This Week on Webkinz.com

Yes, I know I skipped last week. That's because I was busy preparing for a craft show last Saturday that I was involved in so I didn't get a chance to log in at all. I managed to get a few hours of checking out the site only on Monday (Martin Luther King Day). I did the daily Calendar Quiz only to find out that, for some weird reason, the site had me as not doing any of this month's quizzes, even though I had done some of them before. (The only thing I can figure out is that it must've been some server glitch.) So I ended up re-doing the quizzes for this month up until Monday.

I went back to the employment agency and did the burger job again. It's cool that I got a raise for that job so I'm able to bring home more Kinz Cash these days. I played a couple of arcade games. I did some shopping and I purchased a few yard chairs for the backyard.

The only new thing I really did was check out the Kinzville Academy. I was starting to get bored with doing the quizzes, arcade games, and jobs so I thought it would be something interesting. Basically you pick a pet then select a course for your pet to finish. You can try any course for free but you won't get credit and you're only entitled to three free tries total on the classes. When it comes time for paying for classes, I could take the class myself for 50 Kinz Cash or hire a tutor to take the class for me for 250 Kinz Cash. I was a cheapskate so I selected the lower cost option.

I had to select which pet could go to class so I picked Magic since she's technically older by a few weeks. I was limited to taking three classes for credit per day. On top of that, I had to do the actual required tasks but my pet got the credit. At times I felt like I was playing a glorified arcade game and there were times when I felt that this was the equivalent of having my mother doing all of my school projects for me during elementary, middle, and high school.

First, I enrolled Magic in a Fashion class where I had to memorize what outfits a poodle model was wearing while she was walking down the runway. I did pretty well on that.

Then I enrolled Magic in a Language class where I had to solve a series of word puzzles. I did pretty well at that as well.

For the third class I picked Weight Lifting because I thought that Magic should learn how to be healthy. I had to "lift" weights with a mouse while making sure that it stayed within a certain set of lines (which you can see in the picture above the "Lift" button). After a false start, I learned it quick and I also got Magic to pass that class.

Here is Magic's report card at the end of the day. It's nice to see that she did great on her first day. But, on the other hand, I have to wonder what's the purpose of giving my pet an education. Will it encourage my pet to be more independent-minded? Will I get free virtual goodies for completing a certain level of coursework? Will I have to enroll my other pet (Floyd) as well in order to have a well-educated household or could I get by with having Magic tell Floyd what she's leared at school? I'm going to have to read up more on the Kinzville Academy before I venture further because I really don't want to be throwing my hard-earned Kinz Cash at something that's not going to be a real long-term benefit for my pets.

Monday was the only day that I was on Webkinz.com because, that very day, I developed a scratchy throat that has developed into a full-fledged head and chest cold. At one point I completely lost my voice. I've been feeling extremely tired and I just didn't feel like having anything to do with Webkinz. Right now I go through periods where I cough like mad for several minutes. This coughing has started to affect my sleep and I hope this all ends for me soon.

This Week on Webkinz.com

First of all, I'd like to wish everyone reading this a belated Happy New Year. It took so long for the laptop to get out of the repair shop so I haven't been able to get on Webkinz.com since my trip to New York City last month, when I borrowed my in-laws' computer. (Yes, there was that time on Christmas Day when I made an attempt to log on from my dial-up account at home but it turned out to be an exercise in futility.) So I basically have a lot of catching-up to do since I added a lot to my home but I wasn't able to get screenshots until now (mainly because my in-laws' computer had no free USB ports so I couldn't plug in a memory stick to transfer any screenshots).

I finally got the computer back on Monday. The first thing I did was go to a local place with Wi-Fi and I was able to check out what I missed on Webkinz.com along with taking screenshots. The big hassle with getting on that site is that I encountered the same problems that I did when I was logged into the site during my New York City trip. I would frequently get logged out due to a system overload. For the first several minutes, I kept on encountering this message:

I ended up checking out various videos on YouTube then trying the site again. Just when I was about to give up after being logged out again, I gave it one more try and I was able to say on the site for an hour. The first thing I did was to figure out what Santa Kinz had left my pet Unicorn, Magic on Christmas Day. The only thing I found was this Christmas letter in my inbox (which is the first message I've ever gotten through Webkinz.com since I joined that site).

Since the Christmas season was officially over as of last Sunday (January 6, which is variously known as Little Christmas, Twelth Night, Three King's Day, and Easter Orthodox Christmas), I decided that it was time to put away all the Christmas related stuff. However, I did take a final look at both Magic's green Santa hat and the Christmas tree.

What was really cool about the tree was the fact that it lit up whenever you clicked on it.

On top of that, Magic's birthday is January 3. I missed out on visiting on the actual day itself because the laptop was still in the repair shop. However, Webkinz.com remembered Magic's special day because I got this message in my inbox.

Sure enough, there was a slice of cake in the dock. I fed it to Magic and she seemed to like it.

Monday was also the day that I finally registered my new Lil' Kinz Pig, which I purchased about three weeks ago but I wasn't able to register until now. I had to pick a name and gender. Since I chose Magic to be a girl, I decided to even things out and register my pig as a boy. In additon, I had named Magic after Bruce Springsteen's latest CD Magic (which my husband keeps on playing in his car CD player) so I decided to give a rock-themed name to my pig as well.

Yes, I named a pig after Pink Floyd because, well, pigs and Pink Floyd always seemed to go together. As I read Floyd's biography, I noticed something. He says that his best friend is a black Lab. In Magic's biography, she said that her best friend is a yellow Lab. I guess those two have one thing in common--they both love Labs.

I was then directed to my home where a small addition had already been built on to my home. Floyd has his own bedroom. I also got this welcome screen.

I opened Floyd's present and I got these things:

The first thing I did was to feed the mud burger to Floyd, which he ate it up. The second thing I did was to decorate his new bedroom. I purchased wallpaper and flooring that I thought would be suitable to a pig and I also purchased a bed that matched the room. Floyd seemed to appreciate it.

Of the three welcome presents that Floyd got, the coolest is the Fortune Telling Pig Statue. Whenever I got Floyd to come near that statue, it would tell fortunes, which are pretty cute.

The Fortune Telling Pig Statue works for other Webkinz pets as well. Or, at least, it worked when Magic went near it.

I got Magic and Floyd together in the same room and I tried to get them to interact with each other. I thought that it would be like Furby where if you got two or more Furbys in the same room to recognize each other, they would talk to each other for a few minutes. Well, it didn't quite work with Webkinz. Each pet seemed to be off in his/her own world mentally and they didn't seem to notice each other. In fact, they were heavily dependent on me telling them what to do via the top menu buttons. It's too bad in a way because I think it would be pretty interesting to see the Webkinz interact with each other for a few minutes.

A few days after I registered Floyd on Webkinz.com, I found this news items on Webkinz Insider about how they found out that the Lil' Kinz Pig will be the March Pet of the Month. Argh, if I had known that, I would've hold off on registering Floyd on the site until then. I hope I can still get something from Webkinz.com for owning a Lil' Kinz Pig during its upcoming reign as the Pet of the Month.

The only other major activity I did this week was answering all the back Daily Trivia Quizzes. I'm now as far back as August, 2006 and I hope to eventually finish all the back days. While answering trivia questions can get tedious after a while, I can rack up a lot of Kinz Cash so I can financially support Magic and Floyd. I attempted a job at the Employement Office but when I clicked on a job, the Webkinz.com site froze so I never reached that job. (I think I closed that browser window and logged in again but I didn't attempt another job.)

I'm going to end this entry with a tour of the expanded home. Here is Magic's bedroom, complete with a new bedside lamp.

Here is Floyd's bedroom with a cute bedside lamp added. (It's shaped like a cow jumping over a moon and it lights up when you click on it.)

Here's the bathroom with a lunar-themed design. It includes a bathtub, sink, and toilet.

Here's Magic sitting on the toilet.

Here's the main room of the house, which is a combination living room, den, dining room, playroom, and kitchen. I intend this to be the largest room of the house and it will be a common area where both of my pets can hang out with each other.

The large room includes a skateboard where the pets can glide around from one side to the other.

The room also includes a treadmill where a pet can get a workout and increase his/her health meter.

And, last but not least, here is the yard.

Not only does it include a vegetable garden but there is also a pool that a pet can use to either cool off or get some exercise.

The yard also includes a trampoline for a pet to jump up and down on.

Now that I got the laptop back, I hope to be able to spend some more time on Webkinz.com. However, it's going to be quality time rather than quantity time because I have a lot of other things going on in my life at the moment and I really can't visit that site every single day. I know my pets would prefer that I spend lots of time with them (I notice that Magic cops an attitude by saying stuff like "Where were you?" if I log into the site after spending too much time away) but I'm not some small child with tons of time on my hands. I have responsibilities that take precedence over Webkinz.com.