(Warning: This post is about video-games. If you are past a certain age, lacking in basic hand-eye co-ordination or still associate the subject matter with reprehensible pursuits for children who would be better off with a good book... look away now)

I'm lucky enough to be of a certain age. Specifically, an age that's about as young as it's possible to be and still have played the very earliest video-games as they emerged. (I'm not counting anything that required setup with a collection of cards with holes punched in them). No surprise then that I've been an avid follower of the games industry all my life, and still find a few minutes every now and then to find joy in the best of the industry's output. And, let's be clear - it's an industry characterised by a lot of samey, unoriginal dross. Which is why chancing on the occasional thing of beauty brings such excitement.

Ten years ago, I came across one such example - a game called Rez for the PS2 and Dreamcast. A game that wrapped the music into the gameplay in such an involving, hypnotic way that you couldn't help but be be entranced by it. When I sold the PS2 with all its games a few years later, I kept Rez back - and eventually sold it for £20, rather more than I paid for it: It had a huge cult following, despite limited success. You can download it on the Xbox 360 for a few quid and I recommend you do, just to get a flavour of the history to a game I picked up this weekend...

In an idle moment last week, after a frenetic round of Kinect Football with the girls, I googled around to see what were held to be the best Kinect games. And my Googling turned up a game I've never heard of before: Child of Eden. When I realised it came from the same stable - indeed, the same designer, Tetsuya Mizuguchi - I had to give it a whirl. Cost all of £11.

It's like Rez. But more beautiful, more hypnotic and more involving, primarily because of the perfect Kinect integration. Once you get the hang of it, you're totally lost in it: It feels like conducting a universe. An utterly absorbing and joyous experience, which is not a description I can imagine fitting many other video games. Abby and I fought for controller rights all evening, until I had to pull the 'I'm afraid it's bedtime - school tomorrow!' card on her.

Here she is. First go, so not really worked it out. She and I got really good over the next three hours...

For the sake of completeness, the original trailer:

So, if you're wondering if there's more to Kinect than cutesie sports and 'keep fit in your living room' nonsense, I suggest you go and invest some small change: You could spend £11 on LSD for a much less satisfying mind-altering experience....

Or, to expand the acronym, the Massive Open Online Course. Which, as a concept, seems to turn up somewhere in my more generalised (but somewhat technically focused) consumption of RSS feeds on a daily basis. And an article in yesterday's Guardian finally made up my mind for me: I need to find out what all the fuss is about and dust off the collection of brain cells devoted to academic study.

So, starting in March, I will be absorbing myself for a few hours every week in 'Leading Strategic Innovation in Organizations', under the expert tutelage of David A Owens, PhD, Professor of the Practice of Management and Innovation at Vanderbilt’s Graduate School of Management. It's a short course, has a lot of relevance to what I am currently doing at work and seems a perfect opportunity to test out the concept. I am rather excited about the whole affair.

Abby's Valentine's Day baking wasn't driven entirely out of a love of culinary creation... She took her efforts to school... and so did everyone else. The school mixed them up and flogged them back to the children blind, a mixed plate for a quid. The children bring them home and stuff themselves with their variety cake selection and the PTA makes a load of dosh.  So no losers in that equation then. Oh, hang on...

Whoever brought in the poly-encased 'Madeleine D'Armor': D-Minus, Must Try Harder. You could at least have unwrapped them and attempted to  wing it...

She's a cake fiend. Any excuse. 'Oh, it's Valentines Day? I'd better get baking...'

Is rather more regular than just Shrove Tuesday in this household. Because I make the MOST EXCELLENT pancakes. And I like to eat my MOST EXCELLENT pancakes. They were the second bit of proper cooking that my Mum taught me (after a classic French Omelette), following which they became a routine after-school snack. If I was at home on my own, lunch prep quite often extended to knocking up half a pint of batter and then seeing if I could get more than eight pancakes out of it.

It appears that this crepe-predilection is genetically transmitted. Today, the girls had pancakes at school. And then they had pancakes after school, courtesy of Janet, who picks them up on Tuesdays. When Abby arrived home from gym, the first thing she said to me when I opened the door was 'Have you started the pancakes yet?' This, after enduring an hour of pancake whingeing from Hatty... ('Why does Abby have to be home first? Why can't I have my pancakes now? It's not fair etc etc').

So - they each had four like this...

And then GASPED in horror when they realised I was putting the empty batter jug in the dishwasher.  Because IT IS NOT EMPTY DADDY. There is still AT LEAST one pancake to be coaxed from the last few drops.

And they made me cook this.

They cut it in half. To share. DROWNED in maple syrup. And then they ARGUED about WHOSE HALF WAS BIGGEST.