Summer (2005 Edition) & The Crazed World since the 1st week of school...

Summer? What summer? School comes too quick in my life so I barely have a summer. Also, when your stuck in the cottage it really sucks. I meant to update before but the AlphaSmart got returned before I could send it.

I went only one place thanks to the decision making of the Cottage. I went to Panorama with the family. What did I do? Well, if it has water, I probably did it. I swam, and swam, and swam. Then, I went white-water rafting. That was one BIG adventure. I never thought that I could do it, but even Chantal did. Our river guide was really funny, and lucky for us he had the water gun.

Panorama's Howling Wolf mini-golf course is quite challenging. The holes all slope funny. I got a free game when I told the people in the Adventure Centre that I would be happy if I had the right room (cause they screwed up the reservation).

I found the best thing ever in Invermere. Gerry's Gelato! Yummy!! (Gerry even has a degree in ice cream technology from UofG (Guelph). Anyway, I had always wanted to try gelato since I found Fiasco on 17th but I couldn't find it the one day I had money. So Gerry, a big round of applause to you.

Today, I'm starting my war with CTV for their stupidity surrounding Canadian Idol. Last month www.cisongs.com received a letter from CTV stating something around the lines of "If you don't take off all Canadian Idol content from your site, we will pursue legal action". I was shocked. CTV doesn't get that if these vids were left alone, more people would see it and be interested in CI. I posted my opinion on idolforums.com and the reply from one user was that CTV did not want Americans to get access to the content. Excuse me? I think that is more then fair that Americans get the vids. Canada gets both AI & CI. America gets the short end of that stick. Oh well.

Anyway, I got a great Back-To-School surprise (sort of) in the form of Billy joining Room 6. (And that is really all I care to go on that subject)

As General Mills keeps doing the CD thing in Lucky Charms, we got RCT2. We wasted no time and Disneyland Canada is thriving. Our park has almost $24 million and people such as Hilary Duff, Kelly Clarkson, and Carrie Underwood have been seen around. We have Subway and Swiss Chalet and the first ever Brothers Beef noodle stand. It's quite popular. For the sports fan we have WestJet Mini-Golf, but make sure to get in line early because wait times are up to 45 mins. I also would invite representatives from Six Flags Holland to see how to run a theme park, (We had screwed it up, putting it in the red). We have loads of water rides too. Disneyland Canada is currently only open on Friday,Saturday and Sunday so come on the weekend for some great fun! I know I made this sound like a actual theme park.

I got some cool books at the library on Friday. Blue Streak (about jetBlue), Jump In! (Mark Burnett's bio), and Simon Cowell's book.

Well, Canadian Idol is on right now. Casey is singing some song called "Timeless Love". Rex already sang "No Sugar Tonight". These two are OK but Casey just doesn't interest me. Her performance of Like A Prayer sucked. The judges say: that she did well, apart from Zack who compared it to watching paint dry. It was apparently her best performance. Rex, I thought was just OK. I hope Melissa is next! We are on commercial now so check back later!

Suzi's up... She got "American Woman". It's interesting cause I don't I have ever seen a girl sing this. Uh... tone down the "UHH's". I'm not really getting into this version. Her voice just sounds odd for some reason. LOL She just went up to the judges and almost had her head on the table and Sass,Farley,and Jake were headbanging! LOL. Zack agreed with what I was thinking. She picked the Lenny Kravitz version? Boo! And Farley also thought the same as Zack!

Aaron can't sing "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" again. He did that as his Canadian Hit.

Up next...MELISSA!!!! I'm not going to write during her performance. "My Own Way To Rock" is the song. BRB... Zack thinks she's gone. And Jake agrees that it was the lounge at the Holiday Inn. Farley agrees too! Sass loved it! But this sucks!

Finally, the Fashion mag update!

Because I really don't care about Aaron, that's my CI update!


Okay... I'm hoping Melissa can still make it through.

BTW... Chantal picked up her Hilary Duff CD "Most Wanted" Collectors Edition. "Wake Up" & "Beat Of My Heart" are two new tracks that are quite interesting. I don't know how many times we said "Give me a dance floor, give me a DJ" this weekend.

Reading my Tokyo city guide... Here are some things I think would be fun in Tokyo...

Transportation Museum in Akihabara: It says there is a virtual train you can drive and stuff.
Taiko-Kan in Asakusa: They have 600 drums and some of them you can play. (Only if they have blue dots).
Sony Building in Ginza: New gadgets and free games! DDR maybe?
World Magazine Gallery in Ginza: They have 1200 magazines from around the world and you can sit and read for free!
Kabukicho: No comment. :-D.
NHK Studio Plaza: Its a broadcasting museum located in Shibuya.
Takeshita-Dori in Harajuku: Teen central! Toys & fast-food!
Tokyo Tower in Roppongi: Its a tower. I like towers.
Toyota Mega-Web in Odaiba: The tallest Ferris wheel in the world, and virtual test drives.
Ryogoku Kokugikan Sumo Museum: Sumos rock!

That's Tokyo for you. :-D.

Casey is gone! Yay Melissa!

Some rejected names for jetBlue: Taxi, Yeeeeeees!, Dairy Air, Air Hop, egg, Scout Air, The Competition, Home, Air Spray, Whistle, Fresh Air, Civilization Airways, It (A serious front runner, in a meeting some one said "We could be the It airline, you could says fly it, we would have bag tags that say Shlep It you'd buy a tick-It and our snacks would say eat It" LOL!), Blue, Now! (Isn't that now a UK carrier?), The Big One (WTF?!?!), Fair Air, Idlewild Transport, FlyBlue, True Blue, Avenues, Lift, Hi! Way.

How goofy are those? egg?

So, The Osbournes went off to Tokyo last night and I was like... I wanna go! Victoria apparently gets to go to Cheju, South Korea with her band. Lucky! I am so envious.

I wanna go!!! I wanna go to Asia! Japan, China, South Korea, whatever! Land of DDR and more crazy gadgets.

Well, Sunday night was my first sleepless one since maybe Manzanillo. I watched CNN to pass time and the coverage of Hurricane Katrina was sad. Katrina hit early today & it flooded New Orleans. :-(.

Katrina is done! Its already down to tropical storm. I just noticed one of my friends from Student Futures Conference is named Katrina. LOL.

Canadian Idol on again tonight! Melissa sings Elvis. :-D. www.votefortheworst.com is targeting Suzi Rawn but I don't agree. If anyone is bad its Rex or Aaron. I can't stand either. Aaron is still using his theatre expressions. I won't get to watch though >:-(.

I guess it should be some more Panorama time...
Panorama has a certain thing with Chinese tour groups so on the last day a group arrived and I was saying "Ni Hao" to all the people I saw. They thought it was really cool. Also one of the housekeeping department staff was Japanese and I did the "Konichi Wa" thing. As for the rafting, like I said it was really cool! It took about a hour and Chantal was really brave. She even got to steer. She started yelling the commands that we got to start paddling. It was really funny. We played at the inflatable Funzone too. We had those silly walkie-talkies and one night we were allowed to get some pizza from the place up the hill. I had to take a walkie and it was taking a while and while I was waiting we had this exchange...
Matthew is playing Mario Tennis while waiting...
(Radio crackles)
Mom: Where are you?
Matthew: At the pizza place, I told you it would take 45 minutes.
Mom: How do I know you're there? Chantal is really hungry.
(Matthew thinks...)
Matthew: (not on radio, to pizza guys) Tell my Mom I'm at the pizza place.
Both Pizza Guys (on radio): HE'S AT THE PIZZA PLACE.
Matthew starts laughing.
Mom: OK, I guess you're at the pizza place.
Matthew: Like that?
Mom: Yes.

That was the funniest exchange ever. The pizza guys rocked. The cool thing about Panorama is that they hire international employees. People were from Japan, Switzerland, and Germany. Really cool!

Invermere's IGA has a really cool thing. It's a DVD rental vending machine. You pick your movie and then you scan your credit card and the DVD comes out in a case.

The Final 3 of Canadian Idol has been set! Melissa is up against Aaron and Rex! Suzi got voted out. I thought Suzi was much better than Aaron or Rex.

Stampede you ask? That almost didn't happen either! But it did (even though it was two days late). We tried out that really stupid VR thing that is notorious for being extremely funny to watch.

(Before I get into the deep insanity... Happy B-Day Alberta! You don't look a day over 99! :-D)

Anyway... You put on these glasses and this guy comes on and tells you to different things in order to get more points. It's really cool because the game host will ask for your name at sign-in and then the game will say it. I can't give too much away because the fun in is in the mystery! Anyway at the end I got the surprise of the game when the guy said "Well, way to go Matthew in Seat 13, you won"! I was like "YEAH".

The aftermath of Katrina is horrid. New Orleans is chaotic. I can't imagine it. New Orleans is a major city and they have extremely limited food & water. People are dying. This is so,so sad :-(.

Well, I ended up losing a overnight but... when Mom phoned she told Candyce that either Tiffany or her boyfriend (that feels weird to say) phoned (not here) and since her birthday is on Monday she wants the family to be together for it. OMG!!! I feel so happy that I have my cousin back. I miss her so much. It has been a long time. I think it was Christmas.

Stampede... I found a cool Nintendo game called Donkey Konga 2. Its that game for GameCube that uses the bongo drums. The second edition even features a Hilary Duff song to bongo away to.

The full deal with Tiff goes a little something like this... Nana sent Tiffany a card for her birthday and when she saw it she was in tears. Her boyfriend (still odd to say that...) Roy or Rory (I dunno) sat down with Tiffany and they both decided that it was time to end this, and time to get the family back together. So, Roy or Rory phoned Nana (quite nervously) and told her what was going on. So, we get to celebrate Tiff's B-Day! Yay! I really have no clue why I am putting all this detail into my blog but whatever.

I finally figured out where that bootleg copy of Star Wars: Episode 3 came from. Mel! LOL. Tonight, Murray brought in a copy of Fantastic 4. Well, it was quite funny because the movie was redubbed into English from Korean and then halfway through some guy gets up and goes to the bathroom. LOL. I know what Sticky Vicky is getting me when she goes to Korea. (BTW... Why on Earth do I call my cousin Sticky Vicky?)

Chantal was in a play this summer @ the Pumphouse Theater. It was part of a drama camp entitled (Get ready...) "Operation Enigma: Lurking In The Shadows". Her play was called (Again, get ready... and deep breath) "Watch the Hand (An Ensemble Piece of Unmentionable Wonder)". She played Chloe, Another Maid. She honestly was so funny. My favorite had to be "The Case of the Missing Jewels" featuring Savannah Parisotto as Crystal. Other great performances go to Robyn McCreary for Lady Montague in "Crazy Money Chase and Stuff... A Play!" and Michelle Gracel in "Massacre at the Mansion". Chantal gets really annoyed when I say how much I liked the other plays. I let it slip that The Case of the Missing Jewels was my fave and she was like "It is..." all hurt. "No, besides yours" would be me going into damage control. But we have a DVD of it! It seems like Chantal did get a fair share of the lines.

My summer fame came to me in form of the Calgary Herald! I got asked to write a article in the style of the thing I did for Sissy on my Top 5 things on Disneyland. Well, I got to work and I wrote it out. I got it sent in and the rest was up to the Travel department. Then one day A-Channel delivers some scary news... California Screamin' has collided with another car on the track. When I get home I have to rewrite that paragraph. I did one on Indy and sent it. Dad phones later to tell me when the article will be published. Its while we are away at Panorama. Fast forward to the day before... I ask the lady @ the general store about saving a Calgary Herald saved.and she says on the weekend its hit and miss. So, I tell her my room number and the next day I get quickly dressed and run down, I ask if she has seen the papers yet and she says that they haven't come in yet. She asks for my room number again and then I go back and wait. The phone rings 10 mins later and there it is! I ran as fast as I could and then when I get it in my hand the lady says something along the lines of "You must really like the news". I open to the Travel section and on the corner is Chantal eating a pickle (Her most favorite picture ever), I then open to the page and there is a whole page of me! The lady looked at the paper, looked at me, and then at the paper again. She then said "Oh, that's you, I can see why you were excited".

The fame continued the whole summer and is still going. I got kudos from Jim, Kerry, Sue, Vance, Kim, Dr.Paisley, Manreet, Candyce, Heather, Auntie Pat (who just happened to stumble on it at a Starbucks in Kelowna), Nana, and more.

Heather even made a special bulletin board in the library for it! It was so surprising.

Well, of course IKEA comes out with a new catalog every year right? I have one and let me see... Class open your IKEA 101 (2006 Edition) textbook to page 134. We are going to explain the IVAR storage combination as well as the KLUBBO coffee table. MYSINGE 2-seat sofa and ALSEDA stool. IKEA still comes up with the weirdest names for furniture. Like a BEKVÄM kitchen trolley now priced at $59. Can you imagine the conversations IKEA staff must have?

IKEA Employee: Hi, Would you like some help?
Guy: Sure. I'm looking at this... well, um...
IKEA Employee: TROMSÖ twin bunk bed frame.
Guy: Okay, whatever.
IKEA Employee: It works great with our HEIMDAL table!
Guy: Right.
IKEA Employee: But we don't have any HEIMDAL's. We are limited to show only a bit of IKEA's huge inventory.
Guy: So, you don't have the KAFFE coffee maker?
IKEA Employee: Oh, we have that.

As much as I love it, IKEA really is one weird store.
One thing I suggest all people do is go to www.ikea.ca and screw around with Anna (the online IKEA lady). She doesn't understand much. I asked her about $1 breakfast and she said "Which store are you referring to when talking about IKEA restaurant"? So I typed "IKEA Calgary". She then gave me a list of stores in the USA to choose from. I was like... OK then, IKEA Seattle. Its even funnier when you swear @ her because then she says "Is there a IKEA related question I can help you with"? *snickers*. Anna isn't the brightest one of the IKEA bunch.

Hurricane Katrina & what the Brosseau home is doing...
Chantal & Shelby built a mini-golf course in our backyard and its cool. Chantal came up with this idea to have Saturday be a open day where anyone could come and play for $1, rent club & ball for $1 and get food for $1 (like at IKEA only not Swedish). I started to think this was greedy, but then I read one of the flyers she was making. It said "All proceeds will go to Hurricane Katrina relief". I was like "Awwww...". She is working so hard on it. If anyone wants to come our house is @ 454 Shawbrooke Circle in Calgary Alberta and it is on Saturday Sept 10. It will be only for the morning and afternoon. Mom thinks that maybe some TV stations will come. I think it would be awesome! I'm going to really help because unlike a garage sale, this is to help something that I feel bad about. Global came to the house today. I'm annoyed that I wasn't there. I know I didn't do much to help (or anything to help) but it still would have been neat.


Top 2 has been set in Canadian Idol and its Rex and... Melissa! Yeah! Melissa has it sewn up. The show ends next week...! Melissa 4 Idol!

Gil Tucker came to the house last night! I think Chantal was excited. We will see if it is on TV tonight!

And that's that!