Baby-G

In the mid 90's, the popular watch brand, Casio gave every teenager another entry in their wish list. And that is the Casio Baby-G series. Most of my friends had those jelly-strapped ones while the boys had mostly the black rubber strap.

I was one of those kids who totally nagged my parents just so they would be those really big jelly-strapped watches. Just as my parents gave in to my constant nagging, we went straight to the mall to look at them. As I was trying to fit one of them on (it was a pink one), I noticed that it didn't really suit me as it was too big for my then skinny wrist. I was so frustrated. I almost had it.

Now if that were to happen to me now, and this time with a Patek Philippe, I wouldn't mind if it was too big or too small for my wrist. Moral of the story, if you want something badly, don't let anything get in the way. Not even a skinny wrist. Lol.

Care to share your Baby-G story? Heehee.

Domesticated Spice Girl

Sometimes, there are still a lot of things to do but my energy level just can't handle it. Having the capacity to do chores after a long day is really difficult. Just like what happened yesterday when my husband and I just got back from our review class and was so dead tired. I realized that I need to do some folding from all the laundry that I've done last Saturday. Just looking at the pile of clothes made me want to just lie on the bed and sleep. Unfortunately, that was not an option.

So what I did was go to our audio racks to pick a CD to play while doing the folding. I needed something that has a fast beat and something that I would enjoy singing and dancing to. I chose the Spice Girls Greatest Hits album. Heehee!

I love the Spice Girls. I remember back in the late 90's, I was in college then, the Spice Girls was a huge hit. My friends and I would even pretend to be them whenever their song was playing on the radio. I was always Posh Spice. LOL. So anyway, I hit the shuffle button and played the CD. I was surprised to see that after three songs, I was almost done folding the laundry. I especially remember doing the dance steps of "Stop" when it played. That was one of my favorites. Here's a music file just in case you're folding the laundry while reading my blog. Teehee! Enjoy!

Stop - Spice Girls

Thank you Spice Girls! Till my next laundry day.

Shopping for Clothes

I remember when I was in high school and college, these logos would be seen in most of the students when they're not in their uniform. Do you still have your "vintage" clothes from these brands?

Giordano


Bossini


Benetton


Guess


Esprit


Girbaud

These brands would always be seen plastered in most of the student's shirts, jeans and even school bags.

Remember those Giordano Classics t-shirts? I have one in red and blue. Plus there's this Giordano Classics bags that were so popular when I was in high school. Do you know what I'm talking about? It's those backpacks and shoulder bags that come in green and blue colors. I have the big shoulder bag type.

As for Bossini, I was a fan of their shirts and jeans as well.

Now for the third one, United Colors of Benetton, was one of my favorite brands back then. Their use of color in their shirts and accessories have made me a follower. :)

The late Anna Nicole Smith was well know because of this brand. Guess is known for their triangle logo patch sewn at the back pocket of their jeans. Everywhere you look, someone has a triangle patch at their rear. LOL.

Esprit on the other hand is most expensive as compared to these other brands. Up until now, their prices haven't changed and for semi casual clothes, the only thing I bought in their stores are their leather shoes (for school) and their pretty tops.

For those who have thicker wallets, these brands are also included in their wardrobe.

Giorgio Armani



Marlboro Classics


and...

Dolce & Gabbana

Dial-Up Servers

Not so long ago, a familiar ringing sound would be heard whenever we would go online. It was even popularized by the movie of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, You've Got Mail. You get connected by buying pre-paid internet cards or if you're one of those people who's not afraid to get their accounts hacked and pay 10,000 pesos for using the internet 24/7 when clearly you didn't (this happened to us when we were still in postpaid connection). Sometimes it would take a hundred years before you can get through because you'd always get a busy line when you're trying to use the dial-up server. This sucks big time! I even remember trying to go online when I was unaware that my brother was using the phone. I heard him through the modem talking to his girlfriend and then the modem starts dialing the number for the dial-up server. LOL.

So anyway, those days are clearly gone with the emergence of cable, broadband internet with their CAT6 cables with their speedy, unlimited use of the internet. It is sometimes annoying when the connection tends to be so turtle-paced or worse, there's no connection at all. Still, I prefer the internet connection today because I get to multi-task while I'm online. Talking to a friend on the phone and chatting with others online.

Two of my Favorite Cars

I am not a car enthusiast nor do I know a lot about them too but I just can't help it when I see old cars look like brand new.

Two of my favorite cars are the '92 model of the Toyota Corolla and the '97 Honda Civic. The former was our car when I was in high school. Almost a lot of people had this car in the early 90's. One thing I love about it is the shape of the body. And it is very spacious inside. That's why after five years of using it, I was really sad when my dad sold it to buy a new model. I can't blame him though. If we didn't sell it, for sure our car insurance would go up again. Fortunately, my dad hasn't sold the Honda Civic. Till now we have this car and it's running smoothly. There are still a lot of people using this car. I can't blame them, out of all the models released by Honda, this is one of those that doesn't go out of style. A paint job and some minor tweaking and it'll look better than the newer models. I can't wait to have ours painted candy red. Wee!

I wonder...

I've been trying to track down some of the child stars that were big, back in the 80's and 90's. I really can't remember some of their names because I was a kid myself back then but I remembered the roles they portrayed.

It's just sad whenever I read about some of those former child actors that have been seeking drug treatment. It's a shame to see their talent go to waste because of bad judgment. I do not condemn them but hope that they go to the best drug treatment center. It's better to see them come back to big screen doing cameo roles rather than seeing their faces in the tabloids.

From Walkmans to MP3 players

I wonder how our life would be without mp3 players? As an avid music listener, I always carry with me my player. It used to be a disc player in the 90's and a Walkman in the 80's. I don't think I can imagine my life without any of these gadgets. I remember memorizing the exact number of seconds for me to rewind the tape when I was using my Walkman. It got easier when we had the discman but the downside was that I had to bring along with me my favorite CDs that I wanted to listen to for that particular day. Being a fickle minded person that I am, it was tough. I always end up bringing at least a dozen CDs just in case I didn't feel like playing the album I intended to listen to that day. But now listening to music is easy and hassle-free. No more rewinding of the cassette tape nor heavy, bulky CD case in the bag. Ipods and other brands of mp3 players spread like wildfire. Now people can bring their music with them anytime and anywhere.

Troll Dolls

One of the dolls that I used to collect in the 90's were the Troll dolls. I remember Gift Gate would have hundreds of these little creatures dressed in every kind of outfit. Their hair color would vary from red to green and even yellow. They started out as naked trolls and as soon as the trend picked up, they were selling trolls with every kind of outfit you could think of. I think I probably have five big ones with different outfits and I also have those little naked trolls. I even remember my mom buying me a shirt with a huge troll doll printed on it.





I don't know why we love them. I mean, they look pretty scary at night especially if they're in a glass cabinet and they're all staring at you in your room. Creepy! Hehe! Me and my imagination. But seriously, they're not like the Gloworms or the Little Pony and Friends that really look cute. Well, no matter what the reason is, the truth is we adored and collected these spike-haired dolls.

Care to share how many troll dolls you've collected in the 90's? Come on don't be shy!

Yearbook Photos

This is so fitting to my blog. Since I'm all about reminiscing the past, here's something that I saw at Em's blog. It's called Yearbook Yourself.

I was literally laughing my @$$ off while editing these pictures. Here's a glimpse of my favorite photos:









And this is from 1994. I don't recall sporting this hairstyle in my sophomore year in high school. LOL!

Mountain Biking

As I have mentioned in a previous post, we have a lot of games that we play when we were kids in the early 90's. These games are not the ones you normally see these days like video games. The games that I'm talking about are those that require running (as opposed to sitting for how many hours in front of the computer or television) and interacting with other children (and by this I didn't mean the cyberworld, instead in real life).

After we got past the "street games" phase as I call them, there was this one fad that almost a lot of kids were into. It was the mountain bike. I don't know how it started but ever since mountain bikes became available, most of the kids (and even adults) have one.

I remember I'd ride my bike in the morning and at the afternoon. My friends and I would roam the streets of our village. We may have stopped running around playing games on the streets but biking was a better alternative. It was such a hit that there were even contests from certain soda companies where the prizes are hundreds of mountain bikes. Remember that contest? I had to beg my dad to buy a couple of cases of soda so I could get a better chance of winning a new mountain bike. Haha!

So anyway, in short, we had a lot of exercise. Kids were active. We were active. If only we maintained that kind of lifestyle then maybe we wouldn't be bothering ourselves into going to the gym, dieting and buying Orovo detox or other weight loss alternatives. If only I didn't sell my mountain bike then I'd still be in my normal weight range. Hehe! Oh well... It's not too late.

Folded Sleeves and Pants

It's funny how before some people would dress up in the coolest outfits only to find out after a decade that what was once cool would make you cringe at the sight of it.

I say this because as I was rummaging in the moving boxes that were in our garage when I saw a couple of my high school pictures. They were taken in the early 90's when it was cool to make two to three folds on the sleeves of your shirt and to fold your high waisted jeans up. No, it wasn't because the sleeves nor the pants were too long. It was just a 'fashion statement' at that time.

That was too much to take in on an early Wednesday morning. I was merely looking for my baby photos when these were the ones that surfaced. I thought I got rid of those photos.

My eyes were wide with disbelief that I actually looked proud wearing those pants and shirt. Hahaha! I know, I shouldn't be embarrassed about my past but that didn't mean I should not laugh at myself and the people with me in the picture right? LOL!

In order to save face and to avoid getting arrested by the fashion police, I refuse to post those pictures (plus the fact that I have buried them already). LOL! Instead, I saw this picture in Google images. It kind of looks like the ones in my photos only they look cooler than me. Haha!



So, do you have any cringing moment with your past outfits?

F-L-A-M-E-S

I was LOL the other day while I was cleaning my room. I wasn't expecting to see a couple of my high school notebooks in our storage room. Memories of my high school came flooding back. You might wonder why I was laughing. No, it's not because of my handwriting (actually it looked better before). I was laughing because I saw the doodles at the back of my notebooks.

The doodles were similar to this picture except for the names (duh!).



I was planning on taking a picture of it but so as not to divulge my full name here in the world wide web (I am scared of identity theft) I just looked up a similar picture in Google images. Plus, I wouldn't want my crush before to find out that I had a crush on him in high school. Ick!

For those who were born yesterday or maybe a couple years back, FLAMES stands for:

F- friends
L- lovers
A- angry/anger
M- married
E- engaged
S- sweethearts

This is usually played by girls. All you need is a pen and paper and of course the most important thing -- the complete name of your crush (middle name included). Now that you have these, the first step is to write your name and the name of your crush in two separate lines. Next, cross out all the letters that are common to both of your names. After that, count the number of crossed out letters from your name and your crush's. Add them all up and using the letters in the word Flames, see which letter it ends using the total number of crossed out letters.

Hahahaha!! I just couldn't help but laugh at what I saw in my notebook. Did you play Flames as well?

Smokey Mountain

It was my first time to watch the Pinoy Dream Academy Little Dreamers. The songs that they performed tonight were from the famous group in the late 80's to the early 90's formed by the musical director and composer, Ryan Cayabyab called Smoky Mountain.

I remember I used to have a crush on Jeffrey Coronel and would always sing whenever they would perform this song...

And one-two-three go!



What's your favorite song from Smokey Mountain?

Interpreter Please!

Now these four songs (Sweet Soul Revue, Angelina, Macarena & On ne s'aimera plus jamais) would likely generate two reactions from you: 1.) you would dance or sing along with it; OR 2.) your face would totally cringe just by hearing the first few notes. Haha!

I will not be a hypocrite so I would say that mine would be the first reaction. The only problem when singing these songs is that I have no idea what it says or means (pang Singing Bee..Hahaha!).

It is because of the melody and beat of these songs that allowed us to accept them (aminin nyo man o hindi! LOL!) despite the language barrier. There are only four songs that I've included in this post because I can't remember the other one that was a hit in the 90's. Do advise me if you know it. I'm not sure what language it was in though.

Anyway, if I'm not mistaken, the second song has a tagalog translation that my guy friends know oh so well. The person who came up with the lyrics probably had a bad experience with a girl. Hahaha! I cannot post the lyrics here because some will surely find it offensive.

So people, travel back in time. Bring out your dancing shoes and start grinding. :-) Enjoy!

Pinoy Thriller and Regal Shocker

I'm confused, was it Regal Shocker or Pinoy Thriller that played the lullaby theme song as its intro? Well whichever show it was, whenever I'd hear that theme song, I would ask someone to change the channel. You might say that I'm such a senyorita because I'd have to ask someone to change the channel but you see that time, remote-controlled TVs are non-existent yet so you'd have to go to the TV to change the channel. Eh kung ginawa ko yun eh di nakita ko up close and personal yung multo sa TV. Hahaha!

Funny story about related to this:

I was about 7 years old and was taking a bath. The bathroom door was open and the TV in the living room was tuned in on channel 13. I was shampooing my hair when I heard the volume of the TV was turned up and guess what I heard: the lullaby theme song. At the first three notes, I literally ran out of the bathroom (hair full of shampoo bubbles) and was screaming. It was my crazy brother that did it because he knew I was scared of that show. Grrr!!!

Care to share your Regal Shocker and Pinoy Thriller moments? :)

Pop Swatch

They're big and chunky. You can put them on your shirt and even on your bag. I am talking about the Pop Swatch watches (Whew! Tongue twister!!! Say that 5 times... Go! LOL!). These were pop-ular during the early 90's. I remember Mikee Cojuangco as the model for this brand.

My aunt who lives in Switzerland would always give me Swatch watches and when Swatch released these chunky watches, I was one of the first wearing it in school. It just looked weird on my arm because back then I was sooo thin that the strap was too long for my arm. But I didn't care. I love those Pop watches. And if I'm not in the mood to wear them, I'd take out the strap and put them on my school bag.

These are the only Pop Swatch watches that I still have. I'm just not sure if it'll still work if I put new batteries in.

Doc Martens

The early 90's was the year of the grunge look for most. This is the time when girl would be wearing sun dresses paired with their Dr. Martens boots. As for the men, the plaid shirt tied on the waste was some sort of fashion statement (though I don't get the idea of tying the shirt when they're not gonna use it).

I am not here to talk about the grunge look as that is a whole new entry. What I would like to talk about are the favorite boots during my high school days, the Dr. Martens. I remember the "rich kids" of the school would be owning a couple of pairs of these boots. Some of them would even design them using textile paint. Most of them had either the black or the maroon-ish color. I on the other hand was left envying my classmates who had a pair. My parents, particularly my mom wouldn't want to buy me a pair because she said it looked like combat boots. LOL!

Sweet Books

To all the ladies of my generation does these names ring a bell: Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield? If you're screaming Sweet Valley High, then you are correct!!! I was once an avid reader of these books. Actually I started reading Sweet Valley Twins when I was in grade school then at grade 5 I think, I started reading Sweet Valley High. Most of the kids in school were reading these books. I had a couple of them and some of my classmates would borrow them and sadly were never returned. Thus, the remains of my collection were left to 8 books (see 3rd picture).



There was also Sweet Dreams that was more popular to high school students back then because it tackled more "mature" concepts like letting go, death, etc. There was this one book from this series entitled P.S. I Love You. I really can't remember the whole story but I remember crying and sobbing after reading it. I was left with two Sweet Dreams book (see 4th picture) and since P.S. I Love You was one of the favorites, the one who "borrowed" it forgot to return it to me. LOL!

Question, why are these books all start with the word Sweet??? Hmmm...

One Nation. One Scent.

It was in the mid to late 90's when people (particularly men) started to "smell" the same. There were only three choices. It's either they smell of: 1.) Calvin Klein's cK one; 2.) Calvin Klein's Eternity; and lastly 3.) Davidoff's Cool Water. Even the girls in my high school used these three even if they're men's perfume.

cK one smells nice actually but if everywhere you go that is what you always smell then your nose gets "irritated" and you suddenly just get tired of it. It even came to a point that smelling roast beef sandwich inside the classroom was more exciting than smelling any of those three.

Couch Potato

I just realized that there are a lot of TV series nowadays that have a counterpart back in the late 80's and early 90's. From fiction to reality shows, I just love to watch them all. This got me thinking about the TV sitcoms that I enjoyed watching when I was a kid until I reached high school. Mind you, there's no cable yet but there's still a lot of shows to choose from. I remember knowing the TV guide by heart so I'd know when to switch from channel 7 to channel 9 to channel 13. LOL! Yeah yeah, I was a couch potato back then (ahem..until now..). So for the those born in my decade, I'm sure you'd be reminiscing as well.

Before The O.C., One Tree Hill and other high school themed sitcoms, there were:

My So Called Life
Do you remember this show? I think it only had a few episodes before they canned it. I don't know why they did because it was a pretty good show for me. Full of teenage angst, peer pressure and what-nots of teenage life. Oh and Jared Leto is just so cute. Hehe!






Parker Lewis Can't Lose
Whenever I think of this show, there's only one thing that pops in my mind -- Synchronize watches. That's one of the lines in the show when the boys are up to "something".





And of course Beverly Hills 90210
I think this was already aired in the 90's still I have fond memories of my bedroom wall plastered with photos of Jason Priestley. Hahaha! Those were the days...

Before CSI, 24, Prison Break and other TV series in the same genre, I used to watch:

The A Team"In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire: THE A-TEAM." ... And then queue music. Who could forget Mr. T with his gazillion gold necklaces and chunky rings (he's in style right now. LOL!).

and Macgyver
The man who hates guns and can make any kind of weapon or contraption that will save the day! It's like watching a science project in action. LOL!




Before ER, Grey's Anatomy, House and Scrubs, we've got...


Doogie Howser, M.D.
I love watching this show. I guess because it made me believe that anything is possible since he's just a kid and yet he's a certified surgeon already. I am so gullible. Hahaha!





For the sci-fi, unexplainable, super power type of TV series like Heroes, Lost and Kyle XY, there were:

Small Wonder
Remember, Vicki the robot and her high-pitched brother? The effects aren't that great but at that time, I was already amazed how Vicki does her chores. I also remember their nosy nextdoor neighbor, Harriet with her puffy bangs and abundantly freckled-face. :-D

And also ALF
ALF which stands for Alien Life Form. I can't really remember much of the episodes except for the fact that I've asked my parents to buy me a stuffed ALF toy but I never got it coz it's not available here in the PI.





Before The Ghost Whisperer and Supernatural, there are two shows that I've come to enjoy watching even though I'd sleep in my parent's room afterwards because I got scared from the show. Haha! These two are:

The Twilight Zone
Just hearing the theme song of this show gives me the goosebumps already. Still, I watch it with one hand raised just beside my cheek ready to cover my eyes. LOL! There's this one episode that I would never forget, and that is the one where I think two teens got stuck inside the mall and when morning came, they turned into mannequins. Yikes!




The second one is Friday the 13th The Series
It's about these two cousins who have inherited from their uncle an antique shop that had cursed items. Did you guys see this show? It's when they track down these cursed items because the people who happened to own them used them and ended up dying or something.





Lastly, this is one of my favorite back then. I can't think of any current TV series counterpart except for the local sitcom Buddy en Sol which was obviously copied from this show's plot.

I'm talking about Perfect Strangers
Remember Balki Bartokomous and his distant cousin Larry Appleton?! I just love this show. Even my dad thinks it's funny back then. I specifically remember their: "Let's do the dance of joy!" bit. hahaha! Love it!






Those were the days... Wish our local channels would do re-runs of these "classics". Hehehe! I'm sure some of you are already reminiscing your other favorite TV shows. Care to share them?