About 3 weeks ago, my 14-year old son had his own PC, which is now installed in his room, at the first floor in our house. 14 years is also the age where kids listen to the radio all day long. And he likes hard-rock.

So how do we, parents, call our kid when it's dinner time? "Standard" parents have two solutions: yell out, hoping to be stronger than hard rock and video game sounds combined, or climb the stairs up to the room.

I have a third solution: instant messaging! And it's far more efficient than the two other solutions as a window pops up right in front of his nose, stopping the game and catching his attention, whereas "physical intrusion" in the room leads to groans and moans.

Funny to use two computers and relay servers somewhere in the distant world to call my kid for dinner :-)