Wednesday, October 15, 2008

First Quarter Reading Book Review

Sleeper Code by Tom Sniegoski. Razor Bill, 2006 Genre: Science-Fiction
In the book, Sleeper Code, the main character Tom Lovett is a sixteen year old boy who suffers from Quentin’s narcolepsy. Quentin’s narcolepsy is a rare case of narcolepsy that makes you fall asleep for days at a time at random. He is home schooled because his parents are real strict with everything about him. He didn’t have any friends, except his neighbor’s niece, Madison, who was visiting for the summer. Tom really liked her. They talked spent a lot of time talking to each other and then Tom invited her over for dinner. After dinner, Tom had a narcolepsy attack. Later that night, Madison looked out her window and saw Tom in a black suit getting into a black van. So, she went to Tom’s house and knocked on their door. Tom’s Dad opened the door asking her what she wanted. She asked about what she saw. Tom’s dad smiled and said that Tom was asleep. She could tell he was lying but walked away. Tom woke up in someone’s motel room and his head hurt him. There was a man with a gun pointed at him. The man told him that Tom was apart of the Janus project. The project was taking kids who suffered from Quentin’s narcolepsy and implanting a chip in their head which gave them an alter ego, an assassin of an ego. These kids were supposed to be the perfect killer, a weapon. He said that Tom was sent here to kill him. Tom then finds out that his life is a lie and that even his parents are agents assigned to make sure he knows nothing. He and Madison try to run from the evil spies that are trying to track him down. This is the fight of Tom’s life.

“Sleeper code is Tom Sniegoski’s best, thrilling, rollercoaster of a book.”
- A Fan

Sleeper Code is a fantasy story that has more of the narrator speaking than dialog. The moral of the story is to be careful who you trust. Tom finds out that his parents are really not his parents after all. Tom is a regular kid in the ways that he likes girls, does school work, even though he’s home schooled, and lives in a regular home. Then he finds out something that changes everything.

“Brandon Kavanagh stepped over the body of the dead Pandora Group operative on his way out of his office.” (273).

I am a fan of Tom Sniegoski novel Sleeper Code. His book was very interesting and exciting. I never wanted to put the book down. The suspense that the author created made my eyes glue to each page. I had a great time reading it.

Monday, October 6, 2008

How much does Value cost?

People work everyday, for one sole reason, to get paid. People work so hard so at the end of the day so they have a little “spending money”. Many people waste the hard worked money on useless things that they don’t need. They are obsessed in showing off these expensive, but useless objects. From Hummers to golden toilet seats, 300inch plasma screens to golden teeth. People don’t understand value.

Wait for it to hit seven o’clock… wait for it…wait for it…………..GO! I get up, run down the stairs to see the most beautiful thing in the world, a lighten tree with multiple wrapped boxes underneath its pedestal. If you haven’t figured it out, it is Christmas morning at my house on a snowy December 25th morning. With a half eaten cookie and a hot co-co mug empty, I run to get my parent conscious. As I make the sprint to their room, I overheard them groveling to “it’s not 7 o’clock”. Wake up, wake up! It is time to open presents! They slump out of bead awkwardly and drag themselves to the living room where the spectacle was about to appear.

As I wait for my parents to make the usual cup of Joe, I empty out my stocking at the same time as my little brother Riley. We yell out the things we got. Gum, Yo-yo, paddle ball, candy cane, and as many things that could fit is that oversized sock. But that was just the beginning. As my parents take a seat, my mother fills her obsession of video-taping everything that seems important in my childhood. Riley and I grab a present one by one, and open it up, yell what it is, then to fill my mother’s needs we smile and hold up each gift to the camera. My father laughs at what my mother makes us do for the camera, still half asleep himself. We open another and another, picking one, and waiting for my mom to approve, she always want us to open the best for last. As the number of presents slims by the millisecond, we lay our eyes on the mother load. We look as my mother shakes her head in approval, and we count down, 3, 2, 1, GO! We tear every last millimeter from the box. We then jump up and down in excitement. As we then sit to play with each and every gift. It’s priceless.

As the logo lights up and I see the bright white screen, the blue selection bar scrolls away. I select the playlist, picking the song that fits the mood. Crank up the volume, it’s the best thing in the world. I love my iPod. I have a 5th generation iPod video. I snarl when I people show off their new iPods. I like mine even though it’s not the newest. I got my iPod for Christmas of 2006. It was an amazing surprise. I have all of my favorite songs on it. I have podcasts which I love because they’re free! Because I have an iPod video, I can play TV shows and movies and of course video podcasts! I bring it with me everywhere, except for school (I follow school rules, don’t worry). I listen to it when I’m bored, when I feel a craving for music, or when I’m going out. It’s like having a personal jukebox. I have all my media at the touch of my finger. I have freedom to control my personal sound wave. An iPod is a music evolution. Apple has revolutionized the way we listen to music. Forget the CD players and welcome to the 21st century of the iPod.

I enjoy both very much. They are very different with similarities, the oxymoron of my life. While I would never want to give up my Christmas morning, my iPod is my mental escape to my music. There is an overlay; I got my iPod on Christmas morning. It would be tough to give up one or the other. They are the things in my life that are important to me and that are what makes me happy. So in a world where the word “priceless” is thrown around so much, I can say that my two things are priceless to me.