Maybe it's because I'm feeling the lack of being able to play 1v100. I *love* that game. You get online with a lot of other people and play a trivia game. It's not like watching a game on television where you might be sitting in your chair shouting out an answer to the people who are standing next to the moderator, but you are outside looking in. With the Xbox360, you are playing WITH everyone and part of the action. I don't know when they will start the new season but it was a very relaxing activity to do at night.

I'd like to play some other games, and the ones that interest me most are the puzzle or logic games, like Bejewelled. There are a LOT of actioni and adventure games, but they seem to be targeted towards men. We saw one last night that was about collecting booty and showed a pirate looking guy with a woman at his rear-the subtext, obviously, was that she was part of the booty he would collect while he was out plundering. I"m not interested in all the ones that sound like war games (Call of Duty) or zombie games or car racing games. I thought I would try out one of the role playing games, Dragons something or other, and thought the city elf character sounded good-but if you're a female city elf, you have to deal with RAPE. And one of the other characters that's a city elf DOES get raped. Please. Why should rape even be an option in this game? Really decided me against playing it at all, although hub told me, you know before you pick the character that rape will be involved. And I could choose another stacked Barbie looking character wearing skimpy clothes while the men are dressed warmly and properly (heh). Anyway, I lost my enthusiasm for playing that game.

I saw Portal, which is, I think part of Half Life. I don't quite understand how it works yet but then again, i haven't tried to play it yet. It looks pretty interesting and I'd sure like to blast holes in walls!

Last night, hub started to play Monopoly online. The graphics are terrific. I was doing something else so wasn't in the mood to play (plus it takes hours, of course, to build up your empire). I did sit down for a bit to watch and that little Mr Potter banker trotted along every time the dice was thrown and the marker moved, and he has  to say something every single time. The sayings were either sort of clever remarks or comments on you buying hotels or information that you would otherwise have had to read the box lid (if you had the cardboard game) to read. There is apparently no way to shut the little man off or mute him-he's part of the game. It's like having a little chatty insufferable person following you around incessantly and telling you stuff but not being able to say STFU. If you were playing with actual people, you'd look the person sitting next to you in the eye and say "Listen. I can read the instructions as well as you and I DID NOT ASK. BE QUIET or let's talk about something else". But not so with Mr P. Also, maybe I'm dense but I never thought passing go and collecting $200 was a salary but more a reward for having made it around the board. So, anyway, I'm not a huge monopoly player, I prefer games like Tripoly or Hearts, etc, oldfashioned card games but with REAL people where your hands actually touch cards and you can look your friends in the eye, etc. Suggestion if the Monopoly online people ever stumble across this- how about an option to turn OFF that dang banker and keep him in a cage somewhere instead of him, stalker-like following people around the board to yammer on about what they're doing?

We do like Rock Band and Lips. And I got Dance Dance Revolution although I admit I only did it once so far.

I don't want to play a game that is *for girls*. It's like all the marketing that gets done for girls and the colors are always these very bright, almost fluorescent pink and purple colors. I saw Dell Computers a year or so ago was selling a computer For Females and it was pink (Shades of Legally Blonde!) . But I also don't want to play a game that is *for guys* where violence is the meme and rape is the situation you have to avoid.

Are you a female? What do you play? Why? Or Why Not?