PETAI / PARKIA SPECIOSA

Sometimes called twisted cluster bean, yongchaak or stink bean in the West, this is a type of vegetable which is easily located locally. This is like durian, you either like it or hate it. It has strong smell so it will be stuck in your mouth, body and even urine after as long as two days. I am spending some time taking out the beans to be cooked.



Most of the time, you need to slice the beans into halves to check whether there are worms inside. It is very common to find them around if there are some black marks outside the bean.



Petai has many benefits to us when consuming them especially to your kidneys. You can find more details here.



There are many ways to cook petai. The most famous ways are with dried sambal, anchovies, shrimps or just eggs. All the different combinations with just garlic and small onions to start with soya sauce is great.



In Johor Bahru, you can get a bundle of 3 rows for cheapest I had seen at RM1.49. In Sibu, you can get it for RM7 a kilo.

FOOTBALL: MOURINHO LEAVING CHELSEA?!!!

Is this a joke or just a rumour? Who will take over his job in Chelsea?

Please, don't let it be Capello!!!

I heard Guus Hiddink and Juande Ramos could be potential candidates.

On the other note, it is great to see Raul being played back to his original position. It is great to see him start scoring goals like the good old days. I could be wrong but he could still have some great form in him before retiring completely. Can he bring the 10th Champions League to Real Madrid with his partner, van Nistelrooy? Both of them have crazy scoring records in the Champions League. It is looking good so far. Still, my worry is the overload of players in some positions in the team. Sooner or later, some players will start complaining. For example, Saviola was completely left out in the match.

I am surprised that Arsenal thrashed Sevilla. I was expecting a more balanced match. Arsenal are the team to beat this season and Fabregas is on fire. Barcelona also thrashed Lyon. This was expected since many great players had left Lyon. It may take them some time to rebuild another strong team yet again.

LEGALIZED MONEY LENDER

I was driving in the highway the other day and saw this advertisement which almost cause me to drive out of the road!

'KAMI BUKAN AH LONG,
KAMI HANYA HENDAK TOLONG!'

Something like this - not totally the same. It rhymes some more!

It means 'We are not loan sharks, we just want to help!'

Right.......

FOOTBALL AND FORMULA 1 UPDATE

Michael Owen suddenly becomes the hero of England. From the injury proned player to a saviour of England and McClaren. Many people said it is because of Barry, Shaun Wright-Philips, Joe Cole and even Heskey that England is getting the good results now. What will happen when Rooney, Owen Hargreaves, Beckham and Lampard is back? One wonders. Will McClaren maintain the same players and will only put performing players in the starting eleven and not fame? Can Michael Owen maintain his performance? Portugal and France seem to be struggling. Spain, Italy and Holland seem to be doing fine and should be capable of qualifying.

Now, let's talk about the other McLaren. They were stripped of all the constructors' points for this season and were fined US$100 mil for using secret technical documents of Ferrari - a 780-page dossier. Drivers Hamilton and Alonso will still be able to keep their points which is logical to me. If not, there will be no more exciting races to look forward from now till the end of the season. Ron Dennis still denies that they ever use the information to their advantage.

There were many speculations that Jean Todt could be pushing the matter to the end since new evidence emerged last week which include emails, phone conversations and text messages after no action was done after the scandal first broke out. There could be more sanction in place for the 2008 season when a full technical report on the 2008 McLaren caris received. The decision will be carried out on December 2007 meeting.

'ATTRACTIVE' LUCKY DRAW PRIZE

I got a SMS from Perodua the other day.

From Perodua: Congratulations! You are one of the winner for Fill & Win Contest. Kindly collect your petrol voucher at JB2 branch. Thank you!

First of all, winner should be in plural.

Secondly, they left me a phone to contact. Basically this is the contest to join when I first bought the car. They were having the contest at the same time. So I decided to call them since I don't know where this branch is located. The person answered the phone and told me the location, which is quite far away from the city centre.

Finally comes the important question. How much does this petrol voucher worth anyway? It is only RM10! Worst of all, it is not even for Shell but Petronas (local petroleum company). I was wondering with the amount of time and distance for me to cover just to get the voucher, I might as well don't go to get it. Since it will be worth RM10 of petrol to reach there and return home!

Until today, I have not really decided to go at all. I don't even know where is the location. Probably some remote area near the palm oil plantation. Hehe!

C++, C#, XML & QUEST3D

These are the things I wish to master during this one month break of September. I hope I can cover them well before I start work! While at it, may I have an enjoyable month of REST!

I also registered for driving license conversion test to be held in mid September. I just need to pass the driving basic theory test to convert my Malaysian driving license to the Singaporean driving license. It is worth it since we can use the Singaporean driving license in Malaysia too and in the long run, it is millions of time cheaper as you can renew it for life while the Malaysian license renewing fee increases crazily every year.