Fun math apps for kids are a rarity so I was glad to have found My First Weighing Exercises.

It offers 3 levels of difficulty.

And the option to measure according to g or oz.

Basically you need to match the weight of the fruit and the weights with a selection of only 3 of the opposite kind.

I like that there is no time limit (unlike other games which don’t allow a child to think long enough) and you can put the weights (or fruits) back if need be.

It is not a competition, just a fun learning exercise. No reward stickers or charts. Just good old fashioned free play. Play because it is fun, not just to earn points or rewards (IMHO, the worst kind of programming for a child).

It has become one of Jack’s favourite games to play with his Dad or me, and he learns something to boot.

It is cute, teaches anatomy in a fun and positive way, and it is beauty in its simplicity.

Jack loves it and loves showing it to everyone. He started playing it when he was 3 and even now at almost 4 he still plays it.

Here are some screenshots:

Press New Game and the bones collapse. Jack finds this incredibly amusing and keeps showing it to everyone.

Go get it already.

She can watch the movie of the bees flying about forever, accompanied by the familiar music of a Beethoven classic.

And when she is older she can start reading the book which helps small children count and read words like Jack did.

It is a really one of the best apps for babies out there.

1. Plant as many Sunflowers as you can. This is number one priority.

2. Get your Shooters out as fast as you can.

3. Have a line of defence, like these purple Biters.

4. Make sure you always have a backup plan like a cherry.

The premise is simple: grow sunflowers to collect sunlight points to plant plants with special abilities which can stop zombies of varying talents from reaching your house.

The hook is after each round, you get a new plant. So the game is always fresh and familiar and you get to keep readjusting your strategy. And just when you are getting bored, the scene changes. Some bonus rounds are added in to up the ante.

My husband who is a huge DOTA fan, son, and I were seriously addicted. And it was all good fun.

Psst… Below is a screenshot with my fave pool round strategy.

This time I had more at stake. I just hit level 60 and could not earn any more XP if I didn’t upgrade. Heck, I did want to continue and check out Outlands. So back to the upgrading screen I went.

And for 4 credit cards I got the same irritating error message that the credit card wasn’t working.

I went to the Blizzard forums and finally found the answer.

Of all things, it is a form error! The system appears to have been configured to accept only US postal codes with 4 digits only, so obviously my 6 digit one would cause an error.

The solution: Type in 4 numbers in the Postal Code field.

And voila! Blizzard earned another 30 bucks from me and I upgraded instantly to TBC.

Apparently a lot of people experience this error. Blizzard should really fix this very simple bug that is costing them tons of upgrade income. Would take 5 seconds to simply correct it.

Patch 3.3 really made soloing much easier with their new quest tracking system with in-built map and for some reason, my rogue seems more powerful as a solo character (either that or playing it for the past 4 years has made me a better player).

Have hit level 58 (finally!) and looking forward to heading to Outlands.

In other news, I got my grubby paws on an iPhone 3GS 32GB! Yes, I decided to get it instead of a Nokia N86 after many camera tests using a friend’s iPhone 3GS helped me decide that its super shutter speed plus its numerous apps make it a more useful device overall for me. And indeed it has proven me right. Will post some pics soon.

Day 1: By the time everything was patched it was 3am. I logged on, admired my dragon whelpling, dismayed at having to redo my talent tree, gawked at my inventory and quest list, and logged off to sleep.

Day 2: Fell asleep while nursing kids.

Day 3: Managed to sneak in one hour in the afternoon when baby was asleep and played while my 3.5 year old Jack watched, turning it into a lesson on battle strategy and when to vanish and run when outnumbered in battle. Night time Jack woke and stayed up from 1am-5am so no play.

Day 4: Patched 3.3. Yay! But they’re doing maintenance.

6 more days… With a ton of luck I might hit 60 finally (I am now 54, almost 55). But I highly doubt it at the rate I am going. Still… in the words of Barney Stinson, it is awesome.

But first came the patches. I wasn’t too far off since I last played in 2008, but still it took me 2 days of free time to properly patch the game before I clicked the “Claim!” button.

The thing I realised about WoW and Vista is that you need to either:

1. Download the patches then install them.

OR

2. Disable your firewall/defender program, login to WoW, then let it patch itself.

Any other way will just not work and flash that annoying “could not patch” message.

Patch 3.3 looks to be very casual-friendly, something players like me have been waiting for.

Today I logged on, claimed my anniversary present from Blizzard, the very cute Onyxia Brood Whelpling and in the mail was also a little Penguin from some mysterious person.

I was rather disoriented in Winterspring but it felt good to be back.

To me, the epitome of true gaming is Wii, which has really taken it to the next level with its incredibly realistic interactivity using its exceptionally creative game controllers. Wii is everything gaming should be in this digital age and more, but for its awful avatars on Wii Sports.

So far I have resisted the temptation to buy a Wii. It promises to be fun, exciting for the whole family, and very very distracting. My brother and sister have each gotten one for their own households already and so we’ve been ho-hum about it. I mean, if we really want to play, we can go there.

I told myself I would raise my kids sans TV and video games and I meant it, but already Jack is playing educational games on our iPod Touch (see, it has become ours now, not mine!) and he watches some telly at Grandma’s.

Still, when we finally do achieve the technology to create video games in the most realistic manner – to actually wield a sword or katana, and walk and jump in an RPG (tiring as it might seem), I will gladly surrender my free time to this inspired existence.