Wednesday, October 17, 2007

speaking of cars


Speaking of cars that I like to identify, this is a picture of the car of one of my heroes - Jim Rockford from the Rockford Files. Dad used to watch this on tv when he was a boy and now I like to watch it. This is a 1974 Pontiac Firebird. Dad says it is American rubbish but I think it looks cool.
I used to have a picture of a Chrysler charger hanging on my wall, but dad got me a Firebird instead and now I have this one hanging on my bedroom wall.
Christopher

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Hudson Hornet

You probably heard this story from dad's blog, but its good to tell it in my own words.
The other day we were coming back from Toowoomba. We were driving along and I was playing one of my favourite games - telling brands of cars.
A few cars ahead of us, I spotted this old grey car. I though for a moment and said to dad, "That's a Hudson Hornet." Dad said, "I don't think there's many Hudsons in Australia." He thought it was a Humber.
We had to overtake it because it was probably at maximum speed (about 80km/h). While we were overtaking, Catherine and I spotted the badge and you can probably guess what it said. If you can't guess, it was a HUDSON HORNET.
Dad was sitting next to me in the back seat and I got a loving whack because I was laughing at dad.
After we got home, my Pa sent me an email about Hudsons and how they were built in Toowoomba from kits. They were broken down and packed in a wooden crate like a shipping container. Pa used to sell them.
My other grandfather didn't even know Hudsons existed.
Christopher

new book


This is the latest book I have written for school and I had to base it on medieval times. The original book has a medieval border around each page and celtic font. Unfortunately we could not do that for this blog post, but we have put in a picture of the front cover as you can see above.
I hope you like it,
Christopher



The Boy and the Sword

In a little cottage in Holland a 14 year old boy was washing the dishes with his 12 year old sister. The boy’s name was Max and his sister’s name was Grace.
Max and Grace were getting knighted the next day. Max knew from his history class that knights came back in 2020. It was now 2090 and knights were pretty popular.
Max and Grace knew that by becoming knights they had to fight the lord of evil. Many people tried to fight the lord of evil and were unsuccessful. But Max and his sister had a different plan. They read many books about medieval times and knew that the sword, Excalibur would somehow defeat the great lord of evil.
Max read in Technology magazine that scientists had just developed a time machine. It couldn’t go forward but it could travel back in time.
The trouble was the time machine was in China. Max knew a friend in China and he decided to telering. A telering looks like a pencil with one button that said “ring”. He pressed it once and thought of the number. He held it up to his ear and about 2 seconds later he was talking to his friend.
Max explained his problem and his friend promised to send the time machine over in his teleporter.
Next day, after the knighting and the party, Max was playing on a computer game when suddenly a strange looking machine turned up in the middle of his bedroom.
It had about 100 knobs and buttons and a little circle was strapped to the machine. Max untied it and placed it on the floor. A little screen popped up on the circle which said “instructions”. Max read the instructions and told his sister, who came over. Max told her what was going to happen. They stepped into what looked like a telephone booth. Max said, “Don’t move a muscle for five seconds.”
It seemed like five minutes, but finally they were in the middle of a desert. They stepped out of the time machine booth. Grace said she could see a castle on the horizon. Max thought that might be King Arthur’s castle. They decided to walk to the castle which took them a couple of hours.
Finally they got there, but the problem was there were guards all around the castle and Max and Grace were wearing blow-up jackets and jeans. Max boldly walked up to one of the knights and said, “Can we please visit King Arthur?”
The knight said, “First I must know your name.”
Max told the knight his name and he tried to copy the knight’s accent.
The knight said slowly, “You may visit King Arthur on one condition. You must tell us what that shirt is made of.”
Max thought for a minute and then he said, “It’s made out of cotton and it’s got magic powers.”
The knight said, “Can you show me one power?”
Max pressed a hidden button and the shirt which was wet with sweat dried him with a humming noise.
The knight was amazed and said, “If I take you to King Arthur will you give this amazing shirt as a gift to him?”
Max said, “But I have a more exciting gift for the King.”
The knight said, “Then could I have your magic shirt?”
Max thought for a minute, then he said “No. For your own safety. Everybody will want one when they see what it can do and you could get killed.”
The knight seemed to understand this and led Max and Grace up what seemed like a hundred steps to a big wooden door. He knocked. The door opened with a creak and the three people stepped in.
The room had huge walls and a big carpet laid out across the floor.
In front of Max and Grace there was a throne on which sat a handsome young king who they assumed was Arthur.
They walked up and knelt before him and Max said, “I present you with this gift.” It was his laser pocket knife. King Arthur said, “What is that?”
Max showed him what it could do and then said, “It’s a magical knife from a far away country.” King Arthur happily took the knife off Max and said, “Thank you stranger. I have never been given such a wonderful gift. Let me grant you one wish. Ask me for anything you want.”
Grace and Max said together, “Excalibur!”
The King thought for a moment, and asked “Why do you want my sword?”
Max and Grace told him the whole story and promised to bring the sword back when they had killed the great lord of evil. Max and Grace went back to the time machine and returned to their bedroom.
The next morning Max went down to breakfast and was surprised that his sister wasn’t there. He decided to go on his computer and try to connect with Grace’s tracking device. It took a little while, but finally Max pinpointed the spot where she was being held. Max didn’t know who had kidnapped her, but just in case, he would bring Excalibur.
The problem was she was in Australia, but in a couple of hours Max arrived there on his telebike.
To his surprise he ended up somewhere underground in a cave. He could hear his sister but he couldn’t see her so he had to put his infrared goggles on. He found her and untied her. While he was untying her, he heard a great boom up above. In a minute, he got out of the cave and turned around just in time to see the great lord of evil standing behind him.
He got Excalibur out and threw it at the great lord. Excalibur flew up and around the great lord. It was a few minutes until Max and Grace could see Excalibur’s hilt sticking out of the great lord’s chest in a great black cloud. The lord of evil vanished and in his place stood about 100 people who had come back to life.
Excalibur fell to the floor with a clang. Unfortunately it was bent, but Max soon straightened it out and got back to the medieval times and King Arthur was very glad to see his sword was in good shape.
Max and Grace got back safely and had a big party with all the world because the lord of evil was finally history.