Addicted

At various times throughout my life I've been something of a word search and crossword puzzle junkie, but I've wisely steered away from sudoku because I knew it would be nothing but bad news for me. I even became a snob about it, and whenever anyone I knew told me about their sudoku addiction, I secretly looked down on them for wasting their time with such silliness.

But the era of my sudoku snobiness has ended; replaced by one of maniacal obsession. Now I stare at the ceiling at night trying to formulate sudoku strategies. I see 9x9 grids wherever I look.

The culprit is the "Sudoku Gridmaster" DS game, which has me so addicted to it I've got track marks on my wrists. Packed with more than 400 puzzles, the game does away with the need for pencils and erasers. It times you and rates your performance out of 4 stars on each puzzle (the irony - the critic is now humiliated by the very system he uses to vilify the work of others). Now nothing in life matters more to me than pleasing the tiny microchip sudoku judge that lives inside the game cartridge, and I'm sure I'll never get anything accomplished in my life again.