Juicer Recipe Review: Sweet Potato Pie

With all this juicing, I wanted to find something sweet that tasted like a dessert to give me a feeling of being naughty. I found Sweet Potato Pie juice and it fits the bill perfectly!

The ingredients

• Apple
• Carrots
• Sweet Potato

Run all the ingredients through your juicer, stir and enjoy! 

By now, I started cheating by buying apple juice and just measuring out about 3/4 cup to 1 cup per apple in the recipe. It works! The recipe tastes the same as if I had juiced actual apples and it's cheaper for me than buying whole apples and juicing them.

My rating for this juice? 

I would give it 5 out of 5 stars. It is sweet and tastes like a dessert which is what I was looking for! And it's amazingly filling!

Have you tried this juice recipe? What did you think?

Miles' Creation: Blackberry Mango Juice!

After so much vegetable juice, Miles and I decided to try some fruit juices. I let him pick the fruits and he decided on blackberries and mango.

Blackberry Mango Juice Ingredients

The name gives it away. No suspense there at all! Hmmm, I think we need to think of a better name for this juice. 

• 1 container of blackberries
• 1 mango

The name gave it away, didn't it?

Run them all through the juicer. Remove the mango pit first though. Stir it together and enjoy!

My rating for Blackberry Mango juice?

This one is a KEEPER! I never really liked mango before but, juice it with blackberries and it is awesome! The Blackberry Mango Juice is thick, kind of like a smoothie. 

I thought my other juice had a kick... but this one has a punch to it! It makes you pucker for a second there and then it's like OH YEA! That's what I'm talking about!

Juicer Recipe Review: Rainbow Blitz

After my last juice recipe, I was feeling quite good! I actually had a lot of energy. I decided to go out of my comfort zone and try something different. The Rainbow Blitz juice recipe looked interesting. You can see it by clicking here. I had to alter it for my allergies.

Rainbow Blitz Ingredients

This is the list of fruits and veggies in Rainbow Blitz. The red ones are the ones I am allergic to and had to substitute or leave out.

• Apple
• Carrots
• Cucumber
• Ginger
• Lemon
• Pear
• Spinach

My Rainbow Blitz Alternative Ingredients

• Apple
• Carrots
• Cucumber
• Lime
• Pear
• Kale

I was going to substitute garlic for ginger but I wasn't sure how well that would work. Instead, I just left it out.

Next I ran everything through my Black & Decker Juicer. There was a lot of juice! So much that I ended up putting it in my blender because it filled my 32 ounce mason jar all the way to the top and I couldn't stir it. Pouring it in the blender...

...allowed me to stir in together well and drink a cup of juice so I could pour it back into my mason jar.

My rating for Rainbow Blitz?

4.5 Stars!

I was oddly surprised that I really like the taste. I am more of a sweet-tooth kind of person. This juice has a bit of a tang to it with a little kick. Honestly, I really like this though! 

I wouldn't say 5 stars because I had to alter it and leave out one ingredient. But I will definitely be making this again!

Juiced Up Juice Off! Bullet Express Juicer Vs. Black & Decker Juicer

My friend, Nikky, started joining me on my juicing journey. We both have two separate juicers and noticed that it seems like her juicer doesn't get as much juice out of her fruits and veggies as my juicer does. To find out if this was true, we devised an experiment and held a Juiced Up Juice Off in her kitchen. What we discovered fascinated us. Here it is!

THE JUICED UP JUICE OFF!

DUNDUNDUN!

Nikky's Juicer Information

Nikky owns a Magic Bullet BER-0601 Bullet Express Trio 3-in-1 Blender System which we will just call the Bullet Juicer from here on out. The Bullet Express is currently priced at $179.99 for a used one on Amazon. 

Bullet Express Juicer.

Dotchi's Juicer Information

I own a Black & Decker JE2200B 400-Watt Fruit and Vegetable Juicer which will be referred to as the Black and Decker Juicer from here on out. The Black and Decker juicer sells on Amazon, as of today, for $26.99. I bought mine from Wal-Mart for about $30.00 or so a little over a year ago.

The Black & Decker

 Setting up the Juiced Up Juice Off!

First I had to find a vegetable to juice in both juicers. I picked carrots because I was hungry and really wanted some carrot juice. I spent about 20 minutes weighing every carrot in my house. I finally found two carrots that each weighed 3.2 ounces.

 And here are the two carrots side by side so you can see I actually have two carrots.

 Next we set up the experiment area in Nikky's kitchen with both juicers facing each other for dramatic Juice Off effect!

  

Our first difference I noted is that her juicer, the Bullet Express, can juice a whole carrot without needing to cut it. My juicer, the Black & Decker, needs to have the carrot cut in half long way. Since I prefer not to have a trip to the ER, I cut it into fourths. Here are the juicers ready to go!

Next, she ran the carrot through her Bullet Express juicer and I ran the four parts of my carrot through the Black & Decker juicer. 

And then we marveled at the difference in amount of carrot juice in each cup for a moment.

Nikky's Bullet Express Juicer had made just below 2 ounces of carrot juice.

My Black & Decker Juicer had made right at the line of 2 ounces of carrot juice.

Then Nikky scooped all the pulp out of the pulp collection container and ran it through her juicer to see if she could get any more juice. Just to make sure she didn't beat my juicer, I did the same thing. And here are the second results. 

1.8 ounces <-----> 2.2 ounces

We did get more juice by running the pulp through a second time and by tilting the machines a little bit to make sure all the juice came out.

I had the brilliant idea of weighing both cups of juice too! I weighed each cup of carrot juice twice just to make sure I was right. I drank the carrot juice before I remembered to take pictures. But the results were... *drum roll*

Nikky's Bullet Express Juicer: 

1.8 ounces of carrot juice.

My Black & Decker Juicer: 

2.2 ounces of carrot juice.

WOW! Holy Juice Off!

With a 0.4 ounce difference, it really doesn't seem like that much. But, considering that I am using juicing as a source of nutrition, that could make a difference. If I wanted to consume 6 carrots in a day (like I did the other day) I would be missing 2.4 ounces of juice. 

That's more than a whole carrot if all my carrots weighed 3.2 ounces. 

After this, I think I'll stick to juicing with my Black & Decker.

THE WINNER!

Tomorrow, we will experiment with juicing 3.4 ounces of strawberries in each juicer! We'll let you know how it goes.

Video Game Review: Pirates of the Caribbean Online

I heard about Pirates of the Caribbean Online from my youngest son so I had to check it out. Miles, Mendel and I spent days playing this game to see how far you can get on a free account. Each of us picked different skills to test and worked as a team in battles and whatnot, to see how the game would be. I also tried to accomplish each of my missions and here is what we thought.

Pirates of the Caribbean Online: Starting Out
Starting out we got to pick our pirate characters. I picked a female pirate and the boys picked male pirates. They have a random name generator or you can scroll through the various combinations of names to pick "pirate" names. Some examples are Hector Bernmalley, Miles (by request), Constance Dreadsteel and Jack Bladekidd.

You start out in jail and Jack Sparrow's face is the first you see as he tells you something about being in jail and blablabla... sorry, I can't stand the sound of his voice so I hit esc and skipped it. Once you kick your way out of jail while the guard sleeps, Jack Sparrows gives you a little tutorial and you are ready to use your WASD keys to walk to the door, shift to open and then leave to explore the area. You can also you your mouse to help you walk faster and easier. Just right click and point where you want to go while walking forward. It will lead you in that direction.

A Note on Pirate Sexes
Out of curiosity, I noticed that the boys pirates seemed to move faster, heal faster and generally seemed better than my female pirate. So I created a male pirate character and played as Bartholmew Yellowbeard for a little bit. He seemed to be a lot better than my female character. Sexist Disney! But I played the rest of the time as Constance.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Missions, Follow the Light Beams in the Sky
By following the light beams in the sky, you complete steps to your missions. They are things like, find Gibbs, talk to Jack, kill a few cadets and such. I was the mission tester. For the most part, the missions are pretty fun except the boring dialog that you have with each character. One of the missions leads you to Barbosa and you have to shoot at his monkey, then he gives you a gun and tells you all about the code. *yawn* but at least you get a gun... then you are told not to shoot anyone with it. Alrighty then.

The missions went well up until I was told to go get a tattoo. I managed to find the place (after sailing all over to find out it was on the island I just left LOL, even in virtual worlds I get lost) When I went inside and went to get a tattoo, ALL the tattoos are for "unlimited members only". I checked into the prices just to see how much it costs to become an unlimited member. The prices of $9.95 a month, $49.95 semi-annually or $79.95 annually brought my mission to liberate the Black Pearl to a screeching halt. I don't want to complete missions that bad. (of course, if someone else wants to pay for that, I'll happily play the game a LOT and let you know how it plays out.)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Notoriety and Skills
Each thing you do (battle the cadets, sailing, fishing, etc) gains you notoriety and skill levels for each thing you are doing (sailing, fishing, fighting with a sword, shooting, firing cannons, etc). After awhile, trying to gain notoriety becomes so insanely difficult that it's hardly worth it. We also found that each skill level tops out at level 7. Unless you want Disney to rape your wallet, that's as good as it gets for free.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Earning Gold
I found that I could gain gold by helping repair ships by going to the benches near the piers and by fishing. The benches have mini-games you play (sawing woods, hammering nails, plugging holes, etc) and you get paid coins when you are finished. Depending on the difficulty level depends on the amount of coins you are paid.

Fishing was pretty fun. Cast your line, try to snag a fish and then reel it in. When it starts fighting you, stop reeling. Depending on the fish and the size determines the amount of coins you get and the amount of coins and skill gained. As you level up your skill, you can catch larger fish. Once you hit skill level 7 though, that's it. No more skill levels and the joy of hoping to snag a shark is gone because you won't be able to unless your willing to fork over a small fortune to Disney.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Sea Battles!
You can't have a game about pirates without sea battles! I found that the three of us are a pretty awesome team! Mendel worked on his cannon skills as his game test and Miles worked on his sailing skills as his game test.

First, Miles sailed the ship while Mendel and I blew up ship. Note: do not fire at ships with flags! You will have to board the ship and you will be killed and end up back in jail.

As you level up on cannon skills you will unlock new types of ammo which you can use in battles. It's pretty fun until about level 7. After that, it's all the same and gets rather dull. I agree with this wholeheartedly and I stopped playing at cannon level 6.

As you sail, you level up which gives you a speed boost ability, which is good for turning and running away like a little sissy pirate; and come about which tightens your turn so you can turn around faster (which also helps you run away like a sissy pirate... but also keeps you alive).

Overall, the battles are fun up until you level out at level 7.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Overall Game Rating

• My rating: 7 out of 10... only because that's the only level you can reach in free game play.

• Miles rating: 9 out of 10: It's so massive that it would take forever to explore everywhere.

• Mendel Rating: 6 out of 10: The glitches can make it fun at times, although they are hard to find. Other times it makes it difficult (like when you have to kill a cadet and he's standing in a tree). It would get a 7 but I played Assassin's Creed.

Game Play Rating

• My Rating: 7 out of 10: since I don't know what is beyond that skill level.

• Miles Rating: 8 out of 10: The characters glitch while running and the server lags which throws you off a lot.

Control Rating

• My Rating: 9 out of 10: The controls are pretty easy to use but so easy I fell asleep at the helm. During battles onboard, you would have to press esc to leave one cannon and run to the other. The esc key made it awkward. But other than that, it was good for controls.

• Miles rating: 8 out of 10: It can be hard to play on a laptop where almost every non-letter key has two functions.

Fun Factor

• My Rating: up until skill level 7, it's really fun. It has so many things to do, it's hard to get bored on the game until you level out  all your skills. I'll say fun factor is a 8 out of 10. I take away two stars, one for the monthly membership and one for the low level cap.

• Miles Rating: That's a tough one. It's such a unique game that you really have to try it for yourself. I don't know how to rate it with the wide variety of games within the game.

Family Friendly?

Oh yeah! By far this is very family friendly. I am thinking of borrowing a younger kid and parent and having them test it out for a "young kids family" review.

Fun for the whole family! I didn't even cuss while playing! (It's a miracle!) <<< Miles says, "Yup!"

Free Video Game Week: Battlestar Galatica Online

Our next gaming session was for Battlestar Galactica Online. When you sign up, you agree that you are 13 years old or older. I am! So I signed up and got to... well, I would say "got to playing" but that would be a little overrated. 

(Updated 7/2014: We had a link for you but Bigpoint asked us to remove the link, so we did. A quick google search will tell you how to get there.)

Battlestar Galactica Online: The Basic Game "Play"
Oh dear, where to begin? So you pick your character (which you will almost never see again) and a ship, which is your life line. Then you start flying around. No really. That's about all you do. Occasionally some enemies will crawl out of the woodwork and then you can blow them up, but other than that... enjoy the view. I kid you not.

My youngest son joined in to help with the "play" and it wasn't too horrible. I clicked on him, clicked "follow" and then wandered off to make coffee. When I came back, we were still flying through space. *YAWN* I seriously got bored after about an hour and a half of doing almost nothing. I swear to you, in 1 1/2 hours, we blew up a few ships and flew through space. That's pretty much it.

Battlestar Galactica Online: Controls
The controls are pretty darned easy. Actually, they don't get any easier than this game. They are so easy I could fall asleep and still win. You use your mouse scroll button to start flying, move the mouse to where you want to fly to and right click. Left click on an enemy ship and when you are close enough your ship automatically fires for you. That's all folks. No, really. That is it! Looting (when you blow up a ship, you take it's stuff) is so simple, I missed it the first time I looted. I kid you not.

Dear Battlestar Galactica Online Game Makers,

Could you have made it any easier? Or boring? Why not just play the game for us?

Love, Dotchi...

Screw the rest of the review! This game sucks! Like this font color!

Overall Game Play: Sorry, I went for coffee. For the parts I was here for... 3 out of 10 stars, and that's being really nice. 

Game Play Rating: Dotchi Says: 3 stars... boring as hell. It makes toe fungus fascinating. Miles Says: 5 stars. Sometimes your ship doesn't respond and you end up dying because of it.

Control Rating: 2 stars. It's so simple it's boring.

Fun Factor: -3. OMG! Seriously. It sucks the fun out of you.

Kid friendly?: As long as you are 13 years or older according to Battlestar Galactica Online. According to us, 5 years and younger would totally dig this.



Suddenly, Pong looks really exciting! (We just played an invigorating two rounds!)

Free Video Game Week: Combat Arms

I should put a warning up here... Combat Arms is not really child friendly. It is a first person shooter game and does show blood when you shoot someone. But we really enjoyed it.

Combat Arms: The Basics
Combat Arms (by Nexon) is an online game that you download to your computer to play. It runs on windows but not on macs. Sorry guys :( I will try to find mac games to post. Sign up is very easy. I signed up and got the email verification from Nexon within a minute. Then I downloaded the game and opened it. I got to choose my soldier and pick a name. Then I went in for some basic training that helps teach the controls of the game. Once you pass training, you are ready to go get killed... er, I mean, battle some enemies!

Combat Arms: Game Play Controls
During training I learned the controls. You use your mouse to aim and fire. Pressing the a, s, w and d keys makes you walk. That's the basic movements. Then ctrl lets you crouch down, shift lets you run really fast, E is the action button (like opening doors), C let's go slow, R is reload, 1-6 is your weapon selection and space bar lets you jump. As you can see, you use a lot of keys on the keyboard which takes some getting used to.

Combat Arms: Getting Ready For a Game
You start out as a trainee and as you gain experience, you level up in rank through 50 (or so) different levels. Once you are ready to play, it has you pick a server then a channel. You can join a room to start blowing your enemies to smithereens or you can create your own room to fight in. Creating your own room is rather cool because you have a lot of settings to choose from (maps, friendly fire on/off, abilities on/off, kill cam, amount of players, # of rounds/minutes/kills and more). Then you get ready to blow people to bits by going to "my character" and picking your weapons.

Combat Arms: Blowing People to Bits... the fun part
Luckily I had experienced gamers to show me what to do (Thanks HeavyBoozer, BakerM_STE__ and AE-Dusk). My first round was kind of sad LOL. I just followed HeavyBoozer or BakerM_STE__ around and tried to figure what we were doing. I did manage to kill 3 of the enemy though. That was pretty cool on my end but looked rather pathetic to HeavyBoozers kills of 718. But I still had fun. The second round I made it further (only because I hid for most of it). But I was getting the idea. (Then my Benadryl kicked in and I had to log off.)

Combat Arms: Respawn Tokens
In Combat Arms, if you are killed during a fire team mission (which is what we were doing), you don't just respawn and keep blowing things up. You have to have respawn tokens. Respawn tokens cost real money. In 90% of the other missions, you respawn. So for the rest of the game I got to watch my team mates who didn't die, all 3 of them (we were a team of 4), run around and shoot people. I did take notes though, so it wasn't wasted time.

Combat Arms: Clans and so much you can do!
There is so much you can do on Combat Arms that it would take forever to list everything. One thing I do want to mention is the Clans because they are such a big part of the game. A clan is a group of people that work together to level up their clan so they can get access to special weapons. Being in a clan gives you a special logo on your characters arm. Clans can war against each other to gain experience points so your clan can level up. If you don't have a clan, you can start your own and have your friends join you. You can only be part of one clan so pick your clan wisely!

As far as the other things you can do, here is a small list of things you can do:

• Buy and sell from a selection of hundreds of gear and weapons
• Send gifts to your friends
• Take jobs. Daily jobs give you items when completed and Gun emporium jobs can help you forge or upgrade your weapon.
• Modify your weapons.
• Choose from a wide selection of mercenaries and specialists that come with special vests.

Combat Arms: Nx and GP
On Combat Arms there is Nx and then there is GP. GP is game points that acts as currency. You can buy items with GP, gifts friends stuff, increases your chance at the gun emporium for upgrading a weapon and other things like that.

Nx is another form of currency that you get when you add real money to your account. There are a lot weapons and items that can only be bought with Nx. You can play Combat Arms without ever buying Nx (my plan), but you can also add Nx at any time to get the special items you want (Miles' plan! Allowance is so cool)

Combat Arms: Our Review
Miles and I decided to rate this game together.

• Overall Game Rating: 10 stars! We really like the game. I liked it much better once I learned the controls.
• Game Play Rating: Me (the non-experienced) 8 stars. It's a little discouraging at times when you are playing against high ranking players. Miles (the experienced, high ranking player) 9 stars. It sometimes lags pretty bad.
• Control Rating: 9.5 stars. Only because they take a little getting used to. Miles says the controls have excellent layout and I have to agree on that.
• Fun Factor: 10 stars! All the way! I really had a lot fun even as the newbie target... I mean, player.
• Kid Friendly? Uh, not really. This is more for teens to adults. I wouldn't let my kids play this when they were younger.

If you are old enough and like bloody war games, you have to try this out! It really is a lot of fun. Just practice your controls first. You will thank me later.

-Edit 11/2/2012

This game has taken a nose dive since the review was written and is over run with hackers and server issues

Free Video Game Week: ourWorld

Miles next pick for Free Video Game Week was ourWorld. We started out playing it yesterday. The first thing that I noticed is that it's really addictive and fun. The second thing I noticed is that it's like you go through a time warp on there. One minute it's 4 p.m. and your playing games, the next minute it's 2 a.m (when your blog post should have been already posted). Oops.

So, today I logged in with a brand new account for BlogWriter to see what it's like to be a brand new ourWorld player. Thank goodness we got the homeschooling done first or we'd have nothing done for the day. We logged in at noon as a newbie and I signed off at 8 p.m. at level 15.

Getting started on ourWorld
Getting started on ourWorld is very easy. You go to ourWorld and click the huge pink circle to start playing. Pick your gender and it starts you off with three challenges to help you get started and learn the game.

Challenges on ourWorld
I started out by trying out some of the challenges that get you started. You can find them by finding any person with ! over their head and click on them. One thing I did notice is that the challenges are set up to show you how to play, show you around ourWorld and let you explore all that there is to do. By doing the challenges you can gain flow (which is how you level up), coins and gems. Sometimes you are awarded with clothes or other cool items for your inventory.

What are gems, coins and flow?
Gems are like real money. Actually, you can buy gems for real money but I am cheap and broke. You can also earn gems by watching ads and once it had me try a game to earn gems. You don't HAVE to... but it helps you earn gems if you do.

Coins are the ourWorld money. You can earn coins by completing challenges, selling you items in inventory, using flow, doing dance off's against other players and more. I used my coins to buy cool new clothes, shoes, a dorky elf/jester hat and a stocking. Yes, I am a dork!

Flow... there is a circle at the bottom left corner of the screen that shows how much flow you have. You can click the circle to play games at Prize central at anytime but when you have enough flow it will tell you that you can level up. When you go to Prize central, there are three games you can play to earn prizes. I, personally, absolutely LOVE The Bubbler. The bigger the bubble, the bigger the prize!

Your ourWorld condo
I forgot about the condo that you get for playing ourWorld. I found it in one of my challenges. You can be like my son, bakermiles, and decorate it with all your super rare and rare items to tease people with when they come to visit. Or you can be like me... go play everything else and forget you have a condo. LOL

Places you can go in ourWorld
You can go to different places in ourWorld. The higher your level, the more places you can go. Let's start with the main place...

• The Boardwalk is the main landing pad for the game and where you will find Zoe. It has
• Buzz: coffeehouse
• Starlight Skate: an ice rink
• Slideshow: where you can movies
• Starlight Store: where you can buy items
• Volla: buy threads and furniture
• Dance Planet: where you can bust a move... is that an outdated saying?
• The Beach (for residents only... I'll get into that in a bit)
• Otto: Furniture, clothing... vehicles? SWEET! I didn't know they had vehicles!
• The Pier is more fun and games-ish. It has:
• Skyscope, where you can view downerworld (earth). 
• Snaps: where you can take pictures of yourself.
• Splatterbox: where you can create a huge mess and call it art
• Poker Cabana: where you play... well, poker.
• Critter Derby: where you select a critter and hope like hell it runs faster than the rest.
• Soho is, uh... Soho. It has:
• Elevated Design: formal wear and fancy stuffs
• Bejeweled: where you buy jewelry and power ups (they increase your flow boost)
• Lady King: furniture and clothes shop
• Soho Salon: buy... hair?
• Catwalk: Where you vote on photo and fashion show contests
• Electric Avenue is the party place!
• Flo's Diner: where you can waitress or just enjoy virtually eating virtual food.
• Garage: where you can pretend to be in a band.
• Blue Cow: furniture and clothing shop
• Skin Deep: it says "get your ink on". Tattoo and all that cool stuff.
• Rock n Roll: you go shoot pool
• Crews Control is where you set up your "crew" (AKA gang lol, just kidding)
• Wonderland is a mystical land
• Cake Mania: you can make and eat cakes.
• Encahntments: buy fury friends to fly around you all day
• Sugar Star: buy furniture and clothing
• Nevermore is dark and scary, kind of like my basement.
• Midnight Cafe where you can buy spooky treats!
• Skeleton Key is a shop for clothes and furniture
• Skeleton Key Dungeon (for residents only... I have no idea what's in there)
• Beat Street is basketball themed and there is only one shop.
• Ani where you can buy clothes and furniture.

Games on ourWorld

If I tried to list all the games on ourWorld, I'd be here until the middle of January... so let's just say, there are TONS of games to play! Whatever you like to play; puzzle, arcade, matching, strategy or action, I am SURE you will find something you like.

Becoming a resident on ourWorld

I couldn't become a resident because I am broke, but if you want to skip the ads, you can become a resident. As a resident, you get extra gems each month (on the monthly plan), access to the residents only area (like the beach), a mondo condo (and exclusive items for your condo every month) and 2x more flow. If I ever get to be a resident, I'll update what it's like. Also, Miles just told me that the resident jackpot, in Prize Central, will win you gems instead of coins (awesome, since I didn't even know there was a jackpot!) I went and looked in Prize Central, YUP, there is a jackpot!

For rating ourWorld

10 out of 10 all the way across the board! This online game is the best of the best and my personal favorite! It has a little something for everyone and is totally kid friendly too!  It was designed for kids... I'm a kid at heart :) 

Miles agrees with my rating.

There is so much to do and it is so much fun that all I can say is GO PLAY! While you are at it, add me as a friend. I am BlogWriter... Shameless plug there.

Update: Question: Can you buy coins with real money?

FREE Video Game Week: Need for Speed World

For our first game, Miles picked Need for Speed World. You sign up (which is very easy) and download the game. Then log-in and pick your car and driver. You can practice driving first, which I highly suggest, and then join races or do an outlaw race where you run from the police and try not to get busted before the finish line.

Need for Speed World controls
I practiced driving around using the keyboard and then an xbox controller. I have to say, the xbox controller is MUCH easier for me to steer. It took me a couple hours to get comfortable driving around at full speed without crashing into every obstacle in my path (and to my sides).

There are a lot of keys on the keyboard that you use also. H is the safe house, E... uh, I forgot already, one of the keys looks behind you, another gives you a different view. It's pretty easy once you learn all this. There is a How to Play guide. I guess I could have started out by reading that, but where is the fun in that?

Need for Speed World Pros
Of course, being free is a huge bonus.

I also really enjoyed the different maps and routes. Huge blue blinking arrows point the way you need to go on your course rather than just guessing how you are supposed to find the finish line.

When you get busted in the police chase, you can respawn three times before you are out of the game, which is nice. If it weren't for the three respawns, I wouldn't have made it very far.

You can decorate your car, add power-ups, different colored paint and vinyl decals to your car for ultimate coolness.

If you are first to third in a race, you can pick from five different winning cards (gold, silver and bronze depending on your place) which gives you added bonuses for the game.

You can add friends that you meet on the game and teleport to them when they are online. That was a lot easier than spending 20 minutes going "What landmarks are you near? What do you mean the dinosaur? Where is the dinosaur? What building? What blinking lights building with the arch? Are we on the same map?"

Need for Speed World Cons
Police chases turn my language to rather colorful and offensive language.

Racing actually makes my blood pressure rise!

But seriously. the biggest down side to Need for Speed World that I found was, depending on your computers performance, the server you are on and the number of players online at a time, you can experience a lot of lag which throws the control of your car. I had a few issues with it when I was trying to turn. By the time the server/computer caught up with my controls, I was plowing through street signs, cars and into walls rather than smoothly sailing through the police barricade. Playing on Miles' computer I did MUCH better!

If you want a cool decal or a pricier paint, you need to level up first. The higher the level, the cooler pricier things you can buy. This isn't a huge con, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Need for Speed World Rating (out of 10 stars)

1. Overall rating: 9 out of 10 stars (the lag pissed me off)
2. Game play: 9 out of 10 stars (see comment above)
3. Controls: 9 out of 10 Once I knew what I was doing driving was easy. But there are a lot of keys to press for different things. I highly suggest reading "How to Play".
4. Fun factor: 100 out of 10... oh, darn, my rating system doesn't go that high!
5. Kid friendly? Well, I think so. I didn't see anything that would make me gasp in horror. Unless running from the police offends you, I think it could be a fun family game for... oh, maybe 10 and up... unless their sign up has an age (I didn't notice one)

Teenager Review of Need for Speed World


Dotchi: So Miles, what do you like best about Need for Speed World?

Miles: I would say the intense police chases and the wide variety of cars.

Dotchi: Cool. What do you suggest to new players who have never played before?

Miles: First, figure out if you are better at keyboard or xbox controller, that's if they have one, of course. And then, I would start driving around at a slow pace so you can get used to it and learn the map.

Dotchi: So, how did I do learning to play?

Miles: The first six hours? Or the last six hours?

Dotchi: *blush* uh, erm, uh... both...

Miles: In the beginning, you started out like most people, slamming into everything. After a few hours of driving around and getting used to the controls, you weren't bad. In the end, you were right on my tail, along with the cops. And holy cow, I didn't know there were that many cuss words!

Dotchi: ON TO the next topic! How would you rate Need for Speed World?

Miles: Overall rating, I would give it about an 8 out of 10. It's a free game but you can't expect too much from it because you didn't pay for it. If you do pay for it, you pay for it knowing the quality of the game.

Dotchi: How about game play?

Miles: Game play is good. I'd give it about a 7 out of 10 because you can't rotate all the way around your car. They took that out a few months back. It's just like any other Need for Speed if you are using a controller. If you are using the keyboard, it can be a little difficult.

Dotchi: That's an understatement.

Miles: BAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Lando Kitten: Meow

Dotchi: Hush kitty. How about fun factor?

Miles: I'd give it a 10 out of 10. I personally like racing games so I find it to be very fun.

Dotchi: I like that answer. Do you think it's kid friendly?

Miles: Oh yea, very. That's assuming their parents don't mind them running from an automated police officer.

Dotchi: Cool, thanks. Anything else you want to add?

Miles: This game is actually a very demanding game for a computer. It's hard on your video card and CPU so you'll want to check on the gaming specs..

So there you have it. The teenagers point of view.

The San Diego County Fair

Yesterday morning we woke up bright and early (read as "7 am") to head out to the San Diego County Fair. The first thing we did was BREAKFAST at Perry's Cafe, which is REALLY tasty. Good prices too.

Then we headed to the Del Mar Fairgrounds. We parked at the horse farm area, although I can't tell you how to get to it because I am really bad with directions and I couldn't find it online. We road a Double Decker Bus to the fairgrounds where we entered.

After getting through the line, the bag check and the metal detectors we had our tickets scanned. I figured that if I have to pay to get in the fair, then I am NOT paying for the overpriced drinks, so we brought our own to start with. I didn't buy too many drinks after that because I am NOT paying $2.75 for 20 ounces of soda. That's just ridiculous!

We went through all the shopping areas which really resembled a Flea Market, and I ended up buying a bag to carry my stuff in. It was reasonably priced ($7.95). But some of the item prices were outrageous! Tank tops for $89? No thank you! We did find some good deals, like the $9.95 skirts. There was a room with jacuzzi, windows and stuff like that. Then there were some pretty darned cool exhibits that I got sucked into like they were black holes. Especially the rocks, gems, jewels and fossils exhibit. THAT was cool.

We ate an overpriced lunch. Food should not be that expensive. Chicken on a stick was $4. And a paper plate with chow mein noodles was $5.43. I figured they made a killing off the chow mein noodles. It wasn't really chow mein noodles either. It was more like oodles of noodles, complete with oversalting, with a few veggies thrown on top. Each packet costs me .16 at the store (for name brand) and the veggies couldn't have been more than .10 worth. The pizza looked better than that. My tongue still burns from all that salt. But I paid $5.43 for it so I felt REALLY bad letting it go to waste. It wasn't horrible, but it was horribly salty!

After that we headed to the booth for $30 all day wrist bands. Apparently this is only on special days. The rides were okay. The kids had fun. But some were pretty lame. I bought tickets for myself rather than the wrist band. Individual tickets were .75 each. I bought 14 tickets for $10 (71 cent each). Most rides are 4-6 tickets each.

Sorry to report this, but a lot these rides are not worth the $4.50 (at most) you spend to get the tickets. The "haunted house" was so non-scary. I nearly died from laughter rather than fright. It wasn't sealed well either so there was light streaming in from the cracked and you could see the whole set up.

One ride I went on with Mendel 2.0 had me asking "that was it?" at te end of it. We sat down (after paying 5 tickets) in a little "car" type thing. It went up a ramp and curved through the doors so we went out onto a balcony and could see everyone down below. So far there was nothing interesting except the doors we went through. It wnt across the balcony, into another door and down to the exiting ramp where we stopped and got off. That was it. The spinning bears were more entertaining. This thing was BORING! What a waste of money.

There were some rides that were fun. Bumper Cars, of course, a roller coaster, tilt a whirl, the vortex ride... all the classics.

We ended up leaving about 6 pm and drove back to Coronado and ate dinner at KFC Taco Hut (which is KFC, taco bell and pizza hut combined). Then we went to the movies and watched Spiderman 3. I LOVED IT!

By the time I went to bed, I couldn't stay awake long enough to finish telling my hubby about the day.

Next year, I think we'll just save up and go to Knott's Berry Farm. Afterall, if we are going to waste our hard earned money, we might as well spend it on something that is worth it. Lake Winnie was more fun than this and it's about the same as far as quality goes.