Almost as addictive as blogging

Back in January, three seemingly separate events occured that have altered my life. First, I went back to work after a year of maternity leave with Simon. Second, I started blog. And third, a new free daily tabloid called Metro was launched in Ottawa, where I discovered the ridiculously addictive Soduko puzzle.

What do all these things have in common? Well mostly they make unreasonable demands of my time and my brainpower, both of which are in exceedingly short supply. And yet, all three are strangely fulfilling.

You know about work, you know about blog – but do you know about Soduko? They are devilishly simple – but evil.
Each row or column of the whole puzzle has the numbers one through nine only once, and each smaller grid of nine squares also has the numbers one through nine only once. Using the givens (the preprinted numbers), simply fill in the rest of the puzzle. I copied this one from Wikipedia, which has a boring and longwinded history of the Soduko that does not do justice to how evil or addictive it is.

Although they’ve been around for years, Soduko puzzles are just now beginning their bid for world domination. Brits have gone gaga for them since they’ve been appearing in the daily papers, starting right about the same time I got hooked from the Metro. If you Google “Soduko” you can get all sorts of places to play online, most of which are forbidden by the productivity filter on my computer. Bah!

Being a wordy kind of girl I always liked the idea of crossword puzzles, but I continue to be not very good at them. Soduko are both more satisfying and more addictive. Apparently there are much more complex ones that have more than one solution, but I’m happy to be clever enough to solve the regular ones in five or ten minutes – the average length of my attention span most days anyway.

Have you tried them? Betcha can’t stop at one! Now excuse me while I go sharpen my pencil and get to Soduko – er, I mean, work.

Author: DaniGirl

Canadian. storyteller, photographer, mom to 3. Professional dilettante.

8 thoughts on “Almost as addictive as blogging”

  1. I have seen people all over the place playing this puzzle. The first place I saw it? A mother playing it all summer long every day while her 3 year old daughter was (ahem) in swimming lessons!
    I love crossword puzzles, did at least a gazillion while on bedrest. Wish I had the time again. I really need to go back to work f/t in order to appreciate all the big kid things in life, don’t I?

  2. seen people in Europe doing these this summer, looks like something I’d get totally addicted to!
    as for crossword puzzles, as a pre-teen, a friend and I would buy identical small crossword booklets from the pharmacy and have contests on who would finish them first!!
    but my true addiction, ahem, total mindless passtime, is the connect-the-dots thingys in kids coloring books…I just can’t resist them, drives my kids bonkers ๐Ÿ™

  3. hehe… i’ve seen people in the train to and from work racking their brains on these… i haven’t the patience for them myself, i’m far too busy falling asleep ๐Ÿ˜‰

  4. yes, I’ve tried Soduko, and have also gotten addicted to Set. It’s a card game but also has an online daily puzzle. Again, highly addictive.

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