Paulo Coelho was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He attended a Jesuit school. As a teenager, Coelho wanted to become a writer. Upon telling his mother this, she responded with "My dear, your father is an engineer. He's a logical, reasonable man with a very clear vision of the world. Do you actually know what it means to be a writer?" After researching, Coelho concluded that a writer "always wears glasses and never combs his hair" and has a "duty and an obligation never to be understood by his own generation," amongst other things. At 16, Coelho's introversion and opposition to following a traditional path led to his parents committing him to a mental institution from which he escaped three times before being released at the age of 20. Coelho later remarked that "It wasn't that they wanted to hurt me, but they didn't know what to do... They did not do that to destroy me, they did that to save me."
At his parents' wishes, Coelho enrolled in law school and abandoned his dream of becoming a writer. One year later, he dropped out and lived life as a hippie, traveling through South America, North Africa, Mexico, and Europe and becoming immersed in the drug culture of the 1960s.Upon his return to Brazil, Coelho worked as a songwriter, composing lyrics for Elis Regina, Rita Lee, and Brazilian icon Raul Seixas. Composing with Raul led to Paulo being associated with satanism and occultism, due to the content of some songs. In 1974, Coelho was arrested for "subversive" activities by the ruling military government, who had taken power ten years earlier and viewed his lyrics as left-wing and dangerous. Coelho also worked as an actor, journalist, and theatre director before pursuing his writing career.
In 1986, Coelho walked the 500-plus mile Road of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, a turning point in his life. On the path, Coelho had a spiritual awakening, which he described autobiographically in The Pilgrimage. In an interview, Coelho stated "[In 1986], I was very happy in the things I was doing. I was doing something that gave me food and water – to use the metaphor in "The Alchemist", I was working, I had a person whom I loved, I had money, but I was not fulfilling my dream. My dream was, and still is, to be a writer." Coelho would leave his lucrative career as a songwriter and pursue writing full-time.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
KFC
KFC, founded and also known as Kentucky Fried Chicken, is a chain of fast food restaurants based in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. KFC has been a brand and operating segment, termed a concept of Yum! Brands since 1997 when that company was spun off from PepsiCo as Tricon Global Restaurants Inc.
KFC primarily sells chicken pieces, wraps, salads and sandwiches. While its primary focus is fried chicken, KFC also offers a line of grilled and roasted chicken products, side dishes and desserts. Outside the USA, KFC offers beef based products such as hamburgers or kebabs, poutine, pork based products such as ribs and other regional fare.
The company was founded as Kentucky Fried Chicken by Colonel Harland Sanders in 1952, though the idea of KFC's fried chicken actually goes back to 1930. Although Sanders died in 1980, he remains an important part of the company's branding and advertisements, and "Colonel Sanders" or "The Colonel" is a metonym for the company itself. The company adopted KFC, an abbreviated form of its name, in 1991. Starting in April 2007, the company began using its original name, Kentucky Fried Chicken, for its signage, packaging and advertisements in the U.S. as part of a new corporate re-branding program; Newer and remodeled restaurants will adopt the new logo and name, while older stores will continue to use the 1980s signage. Additionally, Yum! continues to use the abbreviated name freely in its advertising.
Born and raised in Henryville, Indiana, Sanders passed through several professions in his lifetime Sanders first served his fried chicken in 1930 in the midst of the Great Depression at a gas station he owned in North Corbin, Kentucky. The dining area was named Sanders Court & Café and was so successful that in 1935 Kentucky Governor Ruby Laffoon granted Sanders the title of honorary Kentucky Colonel in recognition of his contribution to the state's cuisine. The following year Sanders expanded his restaurant to 142 seats, and added a motel he bought across the street When Sanders prepared his chicken in his original restaurant in North Corbin, he prepared the chicken in an iron skillet, which took about 30 minutes to do, too long for a restaurant operation. In 1939, Sanders altered the cooking process for his fried chicken to use a pressure fryer, resulting in a greatly reduced cooking time comparable to that of deep frying. In 1940 Sanders devised what came to be known as his Original Recipe.The Sanders Court & Café generally served travelers, often those headed to Florida, so when the route planned in the 1950s for what would become Interstate 75 bypassed Corbin, he sold his properties and traveled the U.S. to sell his chicken to restaurant owners. The first to take him up on the offer was Pete Harman in South Salt Lake, Utah; together, they opened the first "Kentucky Fried Chicken" outlet in 1952. By the early 1960s, Kentucky Fried Chicken was sold in over 600 franchised outlets in both the United States and Canada. One of the longest-lived franchisees of the older Col. Sanders' chicken concept, as opposed to the KFC chain, was the Kenny Kings chain. The company owned many Northern Ohio diner-style restaurants, the last of which closed in 2004.
Sanders sold the entire KFC franchising operation in 1964 for $2million USD, equal to $14,161,464 today Since that time, the chain has been sold three more times: to Heublein in 1971, to R.J. Reynolds in 1982 and most recently to PepsiCo in 1986, which made it part of its Tricon Global Restaurants division, which in turn was spun off in 1997, and has now been renamed to Yum! Brands.
In 2001, KFC started tests in Austin, Texas restaurants of "Wing Works" chicken wing line sold with one of a few flavored sauces. Also, KFC hired a consultant to develop a breakfast menu
Additionally, Colonel Sanders' nephew, Lee Cummings, took his own Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises (and a chicken recipe of his own) and converted them to his own "spin-off" restaurant chain, Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken.
The Alchemist (novel)
The Alchemist is a novel by Paulo Coelho first published in 1988. Originally written in Portuguese, The Alchemist has been translated into 56 languages. An allegorical novel, The Alchemist follows an Andalusian shepherd named Santiago in his journey to Egypt, after having a recurring dream of finding treasure there.
The book has gone on to becoming an international bestseller. According to AFP, it has sold more than 65 million copies in more than 150 countries, becoming one of the best-selling books in history But according to the publisher HarperCollins at the time of that paperback publication, all of Coelho's many books had sold 65 million copies total; according to the author's web site twenty-one million copies of The Alchemist have been sold.7 Up
7 Up is a brand of a lemon-lime flavored non-caffeinated soft drink. The rights to the brand are held by Dr Pepper Snapple Group in the United States, and PepsiCo (or its licensees) in the rest of the world, including Puerto Rico, where the concentrate is manufactured at the Pepsi facility in Cidra. The 7 Up logo includes a red spot between the '7' and 'Up'; this red spot has been animated and used as a mascot for the brand as Cool Spot.7 Up was created by Charles Leiper Grigg, who launched his St. Louis-based company The Howdy Corporation in 1920 Grigg came up with the formula for a lemon-lime soft drink in 1929. The product, originally named "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda", was launched two weeks before the Wall Street Crash of 1929.It contained lithium citrate, a mood-stabilizing drug, until 1950. It was one of a number of patent medicine products popular in the late-19th and early-20th centuries.
Philip Morris bought 7 Up in 1978, and sold it in 1986, to a group led by the investment firm Hicks & Haas. 7 Up merged with Dr Pepper in 1988; Cadbury Schweppes bought the combined company in 1995. The Dr Pepper Snapple Group was spun off from Cadbury Schweppes in 2008
Pepsi
Pepsi (stylized in lowercase as pepsi, formerly stylized in uppercase as PEPSI) is a carbonated soft drink that is produced and manufactured by PepsiCo. Created and developed in 1898 and introduced as "Brad's Drink", it was later renamed as Pepsi-Cola on June 16, 1903, then to Pepsi in 1961.
In 1931, at the depth of the Great Depression, the Pepsi-Cola Company entered bankruptcy - in large part due to financial losses incurred by speculating on wildly fluctuating sugar prices as a result of World War I. Assets were sold and Roy C. Megargel bought the Pepsi trademark. Megargel was unsuccessful, and soon Pepsi's assets were then purchased by Charles Guth, the President of Loft Inc. Loft was a candy manufacturer with retail stores that contained soda fountains. He sought to replace Coca-Cola at his stores' fountains after Coke refused to give him a discount on syrup. Guth then had Loft's chemists reformulate the Pepsi-Cola syrup formula.
On three separate occasions between 1922 and 1933, the Coca-Cola Company was offered the opportunity to purchase the Pepsi-Cola company, and it declined on each occasion
Pepsi was first introduced as "Brad's Drink" in New Bern, North Carolina, United States, in 1898 by Caleb Bradham, who made it at his home where the drink was sold. It was later labeled Pepsi Cola, named after the digestive enzyme pepsin and kola nuts used in the recipe. Bradham sought to create a fountain drink that was delicious and would aid in digestion and boost energy
In 1903, Bradham moved the bottling of Pepsi-Cola from his drugstore to a rented warehouse. That year, Bradham sold 7,968 gallons of syrup. The next year, Pepsi was sold in six-ounce bottles, and sales increased to 19,848 gallons. In 1909, automobile race pioneer Barney Oldfield was the first celebrity to endorse Pepsi-Cola, describing it as "A bully drink...refreshing, invigorating, a fine bracer before a race." The advertising theme "Delicious and Healthful" was then used over the next two decades In 1926, Pepsi received its first logo redesign since the original design of 1905. In 1929, the logo was changed again.In 1931, at the depth of the Great Depression, the Pepsi-Cola Company entered bankruptcy - in large part due to financial losses incurred by speculating on wildly fluctuating sugar prices as a result of World War I. Assets were sold and Roy C. Megargel bought the Pepsi trademark. Megargel was unsuccessful, and soon Pepsi's assets were then purchased by Charles Guth, the President of Loft Inc. Loft was a candy manufacturer with retail stores that contained soda fountains. He sought to replace Coca-Cola at his stores' fountains after Coke refused to give him a discount on syrup. Guth then had Loft's chemists reformulate the Pepsi-Cola syrup formula.
On three separate occasions between 1922 and 1933, the Coca-Cola Company was offered the opportunity to purchase the Pepsi-Cola company, and it declined on each occasion
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