Don’t Explain

OK, here’s the hardest puzzle I’ve yet devised. Even after I’d created it, I found it pretty hard to solve it.

Solutions page

Took a few busrides & breaks at work to devise this one. It started out as symmetrical puzzle (& I set myself the challenge of creating one with as many large cages as I could manage) but I decided to break the symmetry in order to improve it. Enjoy!

Solutions page

Here you go. I’m much happier with this one than the first one. And, hey, it’s symmetrical!

Solutions page

I’ve been continuing to take in the Naruse retrospective at the Cinematheque Ontario. I’m not that happy with the rather ponderous essay in the Cinematheque calendar so I was pleased to come across this succinct & perceptive intro online: Chris Fujiwara
on Naruse. Check it out.

After filling out all the Tough & Deadly sections of the Times Killer Sudoku puzzle book I was left without any really testing puzzles. So I thought I’d try inventing one. Darn hard — I quickly discovered that it requires a lot of finesse to avoid creating a grid with no solutions, & once you’ve [...]

by Anne
Dolphins jump free from the ocean monster’s grip the biggest waves lash agianst the rocks. A giant squid squirts a coelacanth with ink down in the mysterious abyss. A shark found a treasure in a wrecked ship in the abyss.

Anne’s discovered a new favourite site: Mr Fastfinger. It permits any 8-year-old to play a guitar solo worthy of Yngwie Malmsteen with the tap of a few keys. Lots of fun.
Our nickname for Anne is The Fiend, so the Making Fiends site (little animated stories of two girls, one horrid & one nauseatingly nice) is [...]

I love the Cinematheque Ontario for putting together their latest major retrospective, of the Japanese director Mikio Naruse — yet I wonder if they do him a slight disservice too: the essay in the calendar tends to play up his (1) obscurity in the West compared to the “big 3″ of Japanese film (Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, [...]

The beginning of the new month brings a few polemics on some music sites. Bill Shoemaker, like most critics (including me!) seems to like nothing better than getting catty about other critics; he’s also studiously unimpressed by the issues of Coda that have appeared under the new editorship. You can find his snarks [...]