Every day I get invites on Facebook to participate in different online games. Farmville, Hidden Chronicles, and I don't what all. But I never play. Games just aren't my cuppa. Nothing is wrong with them. In fact, I have family members who are big gamers. I'm already pressed for time (who isn't, right?), so I can't take a break and learn how to play even if I wanted to do so.

That said, I can see how many dedicated gamers there are, and how much delight they derive from playing their games. So, in my scouting around to create new characters to populate my novels, I'll probably turn to creating a gamer in a future title. Maybe a twentysomething who gets turned on by playing computer games. So, I'll add him or her to my mental list of book characters.

Handheld games have always enthralled folks. Remember the private detective (Dana Andrews) in the film noir LAURA (made in 1944 well before I was born) who played the bead game where you try to roll around the bead and fit it in a tiny hole. Then again, I'll also watch or listen to a baseball game for three hours straight which isn't different timewise to online gaming. Different strokes, hey.