WebkinzZzZzZz

I'm on my computer the other day, writing up some ideas for this blog, when Hallie walks in and says to no one in particular, "I need to do my dailies now."

I practically burst with pride. Wifezilla isn't quite as enthused.

Yup, my cute little six year-old daughter is doing dailies. Not WoW, mind you. No, her virtual time pit is Webkinz.

For the uninitiated (those of you without six year olds), a Webkin is an adorable stuffed animal you buy at a store. Its collar holds a secret code that you enter on the Webkinz website. Once you register, you pick a name and gender for your pet, and then you're off to the races. The digital pet looks approximately like the stuffed one and the site gives you a room to walk your pet around. You also play games to earn Webkinz dollars.

That's where the dailies come in.

Some of the games you can play over and over again. But they yield just a couple of dollars at a time. The real lewt is with the dailies. These aren't games so much as lotteries. Hallie's favorite is the Wishing Well where she hits a button and tries to get three different combinations of symbols to line up; it's disturbingly similar to a slot machine. She gets to hit the button five times. But then she has to wait the following day to play again. Where a normal game usually yields no more than five Webkinz dollars at time, Hallie scores more than fifty dollars when she does her dailies.

She spent her first Webkinz dollars wisely: she bought a blue and white two-piece swimming suit and a jewel encrusted throne for her dog named, appropriately enough, Puppy. Next purchase: some shades to go with that smart swim suit.

I tried to get her to buy the thong, but she'd have none of that.