Never being one to leave well enough alone, I have some more challenging, brain-stimulating Internet fun that I hope you will enjoy. Kick that gray matter back in gear; you will need it when you tackle some of these sites.

How about a maze or two to start with? (www.clickmazes.com) offers Web-based interactive puzzles and mazes. This site has been stumping surfers since 1997. and, if you enjoy mazes, this is your Web spot. The home page offers over 20 types of mazes. The Plank Puzzles are fun, as you try to find a route across a crocodile-infested swamp with only a handful of, often, too-short planks. Fortunately, the planks are light, and old tree stumps in the swamp will support the boards to serve as temporary bridges. By planning carefully and re-using the planks, you can find your way across the swamp.

Moving up in the world of mazes, you may want to try the 3-D tilt mazes in which you use three layers that tilt, causing a slide/roll motion, and are interlinked with lift and drop points. One maze looked especially easy until I realized that left turns are not allowed.

Another fun maze is (gttp://home.att.net/~robtabbott/sliding.html), in which you start as a black dot trapped at the bottom of the maze. Whenever you move the black dot over a colored dot, the gate of that color will shift in the direction indicated on the dot. Better have a strategy about which way you want those doors to slide, or you will never get through.

Have we sparked your maze- and problem-solving interests? Want to find out if you are Mensa material? Mensa was founded in England in 1946 as a society for bright people; the only qualification for membership was a high IQ. The society welcomes people from every walk of life whose IQ is in the top 2 percent of the population. Want to find out if you might be Mensa-minded? There is a Mensa Web site that offers a test of your mental capabilities. (www.mensa.org/workout2.html) challenges you with 30 questions to be answered in 30 minutes— - that is one per minute. (See what a good puzzle solver I am?) In response to the first question, “Sally likes 225 but not 224, she likes 900 but not 800, she likes 144 but not 145, which does she like — 1600 or 1700?” (I’ll give you a hint: don’t be a “square” about this.) I spent more than a minute on that one. How about you?

You are not going to believe your eyes, and you shouldn’t — or maybe you should. At the (http://www.eyetricks.com/illusions.htm), you can enjoy many illusion puzzles. (Beware: Although I loved the illusions at the site, I found the animated ads quite aggravating.) Don’t forget, while you are tackling these illusions, that your gray matter is getting a beneficial workout. Illusions are a way to look at how the brain works; illusions reveal hidden constraints of the visual system in a way that normal perception fails to do. We continue to be fascinated by illusions because they combine both the element of joy, as well as, the element of surprise.

Puzzles, riddles, mazes, Mensa, and illusions. Did you know there was so much to entertain you on the Internet — and stimulate your mind at the same time?