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For Christmas I do gift bags for my friends and the cast, and I put 'treat yo self' key chains in there. And people send me pictures of 'treat yo self' all the time.

Once you find out that someone likes a certain game on Facebook, now you know what kind of virtual gift you can get them. You can send them a little decoration. Social games give you goals where you can help and reward your friends.

Once a teen has been identified as part of the 'target market,' he knows he's done for. The object of the game is to confound the marketers, and keep one's own, authentic culture from showing up at the shopping mall as a prepackaged corporate product.

Foursquare's adoption of a game dynamic when it launched is a particularly clever implementation of a social hook.

My kids download 10 games. They play them all for two minutes. They throw away the eight they don't like. Then they play those last two obsessively for a month. That's alien to those of us who buy a $60 game and play it for 40 or 50 hours. The discovery mechanism is completely social, and I don't think you get that genie back in the bottle.

At the end of the week, my husband and I do a leftovers dinner, where we have to use whatever's in the fridge. It's sort of a game.

Lunch is usually a salad or a sandwich. If I'm on set, I'll have catering, but I'm well behaved with that stuff. It's easy to go crazy - they know how to feed you.

Playing with friends is a victory.

There's so many kids who only know me from the video game. And they want to know if I'm home - and if I have a video game I can give them on Halloween. And sometimes they're surprised to learn there actually is a 'Madden.'

When I do entertain, in the summer, which is rare, I receive my guests on the front porch, set up wicker trays found at Pottery Barn, and serve iced beverages. Anytime I do welcome friends, it's always a tray of canapes or Planters peanuts, jellied candy from Paris, and a good bottle of Sancerre.