Matt's Life Rollercoaster

Friday, April 29, 2005

More Stuff from the World of Matthew

What a weekend! Well actually more of what a Sunday. On Friday nothing much happened except I rented Katamari Damacy again and the guy at Blockbuster said "We don't give refunds if a game is bad". At first I thought he meant if it was scratched or something but he meant the actual game. I laughed. I beat the game though! Sunday, I made it official and I booked my WestJet flight. I'm booked on WS63 on August 14. I leave Calgary at 9:45 AM and get into Edmonton at 10:30 AM. It cost me $135.54. Stupid ATSC, AIF, and NAV/INS fees. I also found some more Idol intros. I am up to date on my Idol Poland 4. There was this really weird girl with a mullet, tattoos, and a chin ring. I didn't like her but Poland did and she advanced. Anyway, today (which is Sunday Apr 17) I watched the Calgary Roughnecks take on the Toronto Rock. We smashed them! I think the final score was 20-12 but I don't remember. On Friday, I decided to make a sign for Kaleb (Yes, I am using his name, because I'm the only one who ever reads my blog). We bought a piece of poster paper from the loonie store. I printed out pictures of him, a Roughnecks logo and a Toronto Rock logo. Chantal and me glued the pictures, and I drew a red sort of dead face on the CN Tower in the Rock logo. I wrote underneath "This rock will roll no more" (LOL, I'm not that good at that sort of thing). Chantal then wrote "Go #9, Roughnecks Rock (not Toronto (this wasn't on there)) and Calgary's #1!. Which is funny because we are number one in the West. I also cut out a headline from the newspaper that said "Roughnecks reign as best in the West". So, we had spare tickets and we couldn't figure out who else to go. Nana and Dido said they would come though. So after putting some finishing touches on the sign, we go get Nana and Dido. Dad said that other people from the Herald would be coming but on the way to the Dome, people kept phoning him saying that they couldn't come. So we had our group and Lorraine and her husband. When we got there the Avison Young Club wasn't open yet so we had to hang around in the lobby. Chantal had never been in the box before so I bet she was excited. Then 10 mins later we go in. We get to the box and the teams are practicing. Calgary was down at our end so I right away started looking for Kaleb. I couldn't see him because he didn't have his number on his practice stuff. So then I went to look around and I see the Flames Fan Attic. I saw a really cool Roughnecks flag and found out how much it is. Then I went upstairs to see if I could find Mary-Anne. (No such luck). I came back down and there are some kids playing on the floor. We then pick our food for the suite. Dad orders us hot dogs and me a popcorn. Well, when the popcorn arrived it was HUGE. I mean like the biggest bowl possible. Anyway so I ask Dad if I can get the flag and he says sure. So I go to the Fan Attic which is on the box level, and I am standing in line when this Mom tells her kid "This is white, so the autographs will show better". I thought "There's autographs later"? Then the kid takes this little lacrosse stick and whacks his brother really hard in the forehead. I almost just lost it. It's not funny I know, but still. So when I get to the front of the line, I ask the lady if they do autographs. She says that she thinks so but she isn't sure, and I should ask a usher. So I go to find the concierge. She says that at the end of the game to go to Sections 104/105 and you can get access to the floor. I go back to the box and the teams are practicing again, this time in full gear! I spot Kaleb and point him out to Chantal. We yell "Kaleb" and hold up our sign. Well, then I look up and they are showing some fans on the JumboTron. Then after they show somebody, there we are! Chantal and me freak! We start waving the sign like crazy. I yell at Dad to wave and he's totally oblivious. Then the camera pans back and you can see Nana, Dido, and Dad. Then we wait for a while and watch Kaleb practice. Then the popcorn comes and I go "Woah". I shared it though. There was no way I was finishing that on my own. Anyway, the clock starts going down from 30:00. Nothing real eventful happens until the announcer says "Take your seats, the lights will be going out in 5 mins". Then 4 minutes later he gives a 1 minute warning. Then the lights go out! The Roughnecks have a cool intro. First this video plays on the JumboTron and then the Drill Crew comes out. They aren't that great. Then the Roughnecks start to come out. When I hear "Please welcome #9, Kaleb Toth", we go crazy. Then it was time for O Canada. After O Canada, the game started. We got our hot dogs and chicken wings after. Lacrosse is one crazy game. You can't take your eyes off of it or you'll miss something. Calgary started out doing dismal. We were down by about 4 goals at one point. During the game quite a few cool things happened. The first giveaway they did was near us on the 2nd tier. It was a trivia thing for a autographed jersey. The question was "What team did Kaleb Toth play for before being acquired by the Roughnecks". The kid looked like he was having so much trouble figuring it out, so I yelled out as loud as I could "TORONTO". Chantal then yells it. He goes "Toronto" and gets it right. It should have been my jersey. Anyway, later on, Chantal leaves her seat and I don't pay attention to where she goes. Then I get up to get another hot dog and these two girls are standing in the box. I go "Hi". They say "Would you like a airbrush tattoo". I said that I would go see if Chantal wanted one too but then I couldn't find her. I ask them to come back. So I go out of the box and go near the concession stand. (Avison Young Club rocks! You never need to go upstairs unless you want Subway or Little Cesar's). I ask her if she wants a tattoo and the girls are standing right by me. The girls leave and go to other boxes while Dad buys her a malt. I get one too. Then later on the girls come back. The tattoos are really cool. They are airbrushed but they are still the Roughneck logo. Anyway the game was really crazy. One of the players got in a huge fight and landed this huge punch on a Toronto player. During the third quarter, the goalies also fought! Both the Necks and the Rock had their back-up goalies in and they got ejected for the fight. So did Jesse Phillips and Jim Veltman. There also was another giveaway for beef jerky in our section featuring the Drill Crew. It was really stupid though. They literally chucked at the fans and then they start taking off their shirts! They then gave them to the crowd. Kaleb scored twice and got some assists. There was also a Mr.Sub giveaway that somehow bombed totally. The fans didn't even yell. The funny thing about lacrosse is, when the other team scores you don't even know because no one boos or cheers or goes "Oooh". Anyway when the last minute came up, we all stood up and started clapping. Then as soon as the clock hit 00:00, Chantal and me immediately ran upstairs, and I then realized that I lost some of my voice. We stand at the bottom row for a bit near the glass and we wait and wait, the guy who was doing the give-aways during the game came out and was like "You guys want some autographs, well they will be coming soon but please let's give it up one more time for the great game today". Then we all yelled again and they let us in after a while. Me and Chantal started out confused, because we had no idea where to go. We see everyone run toward the bench and so we do too. As we run Chantal grabs this piece of paper from the Drill Crew and then keeps going. We all start squishing around the bench. Then a few players come out but no Kaleb. I got really worried that maybe he didn't do autographs. I heard somebody ask "Where's Toth"? One of the players said "He's coming, he just has to do something". So I get a bunch of autographs from players that are out and Chantal says "I'm going to get some cheerleaders autographs". Now, Chantal has the sign, so I don't know about this. Chantal goes anyway and then she comes back. After a while, Kaleb comes down the walkway. He instantly gets rushed with people and while he starts signing, I yell "Kaleb, Kaleb". He looks up at me and I say "I know Mary-Anne". He says "Do you", and I nod my head. He smiled. I thought he was totally going to be like "Uh, oookay". I gave him my flag and he signed it. Then I grabbed the sign from Chantal and gave it to him, and he unrolled it and I think he really liked it. Anyway, I got stuck there for a while and so I gave him Chantal's paper too. Kaleb is really nice. He takes time to talk with everyone. This kid said to him that it was his birthday and Kaleb was like "Oh, Happy Birthday, Are you going to have cake when you go back home". The kid told him that he had cake yesterday. Then Kaleb asked what he did for his birthday. The kid said he went to Adventure Zone. Then when he wasn't busy, I said "Do you know if Mary-Anne is here"? Kaleb looked at me and went "Um, she might be. I know she came today but sometimes she stays until later and sometimes she leaves". I nodded. The Roughnecks are really funny. One of the players was signing a hat and he said "Who's hat is this" about 3 times, and no one answered. So he put it on his head, and then went "Who's hat am I wearing"? Then right beside me there was this little girl who couldn't get in to see Kaleb. So, I helped her get up to Kaleb. She wanted her jersey signed but Kaleb couldn't do it with her on the floor. The next thing I know, Kaleb picks her up and puts her down inside the boards. He signs the jersey then quickly realizes that the girl can't get out. So he says "Guess you get to sit with me for a while". The girl was like "OK". So I ended up stuck in front of Kaleb for quite some time because of all the people. So I asked him if he would tell Mary-Anne that Matthew said Hi, and he said he definitely would. Then this teenage girl walks up to him and goes "I freaking love you". I laugh and say under my breath "He's taken". Then I see my chance to escape, and I say "Thanks again, Kaleb". He goes "No problem". I find Chantal and we leave the floor and so does it for the Roughnecks V.S. Rock.


Student Futures Conference:
Yesterday (Apr 20) was the Student Futures Conference at the Coast Plaza Hotel. I started out really early cause I had to be at the school at 8:00. So after quickly getting through what I needed to, I head out to school. I go to class and wait because I somehow beat Kim. Shortly after though, Kim arrives and then we go out to the van. We also meet up with the rest of the kids going. So we get in the van and go. We pull up to the Coast Plaza and go in. We go to this huge conference room and sit at a table. There are loads of people in the room. It was pretty loud too. Kim goes and gets our name tags and stuff. I get mine and it says "Matthew Brosseau Plaza 4". Plaza 4?!!? Luckily Kim had a map in the stuff she got. At the table we each got a booklet on the day, and it had space to write. We waited and waited and then finally some lady came up to speak. She introduced the Opening Speaker who turned out to be Christina Smith the Olympic bobsledder. Christina was really funny and she told us about how she was cheering her first run (or something) and she forgot she was driving and ran the sled into a island. Oops! Anyway, after that we were directed into our rooms (that were on our name tags). There was also some breakfast type food laid out. I couldn't nab a donut because everyone got to them before I did. I found what I think was a chocolate crossiant and then grabbed a juice box and went to Plaza 4. I walked in and was like "Uh-oh, where do I sit"? I got to a table near the front of the room and these two guys were also looking for a place to sit and they said "Oh, let's sit with Matthew". (Stupid name tags). So I sat down, and some more people joined us. This one girl in particular caught my eye. She had a really foreign name (Nataylia Dermojvic or something) and I thought she was kind of cute. We all started talking because the facilitator hadn't started the program yet. Then he started, and he was interesting but then it was like "When's a break"? When they did give us a break, I went out to see if there was any more crossiants, and all of a sudden this guy starts talking to me. I was like "Uh, hi". I started joking with him too. He was kind of scary because he looked like a tough guy at his school. We ended up split up into Introverts and Extroverts and then further split into Thinking Process and Feeling Process. I ended up in what was the Blue section. They then got to the part about "What ever happened to those answers I gave on the Insights tool"? We then get these personal profiles, which are like really indepth and long. They gave us some time to look through it and I was surprised cause I put myself in my least preferred learning type. So then we were told it was time for lunch shortly after. I walked back to Plaza 1 & 2, and Cassandra and Katie beat me to the table. I had to look up certain things in my profile because the facilitator told us that we had to present these qualities during the afternoon session. There is a bunch of sandwiches on the table so the 3 of us start to eat. They were really good. I start talking to Cass and she tells me that the other Cass is here. One of the other kids pretty much spent the whole day with her. I point out the foreign girl to Katie and Cass and I tell them that I think she is cute.

So, we have a good lunch and stuff and I walk back to Plaza 4. My stupid stalker bugged me again about juice boxes. When we go in, one of the facilators kicks us out because we have to be assigned a table. So we all walk out and then we start to go back in again. I draw Table 4 out of the envelope and go sit down. 5 more people sit down and then I see my stalker. Sure enough he comes and sit down next to me. I learn his name is Chris. There are some other really nice people too. Katrina, Calvin, Steve, Josylnn, and I think Leigh-Ann were the others. Anyway, we had to use our Discovery Profile to share what values we could bring to the team, and how to have effective relationships with ourselves. So, we then find out we have to build a tower out of marshmallows and spaghetti. We each have a judge sitting with us. The team also had to come up with a team name and I believe it was either Steve or Calvin that came up with Galloping Seagulls. So we were the Galloping Seagulls. They start you out with a few spaghetti sticks and marshmallows. Then they gave us a page of questions that we would need to answer in order to get some squid (no not the fish) to buy some more supplies. When time was up for the go over the profile thing, one of the girls and I go to work on the questions. We had a plan on what the tower should look like. I got some of the questions and then passed it on to the other girl. I then got delegated to run to the store to get the spaghetti. (It's not like the store is outside of the hotel, it's in the same room). We had to answer questions about the hotel and other things. All of a sudden in the middle of this chaos, one of the adults yells "Now, CBC is going to come in and do some pan shots, if anyone feels uncomfortable with being on TV, please leave". So in walks CBC and Dean Bicknell from the Herald (at least it wasn't Janelle again :-D), and I make my team the limelight by getting Dean's attention. The team got totally swarmed by the media. Anyway, when it was all said and done we ended up not having the tallest tower. :-(. Bleh.

(A quick interruption, brought to you by the Calgary Roughnecks) This week, Mary-Anne came during lunch to say "Hi". Immediately, she gets swarmed by the kids and when she says to one "Was it you it said hi", I go "No that was me". Kaleb actually remembered. Not that I think his memory is horrible but I didn't honestly think he would do it! It was cool! (And now back to our regularly scheduled blog)...

After we had some downtime, we all exchanged e-mails. I've already talked to Katrina, Josylnn, and Calvin. Nothing really eventful happened afterwards.

The conference was great, I must admit! I had a blast and made some great friends.

School's really boring. I have to go through Math & Science only right now because I finished my English. I am totally focusing on Science, I hate Math.

I went to Build-A-Bear Workshop last Sunday. I had no idea this place had a mascot. But, it was her birthday, so Chantal wanted to go. It was really dumb. The bunny didn't even know it was her birthday. I got a Expos uniform for Aussie, and Amanda built a monkey for Victoria.

Reality Roundup... Don't get me started!
American Idol needs serious readjusting. Scott, sorry to disappoint you (LOL, like he's going to see this) but Constantine is way more talented. Anthony got placed in the bottom 2 next to him >:-(. I'm probably going to send a letter to Idol.

Aviation Segment...
What a week for civil aviation! Both Air India & Air Canada placed huge Boeing orders (both are going to get the 787 Dreamliner). And... the A380 took to the skies. It was truly beautiful. WestJet unfortunately posted another loss. Grrr! Clive said things should pick up though. I think it had something to do with Jetsgo.

Other stuff...
I went to IKEA again. Yay IKEA!!! I also went to the new DQ Chill 'N' Grill. *snickers at the weird name*. Chill 'N' Grill. I'm hoping the next thing I will save for is a iPod. I know that the iPod Shuffle is cheap and you get the music, but the random thing will drive me nuts. I like the iPod Photo but they are really expensive. I think the normal iPod is good, but probably the best one is the higher capacity iPod Mini. I bought Micheal Buble for Mom, cause she really likes him.

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Some of my last few weeks! Easter and some of Break!

I reread Tiff's blog yesterday. It was quite funny. Tiff's blog is at trudiak.blospot.com . I wrote something like "Does the ocean make you type bad" and I told her about how the weather sucked. I didn't realize but that was when I had pneumonia. It also said that I missed Calaway Media Night because of it. And some really disapointing news. Victoria can't do The RACE. :-( X 100. We really wanted to do it. She has some sort of dance thing though that she has to go to. I might ask Tiff because she isn't too old for it. I really wanted to spend some time with Victoria because I don't do much with her. I'm so sad because of this. We had been waiting since last summer to try it because I wasn't old enough. Actually I don't think either of us were. Oh well, Sorry Victoria... maybe another year? We still have a few years left where we can be eligible! Until we are 24. Well, the 2nd round of C1 Idol was last night. I had to use it as a practice for the Talent Show. I sang "Someone's Watching Over Me". I loved our new blue and red lights downstairs. I had to do to a sound thing for Jonathan in the woodshop and Cassandra was there. So, I was in the middle of singing my song and Kim holds up this sign that says "Matt for Canadian Idol" and I start laughing. Cassandra then waits for me to finish my levels and then says "sing Since U Been Gone". I thought she was going to do it with me but sure enough she didn't. Anyway after totally killing the high note, I also have to sing Avril's "He Wasn't". I still had some time to kill to get to the office, so I hang around. Well, Cassandra gets this really good idea. She says "I'm going to make a sign for you for tomorrow". So we go to the Art Room and she gets a piece of poster paper and some markers. She goes back to Wood and starts it while I go to the office. She comes in with Katie midway through and goes "Look". So I look up and it says in colourful letters "Matt for Canadian Idol". I start laughing and go "Awesome". Then she added some music notes to it. Today was the big day. I was so nervous. Candyce and Nicole came. So did Duncan. Anyway the Talent Show is odder and odder every year. We had Room 3 doing Kid Idol. ^_^. Billy, Lyndon and another kid from Room 7 did the usual rock band thing. Other things included a performance of "He Wasn't". (Oh so that's where that came from). Also Darryl read from Lemony Snicket. To be frank, I don't ever want that to happen again. I almost fell asleep. Brian.C did that thing where he jumps and lands on his toes. LOL. A lot of things. Anyway, after Billy/Lyndon I hear Keegan from Room 3 (our MC) go "And now, Matthew from Room 6 will sing a song by Hilary Duff". He pauses for a second and then goes "Wahh?". I laughed. Poor Keegan. I stepped on stage and almost right away I hear either Alicia or Cassandra go "VOTE MATT FOR CANADIAN IDOL". I couldn't see them but it was still funny. They apperantly starting swaying their arms. Then during the second chorus they ran up to the stage and ran across below me. ^_^. I was about to just lose it. Everybody started cheering. To sum it up, I got the biggest applause! I was so happy! :-). My fan club was like "WOOO!"
. Chantal learned how to play lacrosse from none other then the... Calgary Roughnecks! I told her to say hi to Mary-Anne's boyfriend. Sorry if you don't know who it is... I can't tell you. (It's a secret I promised to take to the grave :-P). Actually, I found out from Chantal that somehow the Roughnecks forgot. Also most of the players had already left for Arizona so they will have to come after Spring Break. The PSP came out today. Yay! Oh, I checked out the Idol vids. I'm not too sure about Constintine. :-(.

Easter weekend...
I went home early Friday. I didn't do too much actually. I rented Katamari Damacy which is the funniest thing ever. You start as this little ball and then you roll over things and you become bigger and then you can roll over bigger things like people, animals and cars. The things all stick to your ball and then if you complete the level by getting to a certain height within a amount of time it gets created into a star. It is just so wacky it's fun. I had a good Easter, I got lots of chocolate and I got the Airport Terminal Pack DVD. I watched Airport 79: The Concorde. It was okay. We then went over to Nana's house. I showed Victoria my sign and she laughed. We then had to go find our Easter eggs. I was blue and it was hard because Uncle, Dad, and Dido were the ones hiding them. They buried some in snow. There was one on top of the Eagle's nest and another stuck on a tree branch. Afterwards, we went inside and I finished watching Airport 79. Victoria watched some of it with me. We were like "What if they land it, but they all die of frostbite" and stuff. We then opened presents. I got more money for Edmonton. (I think I'm there). Then Victoria, Uncle and Dido played poker. I ended up being the dealer. I was bad at it. I was the dealer from Russell Peter's comedy special ( (click) Belay). Dido lost. Then Victoria. When then had dinner which was really good. We also had dessert which was ice cream and cake (from wherelse, Glenmorgan Bakery). Then the poker fiends struck again and Auntie, Dad, Uncle, Dido and Victoria played. The game lasted forever. I had to wait a really long time because we were going to play Cranium after the poker game was finished. So then after Dad won, cousins left. Mom, Nana, Dido, Chantal and me all played Cranium. Chantal was on fire. The guys team was winning for a while and then Chantal had some good rolls and beat us! We went home after and then I just watched some TV until I fell asleep. Then on Monday we went to Chinook Centre because Chantal had enough money for the Mulan costume she wanted for her Build-A-Bear. We got to the store and they didn't have any! I felt so bad for Chantal. She saved and saved and then there was no Mulan costume. :-(. She got her name on a list though but it looks doubtful :-(. Then we headed over to Zellers for a quick sec. Chantal really wanted to buy some Stuff by Duff PJ's in order to get this gift bag. (LOL). Then we left Zellers. We started making our way to Paramount Chinook to play some DDR. We saw the Access Speaker's Corner across from Old Navy. I walked up to it with Chantal. We were both wearing our concert shirts when the question "What do you think of the state of music? Why?". I was like "I don't know if I'm the right person to ask, I'm 15 and am wearing a shirt with Hilary Duff on it". Chantal was like "Hilary rocks". I said something about not liking some rap music cause it glorifies violence. Next question is "What's your beef". Chantal pops up with "I don't like Lindsay Lohan because she hates Hilary Duff". I said something about people who think they are higher than me but they aren't. Then it all of a sudden comes up with "What was the worst experience of your childhood". Chantal yells "I still am a child" and I say "I dunno, I'm a teenager. I guess getting these (point to glasses) was bad". Then the last thing pops up, and it's the one I prayed wouldn't come up. "Show us your best dance moves". I laughed for about 15 seconds before pushing the button. I did some wacky thing I learned off of Shark Tale. Then I tried to do some Ukrainian dance but I was too close to the camera. So after that fun, we went to play DDR! Yay! The first ever DDR round for the newly formed Team Hilary/Haylie. (We still have a few other names for it, like Team Duff or Team Hilary Duff). The DDREXTREME machine at Chinook is set to Joint Premium which they think makes up for the cruddy quality of the machines pad. It really, really doesn't! The machine still freezes and the 1P left arrow sticks. But thanks anyway Chinook. Anyway we got lots of tokens and we were there for almost 2 hrs. Chantal and me rocked the Paramount! This girl came up with these 2 guys about my age, and she does Versus. The guys are horrible and the first two times she gets me to go up and I of course kick butt. Then for the third song, she asks Chantal to replace the guys and she totally wastes her! ^_^. Go Chantal! Then there were some other group. Anyway near the end it got massively packed.