Eagle Strike (Silent Reading Book)

Alex Rider is back once again to save the world; Anthony Horowitz has Alex Rider fighting crime for the 4^th time in Eagle Strike. This is the 4^th thrilling adventure out of the 8 books in the series. The story begins in the south of France when Alex is at the beach with his friend Sabina and her parents. Alex is peacefully tanning on the beach when suddenly a large yacht approaches to the docks. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots Yassen on the boat (the man who killed Alex’s uncle). Later on, Alex follows and spies on Yassen, he finds out that Yassen was talking to Damian Cray on the phone. Alex was shocked, why would the world’s richest, famous singer, and caring man be talking to an assassin. Nothing made sense, until later that afternoon when Sabina’s summer house exploded. Sabina’s father was in the house and came out alive, however he was severely injured. After the house had exploded, Alex found a news article on Damian Cray written by Sabina’s father (Sabina’s father was a journalist). Alex could now put the puzzle pieces together; Damian Cray was working with Yassen since Sabina’s father was going to expose Cray’s evil plan. This is why Cray sends Yassen to kill Sabina’s father.

After the whole situation in France, back in London, Cray released a new game system called the “Gameslayer”. Alex knows Cray is going to cause trouble for the world. Because of this, he goes to MI6 and tells Alan Blunt (head of MI6) about Damian Cray and his evil side. The MI6 does not believe Alex since Cray is a peace activist and has done many good deeds in his life. Now Alex does not have the government’s help and has to solve this problem all by himself. Further along the story, Alex realizes what Damian Cray’s evil plan is, to release a nuclear attack on large drug producing areas of the world. Through his game system “Gameslayer”, he manages to hack Air Force One with a pen drive to launch the US’ nuclear missiles. In the end, Sabina pushes Cray out of the airplane and tumbles into the turbines. Alex saves the world once again.

In my opinion, I absolutely 100% recommend this series to people who like adventure books because this will keep you at the edge of your chair until the very end!

Golden Retrievers

Dogs have been around for long periods of time, and there are many different types, but in my opinion the handsomest and most fun breed are the Golden Retrievers. This dog was first found and its origin was Scotland. The reason why Golden Retrievers could resist the cold weather in Scotland is because they have a thick inner coat that provided them with warmth. Then they have their outer coat which is glossy, smooth and water repellent. Their outer coats have beautiful color variations from golden to light cream tones. Back in the 18^th century, these dogs were commonly used for the wealthy class when hunting. A man would shoot a duck or bird and the dog would chase after the prey and return back with the dead animal or bird in its mouth. This is where Golden Retrievers got their name.

The Golden Retriever’s male average weight is around 60 to 80 lbs. and the female average is around 55 to 70 lbs. The dog’s life expectancy is around 10 to 12 years which in human years would be the equivalent of 70 to 84 years. This breed is known because of its delightful energetic, well-mannered and friendly being. Golden Retrievers needs exercise on a daily basis because they tend to be hyper active dogs.

Golden Retrievers are probably one of the smartest dogs, and for this reason they are guide dogs for blind people, illegal drug detectors, hunting partners, firemen assistants and sometimes even watchdogs. However, they are most known for their compassion with humans and namely children, which is why they are very popular family dogs.

I myself have a male Golden Retriever by the name of Sam who was born on June 30^th, 2010 (2 ½ years old) and currently weighing 76 lbs. He is very fun to play with and loves being around people.

Sam about 18 months ago.

Tomorrowland

There are no words that can describe Tomorrowland. It is one of the most massive and lively events of the 21^st Century. Tomorrowland is a large musical event other than Woodstock, to be more specific; it is the largest techno festival in the world. This techno fair was first set up in the summer of 2005 and has been consistently happening every year, until today. The last one was on July 22^nd -24^th; however, it varies each year. Similar to Woodstock, this event goes on for three consecutive days, filled with adrenaline and excitement. An approximate 180,000 visitors attended the 6th edition of the three day Tomorrowland event, and throughout the years, that numbers will increase. It takes place in Belgium in a small town called Boom, where the world’s best DJ’s have travelled in order to create an astonishing performance for the audience. When these DJ’s come and play their music, they take shifts, and each DJ plays around 1 to 2 hours and then they switch.

This event is so large, that it has been separated into different areas. Those areas are: Main Stage, Carl Cox & Friends, Café d’Anvers, Blue Flame, Global Underground, Tranceaddict, Untitled, Versuz, We Play House Recordings, Q-Dance, Winterclubbing, B2B, Above and Beyond Group Therapy Stage, Krush Club, Star Warz, Forma T, Kozzmozz, I Love the 90’s, Cafeina, Keta Loco, Dim Mak, M-nus, Kne’Deep, Daily Dupstep, Smash the House, Paul van Dyk, La Rocca, Coincidence Records, Radio Ultra-Modern, Samsung Galaxy Island.

This festival has become so famous that people instead of going to hotels, have started to camp out in tents, on the fields of where the event is taking place. These techno music fans have been camping out in tents for the past 6 years and the Tomorrowland people have finally came up with a name, Dream Ville. Now every year, the Dream Ville adventure becomes more and more important and part of the Tomorrowland experience. The people in charge, do their very best to make the Dream Ville voyage one of the nicest, with beautiful views and adequate services.

Ping Pong

Now, onto sports, I’m going to talk about a very interesting sport called Table Tennis or better known as Ping Pong. This sport was first played in the year 1880 in England, it was played by the wealthy, and they would usually play it after dinner. The English called it “wiff waff”, and they would grab a table and rows of books would be put together in the middle of the table representing the net. They played with other hard books as a racket and would use a golf ball. As the years passed, all the equipment started to develop such as the ball, which changed into a light weighted hollow ball and instead of books a net. Even the name changed from “wiff waff” to “Ping Pong”. The reason for this was because of the noise the ball made when it would be hit by the racket. The Table Tennis Association was founded in Britain in the year 1921 and five years later, London held the first World Championship Ping Pong tournament. I have always found this sport so entertaining and fun since it is like tennis although completely resized. When I was small I knew what Ping Pong was but I never really saw a real live table, but it wasn’t until I was 6 years old that I played for the first time.  This took place in Ricardo Blohm’s house and he also taught me how to play and made me the player I am today. I would play for long periods of time in his house, and in the summer of 2008 my parents bought my brother and I a Ping Pong table. I have paid my dues by practicing and today very few people can beat me. In the Ping Pong tournament at school (total of 32 participants) I reached the semi-final and lost 11-9 against an 11^th grader, called Victor Gomez whom I had beaten before. I probably just had a bad day.

 

GoPro Sports Camera

In this blog post I will be switching gears, from television series and movies, to cool gadgets. In 2004, a new, very useful, creative and fun gadget was sold in stores; it was the GoPro sports camera. In 2002, a man named Nick Woodman was on a surfing trip with some friends in Australia. He would take some amazing photos of his friends surfing from the shore of the beach. However, he realized that he was not getting good angles and that the pictures were too far away. That is when he came up with the idea of the GoPro camera, a small waterproof 5 ounce sports camera. At first, this camera was originally created to be planted on surfboards, to obtain amazing footage. Later on, people started mounting them on different things. Now people mount the camera on cars, surfboards and mainly helmets.  I would really love to have one of these cameras since I do some sports where I could use the GoPro, such as biking with my father or playing airsoft with my friends. It would be really cool and interesting to see on video what I was actually seeing with my own eyes. The price of these cameras range from $180 to $300, because there are different types of cameras that you can buy and those are: HD Helmet HERO (being the most expensive), HD Motorsports HERO, HD Surf HERO, HD Naked HERO and the HD HERO (being the least expensive). However, you can buy additional mounts for your specific sports so that you can have a better outcome of the video. To sum things up, the GoPro sports camera was an extraordinary invention which allows us to have views/angles of certain sports scenes that we would not normally be able to appreciate.

Two and a Half Men!

Although in my introduction I stated that I only watched HBO, I forgot to mention that I also love Warner Channel. The reason being is because they pass my favorite TV shows, which are Friends and Two and a Half Men. Obviously, the Friends episodes are all reruns from the years 1994 to 2004. Now all I watch are the Two and a Half Men seasons, over and over again. This TV show first appeared on air on September 22, 2003. This hilarious TV series has been nominated and recognized as the best TV series in the past decade by many companies and newspapers such as The New York Times. The majority of those who read this blog post will most probably be familiar with this TV show. However, for those who aren’t Two and a Half Men stars: Charlie Harper (Charlie Sheen), Allan Harper (Jon Cryer) and Jake Harper (Angus T. Jones). Charlie, a successful “jingle” advertisement creator, lives with his brother Alan (a not too successful chiropractor) in Charlie’s Malibu beach house.  On the weekends, Allan’s teenage son Jake stays over. Another important character who makes me laugh a lot is house maid Berta (Conchata Ferrell). Allan is divorced from his wife Judith Harper-Melnick(Marin Hinkle) and is thrown out of his house. So, Allan begged his brother Charlie if he could stay in his house until he earns enough money to buy his own house.  Allan received part custody of his son so he can keep him on the weekends only. This very successful storyline has been going on for 8 seasons. Unfortunately, due to Charlie Sheen’s drug use and heavy drinking; he has been kicked off the set and replaced by Ashton Kutcher who plays a recently divorced billionaire by the name of Walden Schmidt. Ashton Kutcher premiered the ninth season just recently and will hopefully be able to maintain the success of this great TV show.

A New Beginning

I have rarely ever blogged before; if I’ m correct, this is my second time. I don’t really like to blog because there are so many critics out there. Hopefully, I will try my hardest on this blog so all the “haters” find my blog interesting.
 
I’m a 9^th grade male, in my first year of high school in an international school in Venezuela. Physically, for a 9^th grade male, I am “healthy” according to a specialized website on weight and height, but compared to all my classmates, I am slightly smaller than they are. My favorite pastime or hobby is playing sports, and my favorites are soccer, baseball and tennis; to be honest I am pretty good at these sports. Another of my great interests is playing video games and watching TV. When I play video games I normally play games that fall under the category of guns. When I’m watching TV, I only watch HBO. I don’t watch any other channel on the TV, the reason being that I love to watch movies. Switching subjects, another detail that you may want to know about me is that family comes first and then everything else. I am also very passionate about hanging out with my friends because the majority of them I have known since I was 3 years old.

 I personally do not know what I will be writing in this blog but I assume that the majority of my entries will be about the book I am reading right now which is called The Lord of the Flies. I also assume that I will continue writing about my interests such as the one I mentioned above.