The Madness Spreads

Oh-oh. A friend has reintroduced me to Sudoku.

Back in the 80s, I used to get a magazine called “GAMES”. It consisted of crossword puzzles, word games, pictures puzzles etc. It was lots of fun, and kept my mind sharp.
My favorite was the ‘cryptic crossword’. The clues required you to think and sort through word puns/anagrams.
Two examples < Snake stop on pavement; answer < asphalt.
Ointment, use with top removed; answer < unction.
Anyway, there was an obscure puzzle then called a Sudoku. I had forgotten the point – to arrange 1-9 in each box so that there are no repeating numbers up or down and each row and column has 1 through 9 in it. I found it amusing but not as fun as cryptic crosswords.
Last weekend, friend Douglas came to town to hike and find bugs/butterflies in the hot Arizona summer. A bit crazy, but it is his passion. Another of his passions is Sudoku. He refreshed me on how to do them – worse, he showed me where to go online to get free games; millions of them. Now the compulsion starts.
I am not doing as well as when I was 20. I hope this from lack of practice and not a sign of cognitive decline. I do the easy ones for now.
Give them a try, but I warn you they suck up a lot of time and energy. http://www.websudoku.com/