I'm quite stupid today...

Same here

got only 12, nowhere to go

Same dead spot, I think.

13 now

That's where I'm stuck...

got 2 more

now have 16

you're on a roll! :)

still stuck, though :)

Still, 16 is better than 12

Definitely!

25, but also stuck

it's not supposed to be medium, I guess...

I am always suspicious as soon as I read 'medium'. I suspect it is a polite form of unrateable.

maybe you're right:)

Found my breakthrough, on a roll now...

God job!

done...

and done

gniight all

It feels great when they start coming easy after being stuck hard

Congratz! Still stuck at 14.

yeah, I agree...

the key's on the top right box, if it helps...

some sort of x wing across the top 3 boxes...

Thanks for the hint :)

gnight...

Done

Finished, with only one more snag.

Okay guys, you got me convinced, I am having a verrrrrry blonde day today.

Congrat, btw :)

Thanks, you'll get it. I was as stumped as I have been in a while too...

Well, even on a blonde day I have one thing going for me: I never give up, lol.

That's worth a lot.

Good night...

and good luck...

Night Slaal, thanks for the encouragement :)

Ok, done too.

Hey, Sprite. Still 'round?

sprite is at the playbabble site

Gotcha.

Words == hard. Numbers == not as hard. :^P

opposite for me

Fair 'nough. I still kick ass at Scrabble, though. :^D

maybe because you are good at calculating the triple word bonuses, etc. but probably you are good with both

Thanks. :^) Just not this late at night, I think. This puzzle seems a tard harder to parse than yesterday's. All I have is four 9's and a 3. Whee!

Make that three 3's. I'm blind.

you should be able to get a couple of 3s fairly easily

151 - had to make a guess, a good one :)

easy

what easy - 151 is an expert

why not

what why not ? i don't get you. try 172, supposedly Easy but it's a rrrrrreaaaalll hard one

ah well not that hard...

done without any marks

check out 180 - another "fake" Easy

I need a congratulations!! Finished after giving up the past 3 days!

and another one - 113.. what's wrong with you peeps where is everybody ? :)

Computer rating: 25. I thought it was easy.

How do you get a computer rating?

angieplum who is this fat guy from your avatar ?

why, that's me

just asking. btw i dont believe it's you

ah, you thought I was taller?

yeah definetely taller, and no beard..

I wrote a program to solve Sudoku puzzles and incidentally rate the difficulty.

Well, I like to be inconspicuous

begin...

try 113 - another "fake" easy - really hard!

hello all

done.

hello

finally finished. have a nice day

hi..i'm new. tried some on paper before. don't want to bog people down with questions. know any sites to give me strategy hints? tx

Welcome! :) This is a pretty good site: http://www.scanraid.com/BasicStrategies.htm

thanks..i'll check it out.

google "sudoku strategy" you'll find a ton. i did that a while ago and i've learned a ton

(i'll just keep saying "a ton" over and over again. me smart.)

they have actual board games of this puzzle now. so i thought i use this site to get good first.

Do they really? That's kind of cool.

Someone bought me a little hand-held electronic Sudoku.. it's got a bajillion NY Times puzzles in it.

not bajillion .... a ton

lol

twin --- in MN?

haha

nope - I'm from NYC

I have brothers, our nicknames are "Twin A" through "Twin D"

thught maybe mpls/ St paul

yeah, a lot of people do

Hey, we're pretty close.. I'm from North Jersey.

got a son in Jersey

what parts? I've spent some time in Hoboken and Jersey City

Hillsborough

Bergen County.. the place that has a ton of malls. ;)

yeah, years ago I worked for Thom McAn and would have to go to Bergen County for team meetings

he's leaving soon to move back here

was he here for school?

nope workss for a drug company testing your drugs before they get to market

Novartis?

magellan

Ah

I'm at Pfizer myself.

(I hope they're not reading this.)

aha. you never know

(IronSudoku chat logs show up in Google search results, btw.)

sweet.

oh well, i'm just waiting to get fired anyway.

he's tired of cost of living there.

yes, this whole area is very expensive

That's understandable! =/

i've been told i could buy a house with what i pay in rent, and i have it easy for NYC

come to AZ!

good friends of mine just moved to tucson with their two kids - the husband is from there

I know someone who pays the same amount to rent a studio apartment that his brother pays to own a condo in VA.. so yeah, very true.

that's where I am. 4 bdr 1 ac. 3000 sq ft. 40x50' pool best school dist - approx 300K right now

nilole, do you work in jersey or do you commute to NYC?

I'm a full-time college student in Jersey..

I can barely take the 20-minute drive down the parkway, lol.. I dunno if I could commute to the city.

Every once in a while I miss having a car, but for the most part I don't mind it at all.

Oh I love my car. Public transportation kind of confuses me.. but I guess that's because I don't go to the city as often as I'd like.

It's annoying when you first get there, but becomes second nature

Yeah.. I'm sure people who have lived in the city their whole lives think driving everywhere would be annoying..

Aaand I really need to get some work done today.. Sudoku is too addictive! heh. Lovely chatting with you though! :)

You guys too. We have early Fridays, so as soon as I solve this and water the plants, I'm outta here.

I skipped class today. :X Good luck.. byebye. :)

This is the hardest medium ever.

I'm totally stuck.

Sure wish hurshy was here . .

lol

i have a sudoku theorem but i do not know if it is true. i think it probably isn't.

Expound please

well, sometimes a row is missing four numbers

and like three of the numbers have just two boxes they can go in, one number can go in the outers, one in the inners, one in the lefts, something like that

quite straight forward - if you put the greens in as you go

i wonder if that means the fourth number has to go in the two rights

I'm not sure you can make that assumption . .

hence the "i think it probably isn't"

Someone smart could probably make a more informed statement . .

Than I, I mean . .

lol, well, i am going to start observing those instances and seeing how they turn out, and if i observe a counterexample, i will know it is not.

golly gee

i think i may be violating my own first rule of sudoku

Don't write on the screen with a permanent marker?

lol, no. SUDOKU MUST ONLY BE DONE WITH A CLEAR HEAD.

You better crack my knuckles and sit me in the corner then ..

crack your own knuckles, i'm thinking

or what passes for thinking in my non-clear head

*contemplates the horror of marking on a medium*

*decides the times do not yet call for desperate measures*

I rarely mark. It just gets me more confused ...

Puzzle getting you down, Hurshy?

But then, I rarely finish anything other than easy and the odd medium ..

getting me down? no. when the gridding gets silly, the silly get gritting.

What, like sandpaper?

no, like teeth

you know, to help you focus

Ah. I've always found that splitting a molar aids in concentration.

mm, ok, well, i will try to come up with a better saying then

but not right now

I've always found that listening to pop music helps my sudoku. "The Living End" is gettin' it done for me today ...

what is "the living end"

i mean who sings it

A little band from Australia.

I think "Prisoner of Society" was one of their singles ...

Wow. I actually had to use the "Swordfish Technique (tm)" to solve this puzzle. Third time around, that is.

isn't the swordfish thing just naked triples

I don't think so. It deals with triples of naked pairs in different squares ...

It's the only way I could place my first non-3, 6, or 9 in this puzzle.

http://www.angusj.com/sudoku/hints.php

Searc
h for "swordfish."

yes, same diff.

why something so obvious needs a name i don't know.

Alrighty.

My mistake -- I meant the "X-Y wing." :^D

the x-y wing... that one i do not know what it is

sorry, i have this whole condescending thing sometimes, picked it up from my parents, i don't mean it like that

C'est la vie. I didn't take it personally.

ok good

it's lucky boys are not so sensitive as girls

I'm just crying on the inside, but it's okay ...

:)

BTW, my cat could eat your cat. In one bite.

:^D

but wouldn't. marty's nickname is "bear" because he is so fierce and ferocious, striking terror into the hearts of all who approach him

My cat has two inch long fangs and hunts Rotweillers for sport. Also, he refuses to bury his poo.

That cat's got a mean streak a mile wide .. He's got great sharp pointy teeth . . .

my cat has four inch diamond tipped claws

he's a professional fighter so we have the diamond tips freshly sharpened regularly and replaced once a month.

My cat is as sinuous as a snake, and can strangle crocodiles as easily as devouring a minnow.

my cat has laser beams that come out of his eyes so he can incinerate his opponents from several feet away

My cat is made of shifting shadows that change shape, color, and transparency even more randomly than Iron Sudoku's puzzle difficulty are set, making your pitiful pet's loser beams worthless.

my cat has the ability to sense the presence of any living being no matter how well concealed, and can spit a deadly venom at them

From which end?

:^D

eww, from his mouth of course

he's deadly, but he's not GROSS

Gotcha.

My cat lives in multiple planes of existence, and can defend -- and attack -- threats from all manner of etherial beings. Also, his breath stinks.

my cat can travel through time, so now that you have foolishly revealed your cat's armaments, he will simply go back in time and prevent your cat's dad from impregnating your cat's mom. also, he laughs in the face of stinky breath.

My cat is eternal. He is the alpha and omega. With soft fur.

my cat can control the media better than george w. bush and his team, so he can convince everybody that he's the toughest cat without a shred of evidence anyway. if he says it is true, that will make it true.

My cat knows Rupert Murdoch.

my cat is not only eternal but omnipotent. and he knows the guy who has his finger on the button that controls the explosives on which your cat is sitting.

You forget, my cat's made of smoke and mirrors -- and he can sense, follow, and destroy the source of *ANY* electromagnetic signals.

so he thinks

but my cat has anticipated this and, in his brilliance, designed a special device that your cat cannot detect

I got $10 on hurshy's cat ..

Now that's just silly, Hurshy.

that's another thing.

My cat can eat your cat, Hurshy.

my cat is infinitely silly and he will confuse your cat to bits.

:^D

my cat likes carrots. if your cat doesn't like carrots, he wouldn't like the taste of my cat anyway.

Actually, he *loves* carrots. But you know what the weird thing is? He chews 'em up ... and spits 'em out. Now, imaging how horrible it'd be if my cat chewed on your cat ... and spit him out.

Cat spit. Ew.

my cat is made of what appears to be normal organic matter, when chewed upon, the molecules instantaneously re-form themselves into a toxin. if the toxins don't get your cat, it doesn't matter, cause they then bond with saliva to form clumps which make their way into the bloodstream, and when the hit the heart, BAM, MI. if he's going down, his killer is too.

That's assuming my cat has blood. His veins run with adic strong enough to melt Sigourney Weaver, rendering your cat's attacks ineffective.

Man, my spelling is atrocious today. Pardon me.

no, these clumps are not affected by acid. trust me, it's heart attack city.

besides, before it ever gets to that point, my cat's hypnotic powers will have rendered your cat susceptible to my cat's every whim.

Well, hell. I guess that if my cat had a heart attack, then the mechanism monitoring his heart beat (or lack thereof) would just have to signal the rockets at Moon Base Alpha (my cat's home territory) to destroy the planet. Bummer.

Is your cat a boy or a girl? Not that it matters, 'cause I think my cat swings both ways.

luckily my cat has seeded his genetic material in the primordial ooze of every potentially life-supporting planet in the galaxy.

what IS certain is that you have the power to keep me from getting anywhere with sudoku and quiddler

Oh yeah? Your cat would still've been eaten, though, right?

Neener, neener, neener!

yes but our cats would both be dead, and mine would be the one with lots of descendants.

Sorry. I really should get back to work, anyway.

That is true. Have fun, Hursh!

work? neither i nor my cat knows the meaning of this word.

ttfn

BTW, how far've you gotten in your Sudoku?

Yeah, work -- I'm loafing.

lol, i dunno, i have all the 9's and 3's and most of the 6's

it's a hoaf laof

loaf

the key is finding your first 7 in the center-top square.

Actually, I also go by "hoafaloaf." :^D

i go by dope-on-a-rope

Better than soap-on-a-rope, I guess.

i don't think the 7 is my key, i'm finding 2's now

but maybe i need a 7 key after the 2 keys

It should be easy from there. I finished the middle column of squares first, then moved on ...

nah, i must be doing it in a different order cause i just got that 7 and it isn't very crucial

BTW, thanks to you I have an aversion to marking on anything other than an expert.

it's just part of a natural sequence

Alrighty. See ya later!

music to my ears (the marking aversion, not the see ya later)

Heh. Bye.

torgone, you around?

cause if you are, today my theorem is not disproved. maybe another day.

Huh? . . .wha? . . .

my theorem. you remember, we were discussing it earlier

and the instance of it that i noted today, the fourth number DID end up going in one of the two squares in which my theorem would suggest it should go.

so we will have to wait until another day to see if i find a counterexample.

Of course .. I await brethlessly the outcome of your research ..

if after long enough it keeps coming true, it will not be PROVED, but i will feel convinced by the odds

yeah... i just love leaving men breathless over my research...

It will at least be a technique you can use until it screws up . . .

no way dude

i amn't going to USE it unless and until i am convinced it is right

i am merely going to observe.

Not even experimentally?

there is no need. my research does not require it. and i am extremely risk-averse.

i will simply rely on other sorts of logic until the results become clear.

Well, that's settled, then ..

:)

You still working on this one? I gave up ..

oh, no, i finished somewhere around 4:35

do you wish a Super Duper Coded Hurshy Clue?

No thanks. I'm trying one from the archives right now ..

okily dokily. if you wish a SDCHC on any puzzle, let me know, for i have completed them all.

*Bows deeply in abject awe and respect*

*Tries to look up skirt*

*laughs cause she's wearing jeans*

Darn!

oop, i have to go, we are going out to dinner, xoxo

((((hurshy)))))
Later luv!

:)

:)

hi all

go

torg, torg, torg........

heya mama! long time no see!

fancy meeting you here!!!

lol

done!

done without any marks

it's too late to be doing this.