Back in August, I saw a note on Twitter Moms about the opportunity to review a new book titled “The BlackBerry Diaries: Adventures in Modern Motherhood.”

Being a BlackBerry-toting mom myself, it sounded like a great opportunity to read something fun - for free - and, who can resist free? (Yes, FTC, I got a free copy of the book to review in this blog.)

The humor book is written like a blog, complete with tags at the end of each short, dated entry. This style turned out to be both a good thing and a bad thing for me. It’s good because the brief entries let you easily pop in and out of the book (you know, like when you have to step away to deal with something that just came in on your BlackBerry). But, it’s also bad because it can be a little too easy to set it aside.

I received my copy in early September and have yet to finish it. But, rather than wait any longer, I figured I should go ahead and earn my free book by writing about it now.

The premise of the book is that toddlers and technology are not so different. “If they’re quiet, you’re constantly checking them to make sure everything is okay. If they’re loud and interrrupting, you just want them to shut up and go away. When they do, the cycle starts all over again.”

There were some observations to which I could relate: “… many BB-using employees will burn out quicker and resign faster as they continue to jam two years’ worth of work into seven and a half months.” But, others that I could not: “The bottom line is this: children and BBSPs [one of the author's acronyms for BlackBerry Smartphone] are all about ownership, one upmanship and petty jealousies.”

And, according to an article in CIO, the author says “she’s sharing lessons learned from her experience using a BlackBerry over the past year to enhance her and her childrens’ lives;” and, quite frankly, I didn’t see any of that in the book. Tips like don’t share your BlackBerry with someone or theyll see your BrickBreaker score, don’t use your BlackBerry at fondue parties and BlackBerries are good for keeping up with neighborhood gossip, yes. But, life enhancements? I’m afraid not.

It’s a nice, light, sometimes funny read; but, maybe because my girl is no longer a toddler or maybe because I’ve added an iPhone (personal) to my BlackBerry (work), I just never could really get into it. Not every book has to be a page-turner, I guess. But, since this one didn’t turn out to be for me, it remains unfinished. And apparently, I’m not the only one who hasn’t turned all its pages.

If anyone out there made it to the end and feels I missed something, please let me know!

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This is part of a series of posts looking at virtual worlds targeted toward kids.

If your kids watch the same TV channels mine does, then you’ve probably seen the commercials for a new virtual world called Free Realms. My girl certainly saw them and wanted to go check it out, so our series of kid-focused virtual world reviews continues.

Free Realms
Free Realms bills itself as “a fun, whimsical virtual world filled with dynamic gameplay and compelling content for everyone, especially families.” It’s really more of a pure MMOG than any of the other worlds we’ve toured as part of this series. As soon as my girl set up her account (all by herself, except for my need to give her an e-mail to attach to the account) and entered the world, she was met by a character asking her to embark on her first quest. This prevents the “what do I do now” issue that plagues some virtual worlds, but also aligns more firmly with games such as the non-kid-focused World of Warcraft (WoW).

With more than a million people signing up for it in the first week and that number doubled already, it’s on target to be just as popular as WoW, too. In addition to quests, kids can work at a variety of jobs from pet trainer to ninja to miner and others mentioned below. Like most other kid virtual worlds, you can enter and play for free; but, for $4.99/month you can upgrade to get more things like additional job options, and you’ll also pay to purchase items.

The Good
Free Realms automatically limits kids under 13 to “quick chat” - my preferred choice for my youngster because it restricts them to a preprogramed set of words and phrases to communicate. That way you don’t have to worry about them giving out any personal information (but, don’t let that get you off the hook for still having that discussion about what you don’t share online).
Free Realms’ parent controls area also mentions that they intend to implement a feature which will permit you to customize a calendar to set times of day and/or days of the week that your kid will have access to the account online, as well as days and times during which they may play.

The Bad
I’m willing to bet that most of us teach our kids that fighting is wrong, so it’s a little unsettling to see that quests in Free Realms can involve combat and one of the jobs kids can get is called a Brawler. Brawlers are described as being “up for fight anytime with anyone” and they “use hammers, clubs, and powerful kicks to defeat enemies.”
We didn’t run into any Brawlers in our first few visits to Free Realms, but then again, we didn’t run into anyone other than the in-world characters who play parts in the quests. This may or may not be a bad thing, but struck me as odd considering there are supposed to be more than 2 million people in-world now.

The Lessons Learned
I only heard the “rated E for everyone” part of the commercials, but when you really look, you’ll see it is “everyone 10+” and I would reccomend following that age recommendation from the Entertainment Software Rating Board. Even more specifically the rating warns of “crude humor” and “fantasy violence.” We haven’t encountered the humor yet, but as noted above, the violence is definitely there.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Free Realms Still Growing Insanely Quickly [E3 2009] (kotaku.com)
• Sony’s Free Realms game signs up a million users in 17 days (venturebeat.com)
• The free price is working out nice for Sony’s Free Realms as registrants top 2 million (venturebeat.com)
• Video Game Review | Free Realms: Pick a Role, Any Role, Then Live Nine Lives (nytimes.com)

Kate Olson is a mother of 2 toddlers and lives in rural Wisconsin. She balances motherhood & working from home in a semi-functional fashion - you can read more about Kate on our contributors page. She blogs about education and lots of business/tech stuff at Kate Says . Want more? Read all of Kate’s posts!

Read on to win this yummy snack!

Funky Monkey Snacks - I liked the name as soon as I received the press release! This is honestly the easiest review I’ve ever written because one sentence really sums this product up:

My children INHALED these things - all 3 bags.

What more could a mom say? They’re healthy, my kids ate them. Done!

Want the fine print?

Funky Monkey Snacks are freeze dried fruit - all natural, with no added sugar, preservatives, colors or flavors. They are gluten-free, wheat-free and dairy-free. They come in four delicious flavors: Bananamon (banana and cinnamon - a personal favorite of mine), Carnaval Mix (banana, pineapple, apple, papaya and raisins), Jivealime (pineapple and lime juice) and Purple Funk (banana and acai berries).

The yummies are found at a ton of stores all over, including Whole Foods and Amazon.com - easy enough for ALL of us to access!

Want more healthy trips and ticks for getting more fruits and veggies into your kids? Check out this very cool resource - Fruit and Veggie Guru. Tons of resources and recipes that I know my family needs - maybe yours does too?

Win Funky Monkey Snacks!

Want to win a bag of Funky Monkey Snacks for you or your kids?

Easy peasy - 3 winners and all you need to do to enter is leave a comment here telling which of the 4 flavors you think you (or your kids) would like best.

Contest ends 7/21/08 - make sure you use a valid email address when entering!

Kate Olson is a mother of 2 toddlers and lives in rural Wisconsin. She balances motherhood & working from home in a semi-functional fashion - you can read more about Kate on our contributors page. She blogs about education and lots of business/tech stuff at Kate Says . Want more? Read all of Kate’s posts!

If you want an idea of how much I love peanut butter, just know that I actually sought out P.B. Loco for this review and contest. Yup, that’s right. No PR reps filling my inbox, no surprise packages arriving at my house. P.B. Loco has a twitter account (@pbloco) and amazingly enough, right after Diane wrote her fabulous peanut butter post, @pbloco started following This Mommy Gig (@thismommygig) and me on twitter!

Once I saw the product behind the twitter account, I brazenly direct messaged PB Loco and asked if they’d be interested in providing me with some peanut butter so I could review it and hold a contest here. They smartly agreed, so here we are! What enticed me to approach them? Just read these product descriptions!

Peanut Butter with Creamy White Chocolate

Inside the mild-mannered jar of white chocolate peanut butter is possibly the yummiest stuff you will ever put in your mouth. It gives us shudders just writing about it.

Peanut Butter with European Cafe Mocha

An amazingly dee-lish blend of European chocolate, espresso and premium peanut butter. You will feel like you are in your favorite coffee bar. Only you will not be. You will be eating really really good peanut butter.

You can check out prices and complete product descriptions on their website, where you can also find all the exciting product small print - like the fact that peanut butter is good for you, there’s no trans fat, they’ll ship it directly to your house……..all that good stuff!

The first jar I tried was the Peanut Butter with Creamy White Chocolate - oh. my. lord. is it good! It actually has little chunks of white chocolate in it and my daughter and I ate it spread on graham crackers……..I think we ate 2 whole packs of crackers just as a vehicle for the peanut butter! I actually kind of (don’t tell!) hide it from my kids now - I don’t want to waste the good stuff on people who like Skippy just as much!

Oh, and I’m hoping my family isn’t reading this, because they’re all getting a jar of P.B. Loco for Christmas this year - they’ll love me for this!

Ok, I decided to list all of their flavors here so you truly get an idea of the yumminess of their flavors…….the next one I’m trying is the Peanut Butter with Sumatra Cinnamon and Raisins.….

Peanut Butter with CoCoBanana
Peanut Butter with Asian Curry Spice
Peanut Butter with Dark Chocolate Duo
Peanut Butter with Jungle Banana
Peanut Butter with Raspberry White Chocolate
Peanut Butter with Sun-Dried Tomato
Peanut Butter with Creamy White Chocolate
Peanut Butter with European Café Mocha
Peanut Butter with Raspberry Dark Chocolate
Peanut Butter with Sumatra Cinnamon and Raisin
Peanut Butter with Sun-Ripened Apricot
Peanut Butter - Classic Crunch
Peanut Butter - Classic Creamy

Win Some!

We have a precious jar of peanut butter to give away here and I want someone to win this! All you need to do is tell which flavor you’d love to try - you can just throw it in a comment here. For another chance to win, you can reply to @thismommygig and tell us your desired flavor there as well!

So, bring it on - I need to share the yumminess!

This contest will end July 15, 2008. All eligible to enter, even past winners!

(Read on to win a case of Primo single-serve water!)

When I first heard about Primo Water I thought it was probably just another bottled water - they’re all pretty much alike, right? Well, I guess not! I was sent a case of Primo to test after being told that the Primo bottles are made from plant-based materials, NOT fossil fuels, which really intrigues me. The Primo promotional materials state:

“The renewable Primo bottle is made from Ingeo, the world’s first and only performance plastic made from 100% annually renewable-resources - plants, not crude oil like other plastic bottles.“

While I attempt to use my Nalgene water bottle as much as possible because it’s washable and reusable, I often don’t have it filled up or clean - this means that when I’m sprinting out of the house with my 2 kids or have EXACTLY 25 minutes to go for my run, I need a quick bottle of water and I need it in a bottle that will fit in my car or stroller cup holder. This is the reason that I usually have bottled water in my house, but I sometimes feel guilty about the environmental impact of using all of those disposable bottles.

The Bottom Line

The Primo materials make a pretty compelling case for choosing Primo over other bottled waters because of the composition of the bottle, and I have to admit that I agree. I like the fact that the bottle is more environmentally friendly, and the water truly tastes great. If given a choice of Primo water and other brands, I would choose Primo simply because of the company’s efforts to minimize the use of fossil fuels. I am really excited to see more recycling options for this type of bottle, but in the meantime I applaud the company for the innovation.

Get Some!

You can buy Primo water for $4.99/case of 18 single-serve bottles at the following stores: Kroger, Ralph’s, Kings Soopers, City Market, Dillon’s, Smith’s, Fry’s, QFC, Baker’s, Pay Less, Owen’s, JayC, Hilander, Gerbes, Food 4 Less, Food Co, and Fred Meyer. Primo is available in regional retail grocery stores like Lowes Foods in North Carolina, Hannaford stores in select New England markets, and Sweetbay stores in Florida.

More Information

You can find out more about Primo Water at their website, where you can find recycling information and more information about the unique Ingeo bottle. Primo also has videos showing the life cycle of the bottle - check them out at YouTube!

Also, check out Jessica’s thoughts on Primo over at Moms Group Manual.

Win Some!

Primo is offering 10 cases of Primo water for our readers - that means YOU! We’ll pick a winner in 2 weeks (June 23rd) and notify the winners. If you win, Primo will then ship a case of water directly to you!

Here’s what you need to do to win:

Choose one or more - each thing that you do earns another chance to win!

1) Leave a comment here telling us your favorite activity for staying cool or keeping your family cool in the summer (make sure to use a valid email address, as that’s where we’ll notify you if you win)

2) Share the news of the contest either on Twitter or in a blog post - leave the link to your tweet or your post in a comment here

3) Follow @thismommygig on Twitter (if you already do this, just throw in the note in the comments letting us know!)

You have good odds of winning here since we have so many prizes - and since you each have 3 chances to win!