Admitting My Addiction

It's Sudoku. Okay, so it isn't crystal meth. I'm not that exciting!

I'm talking about the numbers puzzle Sudoku that has gone from being a Japanese phenomenon to gain worldwide stature. It's a 9 x 9 grid where the digits 1 through 9 can only appear once in every row, column, and nine separate 3 x 3 squares within the larger format. Aside from the print and web versions, there's even an Apple widget for it that I have in my dashboard.

The more numbers placed in the grid to start, the easier it is for the solver to figure it all out. It really is a matter of logic and perhaps my brain, trained for four years in the elegance of computer programming, is why I'm so good at doing them. For you programmers, it's a giant mix of nested "IF THEN ELSE" type logic statements. If it isn't this, and it isn't this, then it must be this.

When the local paper started running them on a daily basis, they had a contest for readers. I won $50, which did nothing but encourage me in my downward spiral into the grips of this nasty beast they call Sudoku. I guess acknowledging an addiction is the first step to overcoming it. So do they have a 12 Step Program for puzzle addicts?