I'll see you in the Magz Arena.

An XKCD comic I read once said that no matter how complicated video games get, they'll never be able to compete with the simple pleasure of flash games, and that's a point I keep making to The Boy -- simple video games are addictively fun; they seem so easy to master and yet you never ever ever quite do that.

I think I finally proved my point to The Boy with Mega's MagNext , a virtual community/video game that has all the simple, addictive pleasures of a great video game -- games that can be enjoyed by little kids or adults.

Sign-up is easy, and once in, there are games to play and "Magz" to collect by playing -- the "Magz" can be traded to upgrade your avatar so that you get more out of the game than before.

It's supposed to, I guess, be aimed at littler kids, but I checked it out and got all caught up in playing a game against a challenger called "Lethal," and even found myself some extra charge up packs -- and while I lost, I think I did good enough to claim that I'm going to be the next world champion of the game.

And now I can spend my day practicing, then come home and challenge The Boy to compete-- whooping him good. Unfair? Maybe. Good parenting? Probably.

You should go sign up, too -- and look for "Troublewithroy" there. Send me a challenge and we'll see whether you can stand up to my ferocious gaming skills. I'm betting you can't.