeannie Bueller (Ferris Bueller's Day Off, 1986). She's had trouble getting cast in good roles and was cast off into the B-list instead. It wasn't really a bad nose job, but in a sense, it was a botched one.


Anyway, back to Patrick Swayze. It was kinda sad to see those last 2009 images of him looking all gaunt and prematurely aged, nearly nothing like his late '80s / early '90s self. But for some reason, I tend to recall him always looking like he did in Dirty Dancing.

back when shoulder pads were all the rage - and now that they seem to be back

Say it isn't so. Apparently several designers have recently had runway shows that say it's once again fashionable to be shoulder-pad clad.












A lot of celebrities have followed the lead and put on those puffed-up sleeves.

A comback? Are you kidding? Just a few years ago people swore that shoulder pads have got to be one of the worst fashion blunders ever. Haven't we learned from the thousands of women who refuse to display their photos from the 1980's? Wear them if you dare. Just not with big hair or tight-ankle jeans.

"In" or not, I ain't padding my shoulders.