Do You Crickle?

Ok, I admit it. I'm a puzzle junkie.

That's right. I love me a soduko or a crossword or pretty much any other puzzle that requires putting pen(cil) to paper. After a long day at work, I decompress on the subway ride home with the crossword and soduko that come in the daily freebie paper given out by the Washington Post. If all goes on schedule, it's a 26 minute ride from work station to home station & I challenge myself to see if I can complete both puzzles before I reach my home station. I can tell what kind of a day it's been or how exhausted I am on how achievable/not achievable this goal is.

But putting pen to paper isn't the only way to do puzzles. The Washington Post has a daily puzzle on it's website that I'm obsessed with. It's called the Crickler. One of the neatest things about it is that it actually employs "artificial intelligence": you have a "handicap" (as in golf) and as you do better, your handicap goes down and the puzzle gets harder. This keeps it challenging, but not frustratingly difficult. It's pretty cool!

There are actually 3 per day -- the Crickler, the Crickler Crossword, and the Vocabulary. The basic Crickler blends puzzles and daily news/information. It keeps me up on the news of the day as well as challenges me. The Crickler Crossword is more of a word-association game. The Vocabulary puzzle is just what it sounds like.

To check out (and start playing) Crickler for yourself, go to the Washington Post puzzle page and click on Crickler.....Go on. Ya know you wanna!