20Q & Nintendo DS

Two other wildly popular items at my house this Christmas were Nintendo DS and the 20Q.

Nintendo DS is a personal video game system....my kids each got one for Christmas in 2006, but this year I got one from my Dad.

Nintendo DS is rising in popularity among adults. I personally know five adults who own one. They have created a number of games for it that appeal to many grownups - Brain Age 1 and 2, Brain Academy, New York Times Crossword Puzzles, etc...

I got my DS just before Christmas and for the kids and I purchased the My French Coach game for it. Both of my kids are in french immersion at school (they receive half of their teaching in english and half in french) and I would like to improve my French. So far, it's working!

I also really love the game Picross, and like to play against others with it, online.

20Q is an electronic "20 Questions" game. My kids were asking for it and I was dubious as to how much entertainment value it would have...however they got me to play with it in a store one day and I started to realize it was pretty fun.

What really surprised me, however, is how much my husband Kevin loves the 20Q game! Christmas Day I must have heard him say, well over a dozen times "I'm just going to play one more time."

Even today he's told me he's played it eight times so far (I suspect more! :-)).

You basically think of something and the game has to guess what you are thinking of. We have tried to stump it and have succeeded a few times (it guessed a "basketball" when we were thinking "globe"; "a grain of sand" when I was thinking of a pebble"; and "nightmare" when we were thinking "poverty" (well, in a way it could be right!)).

However, the vast majority of the time, the game guesses correctly and has successfully identified such things as an amoeba, a sea cucumber, and a parasite.

Yes, we are a family that loves gadgets and gizmos, it seems!