DS4 also loves how it's made (he sometimes asks for "how it's made or how it's made type shows"). But his absolute favorite kid show is scooby doo. He likes fetch with ruff ruffman too. I think I liked upside down show more than DS4 (except for the schmuzzies) - must be my loose screws!

Too bad all our kids are spread so far apart - seems like there could be a lot of good friendships among them. They certainly would have plenty to talk about.

I know!

(And BTW, I love the UD Show! I KNOW I have loose screws. I think I also like WordGirl more than my kids do. I laugh out loud at every episode!)

I want to do that one too. But, what is Civilization 4? And, where will your time line start? Dinosaurs? 5000BC?

Mine loves RuffRuffman and has decided to be a contestant in 2 years.

Sorry, squirt. You came in mid-conversation there, through no fault of your own.

It's a video game I am utterly addicted to and cruelly recommended to others here. It's about building and defending and expanding the empire of your choice. It contains the potential for less warfare than most of those sorts of games if you want to go that route. As the war is my least favorite part of most video games but I love the building, it's by far my favorite video game and has been for nearly 20 years now!

Sad, really...

Belle, that is a HOOT!!

You guys should look up Tufte.

http://books.google.com/books?as_auth=Edward+R+Tufte

Kriston,

I just saw your post about Civilization 4. We love that game in our house!! DS8 has been addicted to it for nearly three years now. He gets so absorbed keeping track of all the cities and the projects that they are building. And I admit, it is fun to mount an attack on your neighboring countries (and learn when not to too!) and understand the art of negotiations, diplomacy, and alliances. It is great at explaining playground mentality when everyone unifies to block the aggressor! I happen to love Alpha Centauri more (which is very similar), but that is the Sci-Fi fan in me. How fun to find someone else who loves it!!

The saddest part is that I've been playing for as long as I have and I still prefer the "Warlord" level the best. Shouldn't I be kicking rear on the really high-hard difficulty levels by now?

Ah, well...

Anyway, glad to have another fan around!

My DW got Age of Empires from someone.

She stayed up all night playing it.

I looked over at her when she started at 5pm and it was all stick figures making fire and building mud huts.

How quaint.

When I got up at 9am, she was maniacally laughing. She had these giant siege engines and was smashing little mud huts with them while switching around on the board so fast - fighting three other empires - with legions of siege engines!!!

Now I am afraid.

OK do this programs run on a Mac?

No idea. Sorry, Dazey. I'm a PC user, so that's all I know about.

Both AoE and Civ are pretty major games, so I'd bet there's a good chance there's a Mac version. But you'd have to google it to know for sure.