No Friday Puzzle #25! Really?
Over this holiday weekend, I thought I would take a break from the usual Friday puzzle and instead reflect on the many things I am thankful for this year and make way for the things to come in the next.
I'm thankful for the New York Times for adding the somewhat popular logic puzzle Sudoku to their newspaper this year, which inspired me to new heights of puzzle construction.
I'm thankful for this past year's MIT Mystery Hunt, where after a longer time than expected people finally got to escape from Cambridge and return to the real world. Despite its flaws, it had a lot of phenomenal puzzles and allowed me to construct and solve with so many cool friends.
I'm thankful for the recent release of my book (with onigame) Asymmetric, Bland, Computer-generated: ABC Sudoku. Next year will see another great sudoku title with the same team.
I'm thankful for the last World Sudoku Championship I won, which occurred in Zilina. The puzzles there were at times incredible, even if some of the classics were way too hard.
I'm thankful for juno, the Nikoli author who writes the most incredible Mastermind puzzles using white and black circles that I have ever seen. And to the rest of Nikoli as well, because whoever is the author, I enjoy just about every challenge I get to solve from there.
I'm thankful that the TLSCBWSC led to the introduction of many new puzzle-types and a new style of online competition to precede world championships this year. I hope to see more efforts like this in the future.
I'm thankful for the Google Puzzle Hunt, which saw me jumping into a fountain, failing in all sorts of ways to find a transparent stencil, and learning far more about rhombicosidodecahedra then I ever intended to, among other memories.
I'm thankful for getting to play Bay Area games as Dr. Sudoku alongside puzzle alter-egos such as Kakuro Lad, whose look after digesting a clue before a puzzle was fully solved led to the most enjoyable moment of Bang XX, and one of the more memorable moments of the year.
I'm thankful for the Shinteki Heptathlon, by far my favorite puzzle event of the year given the good friends I got to solve it with. If only there was some way to get more time for more puzzles in that event.
I'm thankful for the Radiohead song Life in a Glasshouse, which always reminds me of where I live and work. I could not be happier than to be in the Bay Area.
I'm especially thankful for my loving family, whom I could not visit this weekend; we'll do the traditional Thanksgiving dinner again in a month when I return to Toronto where the Bills regularly play their home games.
Most of all, I'm thankful for you, my readers, who managed to get to this point and now have to figure out what to do with all these leftovers. I know I can count on you.
I'm thankful for the New York Times for adding the somewhat popular logic puzzle Sudoku to their newspaper this year, which inspired me to new heights of puzzle construction.
I'm thankful for this past year's MIT Mystery Hunt, where after a longer time than expected people finally got to escape from Cambridge and return to the real world. Despite its flaws, it had a lot of phenomenal puzzles and allowed me to construct and solve with so many cool friends.
I'm thankful for the recent release of my book (with onigame) Asymmetric, Bland, Computer-generated: ABC Sudoku. Next year will see another great sudoku title with the same team.
I'm thankful for the last World Sudoku Championship I won, which occurred in Zilina. The puzzles there were at times incredible, even if some of the classics were way too hard.
I'm thankful for juno, the Nikoli author who writes the most incredible Mastermind puzzles using white and black circles that I have ever seen. And to the rest of Nikoli as well, because whoever is the author, I enjoy just about every challenge I get to solve from there.
I'm thankful that the TLSCBWSC led to the introduction of many new puzzle-types and a new style of online competition to precede world championships this year. I hope to see more efforts like this in the future.
I'm thankful for the Google Puzzle Hunt, which saw me jumping into a fountain, failing in all sorts of ways to find a transparent stencil, and learning far more about rhombicosidodecahedra then I ever intended to, among other memories.
I'm thankful for getting to play Bay Area games as Dr. Sudoku alongside puzzle alter-egos such as Kakuro Lad, whose look after digesting a clue before a puzzle was fully solved led to the most enjoyable moment of Bang XX, and one of the more memorable moments of the year.
I'm thankful for the Shinteki Heptathlon, by far my favorite puzzle event of the year given the good friends I got to solve it with. If only there was some way to get more time for more puzzles in that event.
I'm thankful for the Radiohead song Life in a Glasshouse, which always reminds me of where I live and work. I could not be happier than to be in the Bay Area.
I'm especially thankful for my loving family, whom I could not visit this weekend; we'll do the traditional Thanksgiving dinner again in a month when I return to Toronto where the Bills regularly play their home games.
Most of all, I'm thankful for you, my readers, who managed to get to this point and now have to figure out what to do with all these leftovers. I know I can count on you.