Good-Bye!

I'm writing this for the very few of you who are still logging into this blog on a regular basis in the hopes that I would update it. I know it's been over a year since I wrote my last entry. One of the reasons why I've gotten around to writing this new entry is because I was suffering from a long-lasting cold at the time when I wrote my last entry and I didn't want to leave the impression that the reason why I haven't updated this blog in a long time is because my cold was really some serious disease that killed me.

I also wanted to provide some closure to this blog since I'm no longer interested in Webkinz and I have since moved on in my life to other things that have nothing to do with Webkinz or virtual worlds.

Here is what I've been up to since last year. I did suffer from health problems (which was unrelated to the lingering cold that I suffered from last February) and last November I underwent surgery to correct those problems. It has been over six months since my surgery and I now feel much better than before.

As for this blog, I really couldn't keep up with updating it. Besides, once I reached a certain point in my gameplaying things didn't really change quite as much as in the first few weeks I logged on to the Webkinz.com site. At first I decided that I would update the blog only if major changes happened to my virtual pets. But I ended up falling out of the habit of updating it entirely.

As for Webkinz.com, I continued to log on into it for another month or so after my last entry but I eventually grew tired of it so I stopped. My membership in Webkinz.com expired back in January. I could've extended it by an extra year by purchasing another Webkinz stuffed animal but I decided not to so I let it lapse. Granted I was still in recovery from my surgery at the time but even if I was in perfect health I still would not have purchased another Webkinz just to keep my membership in Webkinz.com active.

Basically I grew tired of Webkinz.com. If you wanted to do anything for your pet, you had to procure Kinz Cash. Feeding a pet and keeping it healthy and happy required Kinz Cash to purchase the food and other necessary products. Expanding the Webkinz's home beyond the default room and bed that each pet gets required Kinz Cash. Adding an outside yard required Kinz Cash. (That's right, a Webkinz virtual pet was stuck indoors unless you forked over some Kinz Cash to buy a yard.) Purchasing toys and other things (such as a swimming pool) that had the potential to improve the pet's quality of life required Kinz Cash. Even educating a pet required Kinz Cash for tuition.

I spent the bulk of my time on Webkinz.com procuring Kinz Cash. I would get a job through the Employment Agency, play various arcade games, spin the Wheel of Wow, visit the Wishing Well, and play Wacky's Bingoz in an effort to earn Kinz Cash. All of these efforts earned low wages. The most amount of Kinz Cash I ever earned was the time that I purchased two packs of Webkinz Trading Cards and I entered the codes of some of the codes and I earned hundreds of Kinz Cash at once. I also earned more Kinz Cash when I purchased my Webkinz (Floyd the Pig). But I really hated the idea that in order to earn lots of Kinz Cash I had to go to a store to purchase a Webkinz product that I really didn't need (such as a Webkinz mouse pad or a pack of trading cards) in the hopes of being able to score lots of Kinz Cash.

After a while I realized that Webkinz.com was just like real life in that adults have to find ways of earning money in order to survive. From an adult's perspective, it was too much like real life and I grew tired of it. From a child's perspective, it's sort of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it's good to teach children that if they want anything out of life, they have to work to earn money and save that money in order to afford to but it. But, on the other hand, I'm not sure if it's good to teach children that earning money in order to be good consumers is the only thing in life. I mean there is more to life than just the continuous cycle of working to earn money in order buy stuff which then makes you broke so you have to repeat the cycle. (For example, there is less of an emphasis on making and spending time with friends on Webkinz.com than earning Kinz Cash to buy stuff for your pets.)

The best part of Webkinz.com was the arcade games. Not only did I earn Kinz Cash for playing them but I did have fun playing them for a while. But, after a while, I even lost interest in playing arcade games, especially since I can play arcade-style games without having to log into Webkinz.com. (For example, I can go to iTunes and purchase arcade games for my iPod Touch. Or I can play my collection of classic arcade games--with titles like "Namco Museum--from the 1970s and 1980s on my Sony Playstation 2. Or I can play games on my Nintendo DS.)

I attempted to educate my pets in the Kinzville Academy but not only did I have to cough up the tuition but I had to do all the work for each class. And that was just for one pet. For my second pet I had to sign up for the same classes and do the same work. It got very repetitive. And I never understood why I needed to educate my pets in the first place. I finished a couple of classes for my two pets and neither one of them behaved differently from before.

I also felt frustrated with the virtual world at Webkinz.com. For example, there was this Magical Charms Forest that was locked to members unless you purchase at least 1 Webkinz charm. Once you gained access you got more rewards for your pets when you purchased more Webkinz charms. The big problem is that none of the stores in my area ever carried the Webkinz charms. They carried Webkinz lip balms, Webkinz mousepads, Webkinz bookmarks, and Webkinz clothes for the large Webkinz stuffed animals but not Webkinz charms.

The closest I ever got to being able to access the Magical Charms Forest was the one time that one of the local stores got a shipment of Webkinz charm bracelets. Of course it made sense for Webkinz to make charm bracelets so you would have a place to put your Webkinz charms. But that store didn't have the Webkinz charms--just the Webkinz charm bracelets. I purchased the bracelet thinking that I would gain access to the Magical Charms Forest.

Except when I got home and entered the code, I didn't gain access to the Magical Charms Forest. Instead I got this piece of furniture where I could store my virtual charms. I placed the furniture in the main room of my pets' home but I never found any Webkinz charms so it was moot. At one point I even searched some of the authorized Webkinz stores in New York City while I was on a trip to visit relatives and the ones I visited didn't have the charms in stock. They had everything else marked "Webkinz" but the charms.

I think the fact that I was unable to find any store that sold Webkinz charms so I could access the Magical Charms Forest online was another reason why I lost interest in Webkinz.com.

I never got a chance to visit the Magical Charms Forest so it's useless to speculate whether I would've stayed longer as a member of Webkinz.com if I had gained access to it or if it would've been another part of Webkinz.com that I would've grown bored with quickly.

The biggest frustration was that I purchased a second pet only because I thought it would be cool to see my two pets interact together--just like the characters in The Sims did if you ordered them to do so with a few keystrokes. (The Sims was a videogame that I played with for a while a few years back but I quickly grew bored with it and haven't touched it since.) But Magic the Unicorn and Floyd the Pig never interacted together--even if they were in the same room facing each other. They both only cared to interact with me and they ignored each other even if they stood face to face with each other.

Then there were the frequent bugs on Webkinz.com that would sometimes log you off while you're in the middle of doing something or the times when you tried to log on but the screen would just freeze before you successfully logged on or it would crash your browser.

So I basically stopped logging into Webkinz.com after last March and I never looked back. I don't regret letting my membership laspe. To be honest, I don't think Webkinz is quite as big a deal as it once was, especially since the economy started tanking last fall. In recent months I've seen more stores having clearance sales on Webkinz along the lines of "Buy 2 for $25!" or "Buy 1 Get 1 Free!"

Besides, there have been other companies that have copied the Webkinz concept. Ty, the manufacturer of Beanie Babies, have come out with Beanie Babies 2.0 where the purchaser can join a special virtual world with these new and improved Beanie Babies. Ty has also come out with a line of female bean bag dolls called Ty Girls that have their own virtual world made just for girls. Build-A-Bear Workshop also has a virtual world that one can join with a purchase of any stuffed animal from that chain.

Then there's Disney with its Disney Fairies.com. This one is unique in that membership is free (that's right, you don't even need to purchase any real life products to become a member) and you even get to create three virtual fairies with this free membership. If you want to create more fairies, then you have to pay a fee.

But there's a catch. Even if you choose to stick with the maximum free three fairies, you can purchase stuff for your fairies only if you go shopping in the real world and buy specially-marked Disney products that contain codes that you can enter so your fairies can get a nice gift from you.

Now you know why I haven't been in a big rush to get a free account with Disney Fairies.com.

I know there are other virtual worlds geared more towards adults like Second Life and Wizard of Warcraft. But I've been leery about trying either one of them because I figured that I would grow tired of those worlds just like I grew tired of Webkinz.com. Or I would become totally addicted to the point where other things in my life would suffer (like doing housecleaning on a regular basis).

It doesn't help that I was unnerved by a film that I saw at a local film festival last fall called Second Skin. It was a documentary that focused on people who became totally hooked on World of Warcraft and it was scary. There were relationships and marriages that broke up over that game and people who got fired from a job because their obsession with the game interferred with their on-the-job performance. There was even a mother who tearfully talked about her son who took his life over a similar game called EverQuest. There were independent programmers who made money by doing things (like searching through a virtual world finding virtual cash or weapons for a player) or making things (like a special weapon) on behalf of World of Warcraft players in that virtual world. In other words, these players paid others people for virtual services or virtual products that were only used in that virtual world. The players spent a lot of money on Wizard of Warcraft and, in some cases, it led to financial problems.

I was grossed out by the scene when some guys had just purchased an add-on software for World of Warcraft and they were so engrossed in it that they chose to pee into empty bottles rather than take a short break to make a trek to the toilet. They even decided to forgo sleeping because they were too engrossed in that game to go to bed. There was footage of guys sitting in front of computer screens in the middle of the night who were nodding off while they were fighting the urge to go to sleep.

I'm glad that I never got THAT hooked on Webkinz.com. In fact, my time in that virtual world has made me decide that I would rather spend more of my time in the real world in a virtual one.

I still have my two stuffed Webkinz animals lying somewhere around my home. I may eventually donate them to Goodwill but right now I'm too busy doing other things in my life to look for them. I know that one day they will turn up when I least expect it so I'm not too worried about not having seen nor held them in a long time.

It has been over a year since I last logged into Webkinz.com but I don't miss it. I've moved on in my life. I've had my experiment with spending time in a virtual world but I would rather experience real life than spend the bulk of my life in a virtual world.

This marks the last entry in this blog. I'm going to leave it online as a review for anyone else who's thinking about joining Webkinz.com or a similar virtual world. My final verdict on Webkinz.com is this: It was cute, colorful, and fun at first but it became time-consuming and repetitive as time went on--especially when it came to earning Kinz Cash--and it eventually led to my boredom and I ended up quitting.

I'm going to close this entry and this blog by putting up the last few screenshots I ever made of my pets and their home before I lost interest in Webkinz. The yard was taken last February soon after the virtual snow melted and I purchased a new swimming pool. The screenshots of the main room (which was a combination living room, dining room, playroom, and kitchen) were taken last March, just a few weeks before I grew bored with Webkinz.com and stopped playing.

Good-bye!

Day 3 on Webkinz.com

I spent an hour on that site yesterday while sipping a mug of hot chocolate at a local coffeehouse (it was snowing outside) and I learned one major thing--it is so hard to earn Webkinz money. The first thing I did was try the Employment Agency. I had hoped to be able to get that burger assembly job again but I found out that that position was not available. So I picked one where I had to paint virtual fences in certain color scheme. On the surface it seemed easy but the controls were so wonky that I got no fences painted in the limited amount of time that I had to get the job done. I attempted a retry of the job but I wasn't allowed to try again. I attempted to get another job but I discovered one thing about the employment agency--I am only allowed to work a new job every eight hours. Once my job ends, I have to wait eight hours before I can get another one, which is pretty frustrating.

So I attempted to use the arcade games and quiz contests to earn money and I found that, for the most part, the pay is miniscule. There was one arcade game where I only got one Webkinz bill for every 15 points I got in the game and this game tended to be a low-scoring one. The good news is that I can retry an arcade game over and over again to my heart's content. As for the quiz contests, there are some quizzes that I can only participate in once a day.

But I did manage to snag a freebie for Magic. I saw this ad that was promoting the upcoming computer animation re-make of Alvin and the Chipmunks by offering free waffles.

So I clicked on the ad and I got this pop-up screen:

I kind of groaned when I saw that it was an ad for the official website of the movie. I decided to check it out briefly so I opened a new browser window, typed in the URL, and took a look at the front page where I was so unimpressed by what I saw that I closed that window. When I took a look at the "My Stuff" dock, I saw that a plate of waffles had suddenly appeared.

So I fed the waffles to Magic, who seemed very pleased.

I finally did something about the code that came with that An Air of Mystery bookmark that I purchased at the same time as my Little Webkinz Unicorn. I figured out that I had to go to the Code Shop in order to input any codes that I get with any Webkinz product.

Here is what I got after I entered the bookmark code:

So I went back to Magic's room and dragged the Bookmark Bag from the "My Stuff" doc to the room and I found out that I won a book. All I had to do was to choose which book I wanted. I picked "An Air of Mystery" since that was the bookmark I used to unlock that code.

I began to thumb through my new book and I realized that it's basically a storybook. I didn't read it all the way through because I wasn't in the mood to read a virtual book at the moment so I briefly browsed the pages.

I also got around to installing the new bathtub in Magic's room. It seems strange to have a bathtub and a bed in the same room but, then again, this is an unusual virtual world. I also managed to give Magic her first bath, which was really cute.

Today I managed to buy a table and two cute chairs for Magic's room. This is what Magic's room looked like after being online at Webkinz.com for the third day in a row.

Magic's room is now starting to get that nice homey feel to it.

I decided to skip going to Webkinz.com today mainly because my husband took the laptop for his own use and I have dial-up at home, which is way too slow for that site. It's just as well because I can use a break from that site. I briefly stopped by the local mall because I wanted to see if the latest issue of the free alternative weekly The Washington City Paper had arrived at FYE yet (it hadn't) and I saw a display full of Webkinz. I even saw a chihuahua among the pile of Webkinz, which happens to be the Pet of the Month for December. I briefly thought about purchasing that dog to see what would happen if I did register it during its reign as Pet of the Month until I realized one thing: I've never been into chihuahuas at all. They tend to make annoying high-pitched yappy sounds when barking, they are totally scrawny, and they tend to tremble alot. Once December ends, I would be stuck with something that I would have never bothered with purchasing otherwise. So I put the dog back on the pile and walked out of the store.

There was a major snowstorm yesterday which resulted in a winter wonderland. I took a few brief pictures of Magic's real-life counterpart in the snow early this morning.

I also placed a tiny five-inch doll on the unicorn's back.

In case you're wondering about the doll in the photos, this was one that I purchased from a South Korean-based site called The Orient Doll. This particular doll is known as Ji. The doll came nude with the white wig that you can see in the photos. I painted her face, fingernails, and toenails myself and I also added eyelashes. She originally came with navy blue eyes but I didn't like them too much so I purchased a pair of brown eyes from a different site (I forgot which one). I made the dress by taking a Barbie dress pattern and reducing it by 50 percent. I made the fairy wings out of polymer clay then glued them to the back of her dress. I think this doll would look really cool if I could somehow fashion a necklace that I can strap her into and she would turn into funky jewelry but I haven't gotten around to figuring that one out yet. But this doll does look really cute with the unicorn.

Day Two on Webkinz.com

Yesterday I went to another local coffeehouse for high-speed wireless. I had less time than the day before so, while I managed to remember to bring that Webkinz bookmark with me this time, I wasn't able to find where I could input that included code where I could get some more goodies for Magic. So I guess that bookmark will have to wait a little while longer.

I saw on the News screen that the new Webkinz Pet of the Month is a chihuahua. Apparently if you purchase a Webkinz chihuahua during the month of December and register that pet online, you'll have even more Webkinz cash. In addition, I went to the arcade where I saw that a game featuring the chihuahua, "Candy Bash 2", was noted as "Game of the Day". If I play that game, I would earn 25% more cash. I decided to go for it.

It was basically a shooting game where you play a chihuahua shooting tacos at piñatas falling down from the sky. If you hit a piñata, a treat pops out and you have to catch the treat for points. The more points you get, the more Webkinz cash you earn. It was a pretty cute game that got kind of repetitious after a while. But I managed to earn some money.

I also played another round of "Stack'Em Solitaire" for even more Webkinz cash. Once I was done, I did some shopping. I purchased this really cute fantasy wallpaper and flooring for Magic's room because I thought it would be appropriate for a unicorn. When I got to Magic's room, I found that her room already had a new look that was far better than the plain room she had before.

I saw a wrapped gift in the "My Stuff" list and I realized that I had forgotten to open it. So I clicked and slowly dragged the wrapped gift to Magic's room where it popped open and I got this screen:

The only problem was that I had already purchased a bed for Magic. This Magical Meadow Bed looked far nicer than the plain yet colorful bed that I had already purchased. I poked around the shopping mall and I found that I could always put things up for sale so I sold the bed that I purchased yesterday (I got my Webkinz money back, yay!) and replaced it with the Magical Meadow Bed.

I also purchased a bathtub for my pet mainly because the online Webkinz instruction book said that Webkinz love to take baths. I ran out of time before I was able to install the bathtub in Magic's room so that is going to have to wait for another day.

I noticed that the site has ads but they are either ads for Webkinz products that you can buy in the real world (such as Webkinz backpacks) or are ads for other parts of the Webkinz.com site. I became intrigued by an ad for the Magical Charm Forest. So I clicked on it only to encounter the entrance screen with this warning:

I don't have any Webkinz Charms so I was out of luck. I did notice this subliminal hint regarding these Webkinz Charms at the bottom of the screen:

I was starting to have my misgivings about the whole Webkinz.com experience because I really didn't like having to go back to the store to purchase Webkinz stuff just so I can see another part of Webkinz.com.

I went back to Magic's room, where I decided to try talking to my pet. Speaking to your pet is done by clicking on the "Speak" button at the top of the screen and selecting one of the available questions. I selected "How are you doing?"

Here's Magic's reply:

I felt my misgivings regarding Webkinz.com melt away when Magic said that. She is really such an adorable pet. Before I logged off for the day, I selected the "Walk" button, and clicked on the bed. Magic went to sleep immediately.

Magic's room is a definite improvement over yesterday but it still needs more furniture. And I have to get around to installing that bathtub.

The First Day on Webkinz.com

After I came home from Columbia Mall the day before yesterday, I took my new unicorn and the laptop to a local coffeehouse that has high-speed wireless Internet since I'm on dial-up at home. I plugged the laptop into a wall outlet (since the battery situation was still messed up) and logged into Webkinz.com.

I signed up for an free account where I had to go to Ms. Birdy's Adoption Center, pick out a User ID, and punch in the special code that was printed inside my unicorn's hang tag. The site determined that I had purchased a unicorn so I all I needed to do was specify a name and gender.

Since my unicorn had embroidered eyes with long eyelashes, pink inner ears, and an irredesent pink color that shimmered through the unicorn's horn and hooves, I decided that my unicorn was a female. Then it was time for a name. Lately my husband, who's a total Bruce Springsteen nut, has been playing The Boss' latest CD, Magic, nearly non-stop in his car for the past several weeks since it was released. So I decided to name the unicorn "Magic". After all, unicorns have long been regarded in folklore and myths as being magical beings, right?

After the registration, I received this adoption certificate that was signed by Ms. Birdy herself.

I was also given a biography of my newly adopted pet.

Note the sentence "One of my best friends is a yellow Lab." Is this some kind of subliminal message that I should consider buying a yellow Lab Webkinz in the future as a pal for Magic?

I went to my new pet's room where I saw this screen:

I saw in the "My Stuff" list (located at the bottom of the screen) that I was immediately given a gift-wrapped present and a few food items. I went to Magic and her room and I saw that it was empty. I poked around the shopping mall part and I found that I would need to buy furniture and that would require Webkinz cash. While I did have some Webkinz money as part of the initial registration, I would have to earn more.

At the same time I realized that I forgot to bring the Webkinz bookmark with me so I couldn't use the code that came with it so that'll have to wait for another day. So I had to look for other ways of earning Webkinz money.

I went to the employment agency and I got a job where I had to assemble burgers in a certain order within a certain time frame. The job was over in a few minutes and I was given cash for my efforts. (If only jobs in the real world were this short, easy, and profitable.)

I also went to the arcade where I played something called "Stack'Em Up Solitaire". This game was slightly different from the version of Solitaire that I've known since I was a child but I managed to clear enough of the cards to earn some more Webkinz cash.

I also decided to try my hand at "Quizzy's WhizKinz" quiz game. I picked the all-ages level then selected the "Green Thumb" category because of my past interest in gardening. Here's a sample of the questions that I was given.

Some of the questions were pretty hard, such as the one that asked, "Which vegetable is a member of the Nightshade family?" (The answer is "potato".) Actually the questions are pretty educational and this quiz game could be beneficial to children for that reason.

I managed to collect enough Webkinz cash to do some shopping in the shopping mall. All I could afford at that moment was a simple bed and a chair, which was placed in the "My Stuff" list once I paid for the items. I went to Magic's room where I spent most of the time figuring out how to move furniture from the "My Stuff" list to the room. After several unsuccessful tries, I figured out that you have to click on the item, them drag it into the room very slowly. If you drag too fast, the furniture will drop back into the "My Stuff" list and you have to start all over again. I also had a hard time moving the furniture once I placed it in the room but I decided that I wanted it in a different location in the room. Ultimately I had to move it back into the "My Stuff" list then re-drag it into the place I wanted the furniture item to go.

The easiest part of interacting with my pet was feeding her some food. All I had to do was drag the food item from the "My Stuff" list to a picture of Magic located in the bottom left corner of the screen. A bubble comes up where she expresses her happiness at being fed while her Love, Happiness, and Health meters go up.

It was time for me to leave the coffeehouse and go home so I had Magic go to her new bed where she fell asleep and a cartoon balloon with "ZZZZZZ" popped up over her head. I was given reminders to always log out when I had to quit for the day because failure to do so will cause the Love, Happiness, and Health meters to run down to zero.