The Sudoku Devil

Lately I've gotten in to doing the Sudoku puzzle in the Red Eye edition of the Chicago Tribune. I'm getting the hang of it and can usually complete it if it is one, two, and sometimes three stars. Each day the puzzle gets harder, so Monday is a one-star, Tuesday is two, etc.

The only thing I don't like about it is that there is a Sudoku "expert" who, supposedly, completes the puzzle, then posts how long it took him to complete it. Apparently, he does this to make you feel stupid. Usually, whatever his time is, I times it by five, and that's how long it takes me. So on Mondays, it will say, "John Williams completed this in nine minutes," meaning it will take me 45.

I think John Williams lies. Who has time to actually do the puzzle, PRIOR to when it is printed, and then say, "Dude, you got the stopwatch running? Here I go." Then when its complete, is the timer guy like, "JOHN, excellent work. Nine minutes." NO. I doubt this. John Williams has to have a full time job that pays better than completing a daily Sodoku puzzle. I bet he's just like, ok, on Thursday, say it took me, I don't know, 18 minutes. Plus, what if he makes a mistake? He won't know until the solution is printed. It never says, "John Williams struggled with this one, but eventually, he did it in an hour and a half. He screwed up in the second column. It was a five, and he thought it was a three." Whatever time that is listed is complete b.s. I can't do a one-star puzzle in less than fifteen. John Williams is a liar, my friends.

So, every day, I draw an evil face on John Williams' picture in the paper.



Here, I drew devil horns, because he is evil, and martian antennae, because, well, the devil horns just didn't seem like enough.

So, take that, John Williams. I hope you can live with yourself, knowing you make up numbers to challenge the poor readers of the Red Eye.