I just recently started watching this reality TV series (I think its quite an old show though, 2005) which features Brit foul mouthed chef Gordon Ramsay to select an apprentice to be given his/her own restaurant. Just to see what abject humiliation participants are willing to subject themselves to. So far, 3 episodes after, he's shut down his restaurant 3 times! lol. i wonder how come it takes so long for the contestants to prepare meals though. let's see, 3 hours and the Blue team, with 5 people, came up with 7 dishes whereas the red team fared better, with 4 people since an idiot walked out on them, with 15 dishes. Oh my, but still, that averaged 5 dishes an hour. No wonder the previous episode the patrons sick of waiting go order pizza! LOL! It's a real side splitter this one, especially with comments like:
Chef: Why isn't the water boiling? Did you top it up with cold water?
Wendy: Yes. I thought cold water will boil faster than hot water.
OMG Please don't throw the face of Chinese! Luckily she's fired.

Seeing that it was the last book of the heptology (?), it sparked a bout of previously dormant mania to go to The Curve Damansara at 4.30am. We had armed ourselves with the knowledge that the carpark was 24 hrs and that the mall will open at 6.45am. So now we wait.



Our main purpose was to try to get one of the 7 free copies of The Deathly Hallows given away by The Sun. But alas, there were already 3 groups of people totalling 15 fans ahead of us at that unearthly hour. One wonders how long they had been waiting.



So near yet so far.
We had to deal with a sadistic security guard who probably just loved being in the position that he was IN the mall and the rest of us were stuck outside.
And we eyed the people who came later than us but were crowded in front of the entrance already. There were 3 partitions, and the effing guard said he will only open the middle one. We were at the side. But we had already lost hope, there's the backup plan of Tesco's opposite anyway.
When 6.45am came, and the shutters went up, people crawled under it and started running to Borders, which was still closed of course, since the book goes on sale at 7.01am



The snaking line outside Borders pre 7am. There was this boy in a stroller, who was missing his left foot, standing in front of the bookstore too, he's featured in today's(Sunday) paper. An 'uncle' was trying to help him get ahead of the line but the former was told off by some people in the queue already. This auntie who was talking to us said, "the poor boy" and we nodded, yeah but said it was rather unfair to use handicap to get in front of the line, then she agreed with us, and went to pull the uncle away rather vehemently, which shocked us a little. We thought the uncle was related to the boy at first but turned out he just wanted to help, and the auntie was probably his wife, admonishing, "Dont bother". She sure changed her mind fast though, after we voiced our opinion.
Having said that, I suppose it was unfair for him in the sense that people started charging before the shutters went fully up (which was what the security guard told us as the signal to head to Borders), since he can't possibly crouch through the shutters with his stroller.



When Borders opened, their manager was shouting that the line formed was for purchase of book and the Sun contest was at the Information Counter, that inspired another mad stampede for it, especially people out of the line. My first reaction? I took the photo above, instead of rushing with the others. My mum laughed when I told her this and said I had the journalist instinct. Hah!

What was disheartening was that there was absolutely no person to organise the lines and everything, and my heart went out to those who were rightfully in front of the mall entrance first, but were nowhere near the head of the line. However, a group of three brothers who were ahead of us managed to get 2 copies of the free book given out by The Sun. Selfish, eh.
There was also this Malay man who shouted at the bookstore people for allowing the mad rush to happen, like "THIS IS THE KIND OF PUBLICITY YOU WANT FOR YOUR STORE IS IT?? I WANT TO COMPLAIN TO YOUR MANAGER" which ironically he was probably shouting at the manager herself.
I was rather pleased at this man, but I suppose like Dharsh said, it was near impossible to organise mad kiasu people, since ropes were little barrier to them.



Our consolation prize at Tesco's. I bought the kiddie cover one coz I thought it looked nice and colourful. =) Notice that the first four books, Harry's scar was skewed more to the left of his forehead but since the movie was the opposite, this book was more to his right instead. Then of course, there was the boycott by MPH, Popular and Times which I think is just silly, because they were against the price cut by Tesco's and Carrefour to Rm69.90 while they were selling it at RM109.90. C'mon, in UK it went as low as 5 pounds! I was rather surprised that inside the cover of the book the retail price was printed as 17.99 pounds though.

So as of 9.50pm 21 July 2007, I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
I enjoyed the throwbacks and references to adventures and minor details in previous books, and of course the final showdown, and lamented the deaths of some, but I didn't like the rather cliched ending, just the last chapter actually. That's all I'm going to say. Moment of silence for those who perished.

I jogged, rock climbed and swam in a grand total of three consecutive days!! Hehe good things come in threes.. You didn't think I could do all those in just a day right?? I have rather an addiction to rock climbing now though.

Ooh I can't believe I forgot to blog about this horrid phobia when I wrote about Vegas. It so gripped me and resulted in paranoid actions around Vegas.
1. My family members had to open doors for me, coz the handle is often metal.
2. I used the arm of my jacket which was wrapped around my waist (you CANNOT be wearing sleeves in the Vegas heat!) to open the door.
3. I was afraid of the locks on toilet doors
4. I was afraid of opening hotel room doors too.
5. Once I thought I should be rid of the fear and gingerly stuck a finger out to prod a door handle, AND i have been discharged just like 10 seconds ago then, and bloody hell I got zapped!

This fear has been evolving since the road trip in Australia.

And to think I used to be the girl who loved to place her head near a just-switched-off-TV-screen to feel my hair flying up. Or hear the crackle of electrostatic.