I love Scrabble and geeky stuff. Enter the perfect gift for people who like the same: L33T Tiles. But when do I have time to play Scrabble? Maybe the tiles will still be around a few years from now when all of my kids are old enough and can play the game.

From the sponsor: Why is a hair restoration ad in here? ‘Cuz Meryl is a sellout.

Happy 12th birthday to my oldest!

* Sand Fantasy has amazing videos of an artist who uses nothing but hands and sandy to create changing pictures.

* Techdirt posts funny blurbs related to tech and has current news, rumors, book reviews, and white papers.

* Web Gallery of Art isn’t a fancy site and uses frames (ick), but it has over 10,000 pictures of artwork along with commentary. An art-lovers dream.

* Lemmings was one of the few games I played when I began life after college and it was hard to stop. They’re back! You can play them online, on PSP (thank goodness I don’t have one), and create an interactive wallpaper. [ Thanks to Adverblog for addicting me again ]

* Considering U.S. President’s Day is coming up on February 20, it seemed appropriate to point to the Presidential Pet Museum.

From the sponsor: Since the Academy Awards are coming soon, you can bet many entertainers are having Los Angeles cosmetic surgery. Here’s a Facial Plastic Surgery blog and its February 3 entry happens to mention the Oscars.

When I first met Sudoku last June, it was Writer-On-Line.com’s puzzle for the month. It took me time to figure out how the game worked. Since then, the puzzle has appeared in more and more places.

Here’s a daily puzzle from Sudogo and Astraware.

The Dallas Morning News publishes one every day (it’s rated one to five stars with one being easy and five is challenging) and that’s the last thing I do before I get to work. Thankfully, the challenging ones appear on the weekend otherwise I’d get little work done. Yesterday was the first time I correctly completed a five-star puzzle. I took my time and I was determine to beat it.

Wikipedia definition.

American Scientist on Sudoku.

Sudoku enumeration problems says there are 6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960 possible solutions.

Wall Street Journal article on the puzzle.

Variety Sudoku brochure [pdf file] from 1st World Sudoku Championship.

Javascript Sudoku Puzzle Solver – for Web geeks who want to take their Sudoku obsession a little further with JavaScript.

Sudoku Tips

marckillian.com has two tips.

Before, I used to put a little number in the corners of the boxes to help me stay on track. Thanks to a tip from The Dallas Morning News — I look at each box like phone’s buttons. A dot in the upper right-hand corner to represents ’1′. A dot in the middle is ’5′ and lower left-hand corner is ’9.’ Less messy!

Sudokulist – resources on the game including links, hints, competition, and a helper.

Solve Sudoku without Thinking provides details on how to solve the most challenging puzzles. Rather than entering numbers in every box, save time by not entering numbers of items appearing within the quadrant, row, and column. I suggest completing the square instead of circling to indicate you’ve checked the number. Also, use the aforementioned phone number suggestion instead of writing numbers.

Solving Sudoku tips

Solving Sudoku Puzzles

Sudoku tutorial

Here are several places where you can download an Excel-based Sudoku helper or solver.

* oceane.co.uk

* Su Doku Solver

* Sudoku-Help

* Microsoft’s Sudoku Solver for Excel

Sudoku Solver

Su Doku Solver

Sudoku Variations

Info on Sumdoku – killer Sudoku for sadistic Sudoku lovers. Sudoku variations, Killer Sudoku, aand Killer Samurai Sudoku.

BlogOn Sudoku: Sudoku with pictures.

Want to *really* make yourself crazy? Try Kakuro, Sudoku on steroids.

Daily Sudoku posts a puzzle every day, has archives going back to January 2005, and has a daily puzzle for kids.

EdHelper has an easier version for kids plus smaller variations (4×4, 6×6).

Now TV Guide has joined the craze. Except, it doesn’t use numbers. It uses nine letters with most, if not all, of the letters spelling a TV show. The first one was NUMBERS with the extra letters AT. Already, Amazon has a load of products. My dad likes to get everyone a desk calendar every year. I hope I don’t get a Sudoku calendar otherwise I’ll be in trouble in 2006.

Cell phone Sudoku – Can’t run away from it either.

Sudoku for kids

Hamsters

Online Sudoku

Sudogo provided the above puzzle and also has one online for you to play.

SudokuPuzzlesOnline.com offers Sudoku puzzles in varying degrees of difficulty as well as a community page where players can post their own Sudoku puzzles.

Number Logic has plenty of Sudoku and plans to add multi-player online gaming, member scores: Harder puzzles earn more points, and real-time scores and times of top players. It also has a two player game.

Web Sudoku – lots of puzzles you can do online.

The online Sudoku speed challenge

Guardian Unlimited archive of puzzles, published six days a week.

USA Today

Sudoku San – “Proudly destroying productivity since 2005″ indeed!

Sudoku.org.uk

Games for the Brain includes Sudoku and other brain exercises.

Sudoku Savior provides hints and lets you enter a puzzle. And it’s a site built without tables to boot!

Sudoku for Devices, Handhelds, and PCs

My dad gave my mom a Nintendo DS for Mother’s Day. We gave her Brain Age and pre-ordered Big Brain Academy. Sudoku is included. Man, it’s a good thing I sent it home before Mother’s Day instead of have her open it here. Then my son or I might’ve stolen it from her.

I also bought my first extra for my Sidekick II because I kept going somewhere without my PDA or a book when I needed to pass time. Guess which game. Sudoku indeed.

Dr. Sudoku and Sudoku Fever for Gameboy Advance. Sudoku Gridmaster (not one of the better versions) and Sudoku Mania for Nintendo DS.

Astraware also has Sudoku for handhelds. Of course, I got it as soon as it was on sale. I will NOT be buying it for my computer otherwise bye bye work. Mike Miller has a nice version known as SuperDoku.

As judge for Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine Best Software Awards 2006, I discovered too many versions of Sudoku. Luckily, I had a deadline to prevent me from spending too much time on the games. And these are just the nominees for Windows Mobile devices.

* Astraware Sudoku from Astraware Limited

* Fast Sudoku from PPCLink Mobile Software

* Mastersoft SuDoku V2 from Mastersoft Mobile Solutions

* Pocket Sudoku from DKM Software

* Resco Sudoku from Resco, Ltd.

* Sensible Sudoku from Ludimate

* Sudoku Master from Real Dice

* Sudoku Pack from Filao

* Sudoku Rules Extreme! from Spiral Mile

* The Sudoku Collection from Pocket Adventures.com

I find the best electronic Sudoku games have the following traits:

* ability to pencil in numbers
* option to delete pencil numbers when you enter a number
* ability to switch between pencil and writing in the number with ease
* different skins
* non-numeral versions
* no distracting animation
* readable interface (some were hard to see)
* option of installing help file (on handhelds, this should be a standard to save space – some are huge)
* offer a free trial (believe it or not, one didn’t)
* minimize toggling

Free Sudoku game for Windows

[Links: C|Net Science Blog and Steve Bass ]

Updated: September 26, 2006

Just read an article about Booktastic!, a game for bookworms. I’m weak when it comes to books and games. Has anyone played this game? How was it? The game’s home page has links to the article I read in USA Today as well as others.

PETA folks, I promise no real cats are harmed in this addicting game. Play Cat Bowling. I bowl better at the alley than in this game.