I must admit that part of why I’m kicking this feed is to boost my facerank.

Extras by Scott Westerfeld is the fourth book of the Uglies/Pretties/Specials trilogy (yes, very Hitchhiker’s Guide in that regard). This is one of those books, though, that I waited for the release date like it was a summer blockbuster. I can tell you that I was more satisfied with the book than Transformers/Die Hard 4, but in both cases the hot product suffers from mega-expectations.

The book takes place after the events of the first three books (makes sense) but follows a different character, Aya, on a different continent. Each book in the series tackles a key social issue that teens face. Issues like betraying your friends to be pretty, parent-child expectations, and an environmentally insatiable lifestyle are all laid out in an easy to understand format alongside hoverboard fight scenes and hot air balloon bungeeing.

In Extras, Aya’s society has money. No longer can you get your clothing for free from the wall. The governing board, however, does not want anyone to starve like in the Rusties days, so they set up a system where you can requisition the cooler items based on one of two factors: merit and facerank.

Merits are earned by doctors, teachers, (even lawyers), and anyone who serves the greater community. This takes effort. You have to do homework/babysit kids and that takes time. Facerank, on the other hand, can happen overnight. Think about some of those celebrities who fight custody battles on the E! network or hide their baby girl for months only to end up making her a BabyGAP model.

Aya is ranked 400,000+ in her society (that’s bad). Her brother Hiro is approaching 1,000 (that’s good). Hiro is an experienced kicker (blogger) and Aya wants to gain fame like her older brother. She finds the Sly Girls, a group of teens who want to avoid public scrutiny to enjoy their favorite hobby: surfing on top of 300 mph maglev trains.

Aya has other plans. She’s going to kick a feed so big that everyone will know her name. What she doesn’t realize is that by following danger some of it is going to follow her. “What would you do for fame?”-type thing.

As I’ve talked with students and staff (and after reading it myself), here’s what I’ve heard:

The Nervous-making:

1. Tally’s not a main character. Students grow to associate with her and just like in the Shadow Children series, it’s tough to build new connections.
2. It’s more sci-fi. Things get strange as Aya follows the Sly Girls on an Earth-changing discovery.
3. If you don’t know Japanese culture, some of the jokes/references are lost. Some of the kids get manga-eyes surges, soccer no longer exists – only giant robot suits that fire foam darts

The Kick:

1. There’s still lots of action, and not all of it revolves around crash bracelets (a complaint I had about Pretties and Specials).
2. Tally does show up, and she’s not happy.
3. If you are familiar with the annoying side of myspace and YouTube (people who vlog what their cats ate, users who spam for friends), your annoyances are vindicated.

Corona del Sol is in the top-running for a $25,000 prom.
Click her to register.
Not spam; it’s actually Booyor getting the word out.

I’m sure people already read Penny Arcade, but this strip makes me laugh on so many levels. First off, it echoes one of my own (occasional) tendencies when it comes to RPGs. I know people always want to play the cool, legendary character- Luke Skywalker or Corran Horn. But they’re supposed to be special, exceptions to the norm. It always drives me crazy when the majority of a group are “exceptions”- sure, it’s cool to be a Jedi in a galaxy where only a handful of Jedi exist, but only a handful of Jedi exist. Why are four of them hanging out in a freighter on the Outer Rim for no reason, as many RPG groups seem to be?

As a corollary to this, so many players seem to ignore guys like Han Solo or Wedge Antilles- regular guys who are really good at what they do through innate skill, training, and practice, who are famous for doing what needed to be done at the right moment. Even more ignored is the guy who’s flying the Y-Wing that survived the attack on the first Death Star. I want to know about that guy. That guy might have an interesting story, and I want to explore it. That’s why most MMORPGs are not for me. Most MMORPGs don’t let you play that guy.

The perfect example is the Lord of the Rings MMORPG. I would, under the right circumstances, play it. What circumstances, you ask? Excellent question, that just allows me to continue the paragraph. Thank you. I would want to play a Hobbit. I don’t want to spend time off adventuring or what-have-you, killing monsters or hunting treasure. No, I want to advance in levels based solely off my horticultural prowess, I want to find items like Rohirrim Trowel of Excellence, I want to be the finest gardener that the Shire has ever seen. After that, perhaps I’ll expand into cooking. Most online RPGs won’t let me do that, though, which is why I don’t bother with them.

On the other hand, the comic also makes me laugh, because it reminds me of the Star Wars RPG my freshman year of college. My character had built up quite a rivalry with Brian’s character, and then my character’s ego was crushed when Brian was the only party member who could translate something for me. Learning languages is important!

No comment.

Japanese Navy Commercial Mecha Navy.

For my dad, but anyone’s open to comment.

4 iMacs with:

2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM – 2x1GB

250GB Serial ATA Drive

SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)

Apple Mighty Mouse

Apple Keyboard (English) + Mac OS X

iWork ’08 preinstalled

AppleCare Protection Plan for iMac – Auto-enroll

Accessory kit

2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB memory

20-inch glossy widescreen LCD

AirPort Extreme

for
($1597×4)= $6388 ($6072 without Pages and Keynote (iWork) pre-installed)

Add on Microsoft Office for Mac for ($399×4)=$1596

4 SanDisk 2GB flash drives ($23.50×4) = $94

3 years with DreamHost with 10 GB online storage space and a bunch more stuff
for
$286.20 (total 3-year cost)

Project cost (With Office, iWork, SanDisks, online hosting, Apple Service Plan): $8364.20