Kacang Botol Salad

I had this hankering to eat kacang botol - I saw it in the supermarket but didn't do anything about it and dreamed of it for 2 nights before I headed out to the supermarket to buy all the ingredients.  I made my nyonya kacang botol salad of lime juice, bunga kantan, shallots, serai, chili shrimp floss, sambal blacan, sugar and kacang botol, merrily tossed around into a yummy salad.

Evidence of my greed is shown to all!  *burp*

Hungry Ghost Month

Today marks the first day of the Hungry Ghost Month where the ghouls roam the earth when they are set free from hell to create trouble - that's what I was told by some old wives years ago.

So fast forward to today and this posting - it is the start of one month of burning hell for me. The people who observe the rituals of the Hungry Ghost Month will be burning all sorts of stuff for the ghouls - usually paper money as far as I know - and also leaving food around. The area around our home will be littered with ash from the burnt offerings, there will be joss sticks stuck along the pavements, and the grass would have been damaged by these inconsiderate people.

Years ago, before the recessions started - we would find these giant joss sticks in the industrial estate waiting to be burnt. What a waste of money!

I don't have a problem with the burning if the people did it sensibly - burn in the bins provided; have fire fighting equipment should there be a disaster; place joss sticks in central zone or in one area instead of a long line scattered all over; and generally clean up after themselves.

These people leave a mess for the cleaners to deal with in the morning - just because they pay conservancy charges does not mean that they have to be inconsiderate!

Many years ago, I could see about 20 small fired within my line of sight around our estate. I called the fire brigade because it seemed like a fire hazard. The fire brigade came and DID NOTHING!!

So to those who must do something for hungry ghosts, please be considerate to those around you. Thank you!

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Rude People at the Supermarket

This evening, I went to NTUC to pick up some groceries. When I had finished, I headed off to the cashier to pay for my stuff. There was this guy in front of me and some stuff on the conveyor. The guy said that those 4 items didn't belong to him so I proceeded to put my stuff on the conveyor.
Suddenly this woman rushes up to me and says that she was ahead of me in the line and those items belonged to her. She wanted to cut my queue.
I think these people are just so bloody idiotic - just think that they can leave their stuff around, then say that they were in line.
I think the cashier was also idiotic - she asked if I minded. Of course I mind and I told her her, but she proceeded to check out that woman's stuff.
What an ass!

Green efforts

We are still on the bio diesel track - we found this place somewhere along Yio Chu Kang Road that opens till 8 pm every day so we are not so stuck for fuel by having to get out during regular office hours. To make things better, the price of the bio diesel is only 87 cents compared to $1 for the other pumps. However, it has been closed the past couple of times we went there - then on the website it says that it will re-open in September. We will be back there when it reopens because of the convenient hours.
So far, we have not experienced any "bad" things with the recycled cooking oil. We don't really feel any loss of power when we drive. No shuddering or strange noises - just smooth driving all along.
We seem to be achieving our optimum consumption of 600km per full tank of fuel - something we had achieved sometime back.
Of course the best consumption we had was 850km for a full tank of diesel when we drove at a consistent speed on the North-South Highway from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur and back. That was years ago we haven't had such good consumption since 2004.
We will know if there is any damage to our engine when we go for our 250,000km service. We had agreed that we will try bio diesel for 10,000 km.
So far, so good and I think we will continue.