Sleepless in Santa Rosa, California

It's past midnight when I wrote this entry. Sleep, as usual, eluded me. So I figured there's no better way to lull myself to sleep than to share with you my whereabouts this week.

Am currently on a two-week assignment in Northern California. The town I'm in is called Santa Rosa in Sonoma County, part of California's "wine country". The above photo is the view from my hotel room. When I checked into the hotel Sunday night, the gentleman at the front desk handed me a complimentary bottle of Chardonnay. I haven't opened the bottle yet for I figured it would be better to save it for a special occasion.

Earlier this evening, I bought dinner from a Chinese takeout place. The place was called ABC Cafe. Don't know what ABC stood for except something tells me that they probably stood for "American Born Chinese". Anyway, as I waited for my food, I saw a sign in that restaurant I found quite funny. The sign was posted right above the Cashier's desk and said, "Thank You For Coming in ABC Cafe".

Never had the chance to take a picture of the sign for my food arrived as I was about to take aim with my camphone. Going back to its message, those folks were a bit presumptuous, weren't they? :)

Original Photo by: Panaderos

I Was Thinking....

The song "Unforgettable", sung by the late Nat King Cole and his daughter, Natalie Cole, has long been a personal favorite. I've always wanted to sing this song for a very special someone, preferably after a romantic, candlelit dinner at a local fastfood chain. However, since the song's a duet, I am finding myself in a bit of a quandary. How do I sing it to her?

I have an idea but guys, please tell me if this approach would be ok:

You guys think this will work? Or will it effectively put an end to our relationship? :)

Finding Love

"When I was alone then, no love in sight
And I did everything I could to get me through the night;
Don't know where it started or where it might end,
I turn to a stranger, just like a friend."
- Waylon Jennings ("Lookin' for Love")

Late in the evening of Thursday last week, a Cebu Pacific flight left Manila for Bangkok. On board that flight was Alice Cadian, a pretty and vivacious girl in her late twenties who works for a multinational company in Makati City.

The purpose of the Bangkok trip wasn't business. It wasn't vacation either. Alice made the trip to finally meet up with a European gentleman, one she had been corresponding with online for about a year now.

Alice made the trip very much against the well-intentioned advice of her closest friends who had expressed their concerns for her safety and well-being. Their concerns were valid for they already have a very good idea of what to expect in the weeks or months to come. They've seen the scenes play out so many times before. She meets a man, falls fast and hard for him, quickly dreams of a future to share with him, but alas, always ends up losing him. Not a few times have tears streamed endlessly down her pretty face whenever her relationships come to a sad and bitterly disappointing end.

Her situation raises some questions. When it comes to love, how, where and when do we find THE ONE? I've been on several relationships myself in the many years I've been on this earth. But to this day, and based on personal experience, I still do not really know the answers to those questions. Nor will I even try to find them.

Alice is such a sweet and pretty girl. She's funny and there's never a dull moment with her. Many a man would love to love someone like her. But maybe, all she needs to do is ease up on things a bit and not to force the issue to find the one true love that has so far eluded her.

There are a million and one ways to find love. Some find love within one's social circle, some find love at work or through some career-related association, some find it online, and for some, they find love serendipitously.

In the end, I believe love will simply happen, at a time and place of its own choosing. And when it does, it will find us and, if we're lucky, stay with us.

There's A Filipino in the "Association"

This entry entailed some digging through the musical archives and I wonder if a lot of Filipinos are aware of this fact. But decades before fellow Filipino Al Pineda or "Apl.De.Ap" became famous worldwide as a member of the Black Eyed Peas, and a decade before Freddie Aguilar hit it big internationally with his hit song "Anak" ("Child"), there was Larry Ramos, Jr.

Larry who? Yes, Larry Ramos, Jr., a Filipino who was born and raised in Hawaii. Back in the 1960s, there was a band called "The Association" who hit it big and became popular with songs such as "Windy", "Never My Love", "No Fair at All", and "Cherish". Unbeknownst to many Filipinos today, Larry shared lead vocals with fellow bandmate Russ Giguere on a couple of the band's biggest hits, "Windy" and "Never My Love".

"Windy" became the first #1 hit for The Association in July 1967. I don't think you'll have a hard time spotting him in the following video:

A few months later, in the fall of 1967, the band had another million-seller called "Never My Love". The following video shows the band performing the song on The Ed Sullivan Show:

The band broke up in the early 1970s when their style of music fell out of favour with the public. Though a comeback was attempted later, the band never regained the fame they enjoyed during the late 1960s.

Where is he now? Larry now lives on a 300-acre farm in Grangeville, Idaho. As recently as 2003, he was still performing around the US with co-vocalist Russ Giguere in a re-formed Association doing about 80 to 100 concerts a year.

Source: Honolulu Star-Bulletin

A Filipino Institution

Its brand name, in bold dark blue letters prominently printed on a white background and wrapped in its trademark bright red foil pack with a picture of delicious corn chips in front, has been omnipresent in Filipino supermarkets, groceries, sari-sari (corner neighborhood) stores, school cafeterias, and Filipino kids' snack boxes for years. Its rectangular-shaped barbecue corn chips are immediately recognizable to every Filipino child. It is so widely popular among Filipinos that it is probably safe to claim that every Filipino child over the age of 3 has had a taste of this snack. Given its special place in Filipino snack culture, let this entry serve as my small and yet dear tribute to arguably, one of the greatest and most popular snack foods to ever come out of the Philippines, Chippy.

A very close friend laughed when I told her that I planned to do a "tribute blog" in honor of this product. It could indeed be quite laughable to honor a product so ubiquitous that it is so easy for everyone to take it for granted. It may even be hard for today's kids to either believe or imagine that the Chippy brand has been around for at least 40 years.

The product was introduced to the Filipino public in the mid-Sixties to very little fanfare, if at all. However, at the time, nobody could have had the faintest idea, probably not even the folks at Universal Robina Corporation (URC, Chippy's manufacturer), of the level of popularity and longevity that the Chippy brand would one day achieve.

As a product, its formulation was nothing short of genius. The blend of the sweet and the salty led to a taste that was so original and that clicked with the Filipino consumer. The taste is so delicious and so appetizing that one almost always ends up devouring the entire pack after that tentative first bite. Taste is so good and could be quite addicting that it is quite common to hear people "complain" that they never really meant to gobble up the entire pack, that all they wanted was a bite or two.Yeah right.

The snack's taste also goes so well with soft drinks that it has become part of the regular "merienda" (afternoon snack) fare for many of our countrymen. Not a few times have I also seen it be feasted on as "pulutan" (finger food) by beer drinkers who were on a tight drinking budget.

Chippy could also be considered a model of successful, grass-roots marketing. By making the product very affordable and available through the country's small neighborhood stores and grocery stores, URC made sure that it would reach its target market.

Depending on one's views, Chippy's list of ingredients could be viewed either as a Chemistry major's sweetest dream or as a cancer/heart specialist's worst nightmare.

Its main ingredients are corn, vegetable oil (which may contain palm, corn, or coconut oil), barbecue flavor (made up of salt, monosodium glutamate (MSG), flavor, tomato powder, yeast extracts, hydrolyzed vegetable protein (from soybean), tricalcium phosphate (as an anti-caking agent), iodized salt, MSG, onion powder, garlic powder, pepper, and antioxidant.

(Author's note: MSG's impact and influence on the flavor must be such that the esteemed people behind this great product deemed it appropriate to show MSG twice on its list of ingredients. These ingredients could also probably explain why consuming a pack or two of Chippy could lead to episodes of coughing or dry throat.)

According to its Nutrition Facts, a serving size of 30 grams yields 170 calories, 35% saturated fat, 8% sodium, 0% cholesterol, 5% of total carbohydrates, and 4% dietary fiber. It should be noted that the Chippy pack above that is regularly sold in stores weighs about 115 grams. Thus, each pack is equivalent to about four servings. Sounds healthy, doesn't it? :D

However, back to a more serious note, it is to be lamented that URC's management has not given due public recognition and honor to the people who were behind the development and marketing of this product. For it truly is remarkable for a product to remain firmly entrenched in the Filipino popular culture and consciousness for four decades. A third generation of Filipino kids are now being introduced to the guilty pleasures of this snack.

Only a few other Filipino products could match Chippy's longevity and popularity. Choc-Nut, Ricoa Flat Tops (from Commonwealth Foods), White Rabbit, and Storck are the other brands that quickly come to mind. These products are so popular that it would be very difficult to find a single Filipino store that does not have any one of them on its shelves. It is way overdue for the people behind these products be given the honor they truly deserve.