When I think up a cool idea, in this case "wouldn't it be cool to play the same sudoku puzzle vs someone else over the interent," it's always sort of neat when a quick search turns up exactly that...

Sudoku Combat

Here's some advice, applicable to sudoku (and even more important when trying to solve fast), but equally applicable to other games and life in general: Certainty is important, but keeping track of what you aren't certain about is even more important. Solving a sudoku puzzle quickly often involves some trial and error, the key is to remember which fields you are certain of so that your guesses don't cause you to second guess your foundation of certainty.

when solving a puzzle in pen on paper, I do all the guesswork in my head, and follow it through until I run into an impossiblitiy, but when playing head to head it's actually rather intimidating to see a bunch of squares fill in quickly, so I often actually play my guesses through, but then, like I said, you have to keep track in your mind which squares are your guesses and which are logical certainties.

I woke up this morning and wrote. Ideas into words into the computer. Sentences. Paragraphs. Punctuation. The whole deal. It's exhilirating. This will actually be a story, and I'm the ABSOLUTE first person in all of existence to read it. I guess that's one of the rushes a writer can drive themselves with.

And in other news, NOVICA hit 30000 feedback score on eBay last night.

listening to a party shuffle of Cake, RHCP, Tegan and Sara, Franz Ferdinand, Depeche Mode, Postal Service, Death Cab For Cutie, and recent smash mixes.