Friday, November 17, 2006
Anybody remember this silly looking toothpaste commercial from the 80s? I'm not sure how many of those who grew up at the same time remembers this commercial but this was before the Eric Banes series with the white tipped mustache who made visual presentations involving a white blackboard chalk and two water-like substance inside two beakers. This commercial stuck with me for reasons that I think it was around the same time, or maybe sometime later, that I saw the second video of Madness whose music Colgate used as their jingle:
It's actually a lot more interesting if you're both a Madness fan and a kid of the 80s. Otherwise this is just a piece of trivia that'll probably sail over your head. You have to admit the nutty moves are quite engaging though.
@ 4:44 PM ---> Wednesday, November 01, 2006
We went to my mom's province in Malolos, Bulacan since it's All Saints' Day. There wasn't much traffic on the road since it's quite apparent that most of the folks residing in Manila have already went ahead last weekened to avoid the traffic congestion that usually happens around this time of the year. The picture you see above is the gravesite of my grandparents and great-grandmothers ("Lola sa Tuhod" as they would say in the colloquial). It's the newer gravesite, moved from the old one not far from where my late Lolo was laid. The two great-grandmothers were laid elsewhere and right before my Lola followed suit 13 years ago this piece of plot was bought and arranged accordingly. All the bones of the long dead are located inside the crypt space in the middle sharing space with the coffin of my grandma. There are a lot interesting stories about these old folks who, with the exception of my grandma, I only knew through anecdotes and pictures hanging in the old house. One of those anecdotes concerned my Lolo who was apparently an ardent Rizalista, who travelled throughout Europe and the U.S. in an effort to retrace the steps of his hero. This was before he met my grandma. There aren't much stories about my two great-grandmothers, although I still have this sneaking suspicion that one of them, the one on my grandpa's side, is related to Del Pilar's Lieutenant, Señor Vicente Enriquez if not a descendant.* This suspicion is based on the fact that they not only share the same surname, they both came from the same barrio, and they have the same features (I have a copy of Enriquez's picture from the Ayala Museum Library but I misplaced it inside my room). I say this is speculation at best since nobody knows about her nor the whereabouts of her relations (our fourth and/or fifth degree cousins) since she died during the second World War. Being a history buff, that would be really awesome if there were proof to back this up. The gravesites of both great-grandfathers has been lost forever since, according to my mom and aunt, they died before the war and were only buried in graves that were only marked with makeshift crosses or something because of the tumultous climate at the time.
* Enriquez is the right-hand man of Gen. Gregorio del Pilar, Marcelo H. Del Pilar's nephew and right-hand man of the first President, Emilio Aguinaldo. Enriquez was also one of the few survivors of the Battle of Tirad Pass.
