Our Weekly Wednesday Answer Page

We would like to be able to report that our life is replete with perennially sunny skies, and that nothing ever obscures our limitless horizons. That, however, would be bullshit fresh from the pasture (actually, the skies outside our windows are quite sunny, and the temperature is in the 50s, and this is upstate New York on January 3rd, and ... and ... this is not right! People, there is something seriously out of kilter here! As much as we enjoy and thrive on this type of weather, it's just too obviously wrong). This is undeniably the real world, and we are still grossly physical beings, with all the attendant aches, pains, sniffles and ... um ...

Sigh. OK. That's enough. We'll shut up now. Here's the answer to the Dec. 17th sudoku.

We'd like to add a few notes about these little monsters that lately seem to be consuming our lives. We have four more J-land puzzles in our files, and we'll publish those before we move on to the CityState series, of which we have now completed 33.

We like to think that we are supplying puzzles that you could not get by going to one of the copious sudoku sites; those, beyond all, are bursting with bland number puzzles, and have no character. Ours, at least, have some small entertainment value in addition to the simple act of solving.

Of necessity, we have learned much about what goes into constructing these beasts; there are certain conventions that must be followed if one is to produce a puzzle liable to successful completion. We have designed tools of sorts to make construction easier - early on, much of the process was hit-and-miss, but as we realized how time-consuming it was, we conceived ways of easing the burden.

Bonnie has begun rating the puzzles as she solves them, so in future, if a puzzle has a rating, we will publish it.

If you note a particular lack of coherence in these ramblings, chalk it up to vicious head colds. We hope you all are feeling better than we are.

Peace.

Bonnie and Walt